Likkutei Sichos: Volume 20
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20: Parshas Toldos (Part 1)
Opening a new sicha on Parshas Toldos, this shiur brings the Yalkut Shimoni's and the Zohar's reading of "vayigdelu hane'arim," that Yaakov and Esav both grew into real spiritual greatness under Avraham's chinuch, with Esav destined to be counted among the Avos. A chronological puzzle over Esav and Yaakov's exact age when Avraham passed away, resolved through a striking pshat about two "missing" years, sets up the sicha's central question: how could Esav have already been pulling toward avodah zarah while still in the womb?
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20: Parshas Toldos (Part 2)
This shiur resolves the womb-level pull toward idolatry through the Gemara's teaching that a baby is taught the whole Torah before birth and then made to forget it, a mechanism needed to preserve real bechirah chofshis. That principle gets applied practically to the question of sending children to a frum school for the sake of balance, before circling back to show that the forgetting can't fully erase a trace, illustrated by Acher's descent through his mother's craving and his own exposure to secular books and music.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20: Parshas Toldos (Part 3)
This shiur opens a fresh difficulty: the Midrash says Yaakov and Esav argued in the womb over inheriting both this world and the next, which only makes sense if each wanted both. Working through what it means that HaAvos hein hein hamerkavah, that every limb of the Avos was, all their lives, given over entirely to Hashem's will, leads to the position that a true tzaddik cannot really sin, illustrated by Rav Chaim Brisker's astonishment at the Rebbe Rashab's certainty. That sets up the sharpest version of the question yet: a child inherits even a father's hidden potential, so how could Yitzchak's son be born with a natural pull toward idolatry?
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20: Parshas Toldos (Part 4)
After establishing that Esav's later choices don't explain his inborn nature, this shiur works out why Yitzchak's household could produce a child naturally drawn to avodah zarah while Yishmael, born to Hagar, ended up a goy. The resolution rests on maaseh avos siman labanim understood as a real transmission of koach: every form of avodah a Yid has must exist somewhere in the Avos, and the Rambam's two categories, the chassid hameula who wants only good and the one who must conquer his yetzer hara, point toward Esav as the necessary source of the second.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20: Parshas Toldos (Part 5)
This session continues tracing the source for kevishas hayetzer within Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov's own avodah, framing the difficulty in terms of the Rambam's two categories of divine service. The discussion opens with a sharp aside on distinguishing a truly holy melody built on words of tefillah from a merely "Israeli" song, before moving into a technical analysis of how a get can validly be written on a shard of earthenware, and why an erasure on clay is treated differently than one on parchment.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20: Parshas Toldos (Part 6)
This shiur locates the source for kevishas hayetzer in the Avos' battles with the Avimelechs and Nimrods of their world, arguing that fighting an outside enemy and fighting an inner yetzer hara both prove the same thing: a connection to Hashem so strong nothing can break it, not even an aveirah, which is exactly what makes teshuvah so powerful. A memorable comparison between a baal teshuvah's excitement over a mitzvah and a lifelong frum person's quiet familiarity leads to the sicha's answer: Yitzchak had two sons, Yaakov the chassid hameula and Esav the one born to conquer his yetzer hara, echoing the same split found among Avraham's and Yaakov's own children.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20: Parshas Toldos (Part 7)
Closing out the question of Esav's inborn nature, this shiur reframes the entire idea of ra: since the yetzer hara's whole mission, like the hired zonah in the Zohar's mashal, is to be resisted, being given a powerful test is itself a form of kedushah rather than a defect. That reframing, together with the Rebbetzin Rivkah's remarkable reaction to a relative going off the derech, resolves the sicha's opening puzzle: why Esav, while still in the womb, could genuinely be fighting for a share in Olam Haba.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20: Parshas Toldos (Part 8)
Unpacks the Rebbe's explanation of why Esav was born with an unusually strong yetzer hara: not as a flaw but as the raw material for a kovesh es yitzro avodah, parallel to Yaakov's chassid ha'meulah path of pure ascent. Traces how each approach still carries a trace of the other — from Avraham's chesed containing yirah to the Yissachar-Zevulun model of Torah study and business — and closes with the Zohar's reading of vayigdlu hane'arim as Avraham's success in training Esav toward that very avodah.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20: Parshas Toldos (Part 9)
Lays out the Torah Or explanation of why Yitzchak wanted to give the berachot to Esav — not a mistake, but a deliberate attempt to draw Esav back to his root in the lofty, if unstable, Olam HaTohu, and why Rivka saw that this could not work. Turns from there to a foundational question in Chassidus: what does it actually mean that 'the vessels broke' in Tohu, opening an extended discussion of ohr and keli, tzimtzum, and the order of hishtalshelus that carries into the next shiur.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20: Parshas Toldos (Part 10)
Continues the previous shiur's question of what 'the vessels broke' in Olam HaTohu means, building from the tzimtzum and the kav through Akudim, Nekudim, and Berudim to explain that a vessel is nothing but the concealing capacity built into light itself, not a separate substance the light gets poured into. Traces the descent through Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, and ties it back to why Esav's root in the lofty, unstable Tohu placed him — before his choices — above Yaakov's root in Tikun.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 20: Parshas Toldos (Part 11)
Closes out the Toldos sichah by explaining that Esav's head resting in Yitzchak's lap hints at a real root-connection, yet the power to transform the world could only pass through Yaakov's Torah, with Rivka's binah cutting through where Yitzchak's chochmah could not. Draws the practical horaah that every Jew needs both toldos — the yoshev ohel's immersion in Torah and the ish sadeh's engagement with the world, illustrated through baseball small talk, a Rebbe Rashab story, and the famous Rambam on speaking a child's language — and ends by tying Yitzchak's gevurah to the future geulah.