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Parshat Toldot: Appearances Can Fool Us, But Divine Purpose Never Does
A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.
Fans of Victorian England may be familiar with the unusual legal drama known as the “Tichborne Case.” It was part mystery, part tragedy, and part social spectacle. The story has all the elements of a potboiler novel: a ship lost at sea, a grieving mother, a missing heir, a large inheritance, and, in the end, an imposter chasing the money.
In 1854, Roger Charles Tichborne, the young heir to an English baronetcy and a vast fortune, boarded a ship in South America called The Bella. The ship vanished off the coast of Brazil on its way to Jamaica, and everybody on board was thought to have died at sea. Everyone believed Roger had drowned — everyone, that is, except his mother, Lady Henriette Tichborne.
Lady Henriette was French, the illegitimate daughter of a British Member of Parliament, Henry Seymour, who had arranged her marriage to his friend, Sir James Tichborne, Roger’s father.
Known for her emotional temperament, Lady Henriette could not accept her son’s death. She and Roger had lived together in Paris before he left to travel the world, and she kept his room untouched, still writing him letters as if he were just away for a while.
When rumors spread that some survivors of The Bella had been rescued and taken to Australia, Lady Henriette placed ads in Australian newspapers, offering a handsome reward for any information about her missing son.
In 1865, she received a letter from New South Wales about a man claiming to be Roger — a butcher from Wagga Wagga named Thomas Castro. Delighted, she arranged for him to come to France.
But when they met, it was immediately apparent that Castro looked nothing like the slim, tall, dark-haired youth who had disappeared eleven years earlier — a fluent French speaker who also spoke the Queen’s English. This man was obese, fair-haired, spoke no French at all — and his English had a pronounced Cockney accent.
Castro could not recall even basic details of Roger’s childhood or the names of close relatives. Still, Lady Henriette insisted he was her son, dismissing all the startling changes as the result of years of hardship and separation.
Intriguingly, her servants and advisers supported her, insisting that this corpulent stranger was Roger. But the rest of the Tichborne family, the press, and the public considered him a complete fraud.
Scotland Yard detective Jack Whicher soon discovered that “the Claimant” was in fact Arthur Orton, the son of a butcher from London’s East End who had emigrated to Australia.
Even so, Lady Henriette’s faith in him remained unshaken. She gave him a generous allowance and defended him fiercely, as only a mother could. Even after she died in 1868, her implausible opinion seemed to haunt the courtroom as “Sir Roger” sued the Tichborne family for his inheritance.
The sensational trials at Westminster became a national obsession. Crowds packed the galleries and newspapers breathlessly reported every detail. Nearly a hundred witnesses swore he was the true heir. The two trials — one civil, one criminal — lasted 291 days, and the closing statements of the second alone took 62 days.
The jury deliberated for just 35 minutes. Orton was found guilty of perjury and sentenced to fourteen years in prison. He was released a decade later, destitute, and died in poverty in 1898 — having finally confessed that he was indeed Arthur Orton.
But the real mystery lies not in his deception, but in Lady Henriette’s firm conviction that this obvious imposter was her son — a mother so certain of what her heart told her that she became a willing party to Orton’s fraud.
And it is that same strange mixture of blindness and conviction — love triumphing over reason — that we find at the heart of Parshat Toldot. Isaac, old and sightless, summons his older son Esau, whom he loves despite his unrighteous behavior, to receive the family blessing.
But while Esau is out hunting for food to feed Isaac, Rebecca urges her younger son Jacob to disguise himself as Esau, covering his smooth arms with goatskins to imitate Esau’s hairy skin, and to claim the blessing instead.
Jacob hesitates, but obeys his mother. When he enters Isaac’s tent, the scene could almost come from a Victorian melodrama: the blind father reaching out, the reluctant son trembling, the air thick with tension.
Isaac hears the voice of his son and frowns. “The voice is the voice of Jacob,” he says, “but the hands are the hands of Esau” (Gen. 27:22). Then, like Lady Henriette, Isaac allows his emotions to override his doubts. His love for Esau blinds him completely. He blesses Jacob, believing him to be Esau.
But this is where the similarity to the Victorian story ends. The Tichborne claimant was a fraud, but Jacob was not. His act may seem deceitful — pretending to be his brother to get something that isn’t his. But the Torah and its commentators make clear it was not deceit — it was destiny.
Earlier in Toldot, Esau had sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of lentil stew. That sale was not just symbolic — it was legally binding. Esau did not value the birthright, but Jacob did. The blessing Isaac intended to give was tied to that birthright. Jacob was not stealing — he was taking what he had rightfully acquired.
As for Rebecca, she wasn’t a meddling mother — she was following what God had told her. Before her twins were born, God said (Gen. 25:23): “Two nations are in your womb… and the elder shall serve the younger.” She knew Jacob, not Esau, was meant to continue the path of Abraham’s covenant. Her plan was not for unfair gain, but to fulfill prophecy.
Some commentators, like the Ramban, even suggest that Isaac may have suspected the truth. The Torah hints at this, quoting Isaac as saying: “See, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field blessed by God” (Gen. 27:27). This is why Isaac’s blessing focused on spiritual destiny, not on hunting or power as it might have for Esau.
Arthur Orton’s fraudulent identity hid a lie and caused years of pain and suffering. Lady Henriette’s refusal to accept her son’s death blinded her to reality, and her embrace of Orton brought her family needless grief.
Isaac’s love blinded him too — but through that blindness, God’s plan came into focus: a wrong was righted, and a precious legacy was preserved. Jacob’s disguise did not conceal a lie — on the contrary, it revealed the truth. Esau’s disregard for the covenant made him unfit to inherit it. Jacob’s deception was not a betrayal of destiny but its fulfillment.
The Tichborne Case ended in shame and imprisonment. The Jacob Case ended in a nation of faith, and an enduring covenant with God. Jacob’s blessing shows us that sometimes destiny is hidden in confusion. What seems like a mistake may be God’s way of making sure a blessing goes where it truly belongs.
Maybe that is the real lesson: appearances can fool us, but divine purpose never does. The voice may sound like Jacob and the hands may feel like Esau, but Heaven knows the truth, and in time, so will we.
The author is a writer and rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.
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French Jewish Community Marks 20 Years Since Ilan Halimi’s Brutal Murder
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
France’s Jewish community on Tuesday commemorated the 20th anniversary of the death of Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man who was brutally tortured to death, as his memory continues to be defaced amid a rising tide of antisemitism threatening Jews and Israelis across the country.
“Twenty years on, Ilan Halimi’s memory still needs to be protected and honored, yet it continues to come under attack, as recent vandalism at his memorial site shows,” the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) — the main representative body of French Jews — wrote in a post on X.
“Antisemitism remains a persistent threat in France today,” the statement read.
Le 20 janvier 2006 marque l’enlèvement et le début de la séquestration d’Ilan Halimi, 23 ans, parce qu’il était Juif.
20 ans plus tard, alors que la mémoire d’Ilan Halimi doit être protégée et honorée, elle continue d’être atteinte, comme l’ont montré les récents actes de… pic.twitter.com/Htu9ntMHhq
— CRIF (@Le_CRIF) January 20, 2026
Last week, another olive tree planted to honor Halimi’s memory was vandalized and cut down, as French authorities continue efforts to replant trees in remembrance of the young Jewish man who was murdered in 2006.
“We will bring those responsible to justice,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez wrote in a post on X. “Our collective outrage is matched only by our unwavering determination to combat antisemitic and anti-religious acts that continue to tarnish the memory of an innocent man.”
This latest antisemitic act came after a plaque honoring Halimi was vandalized in Cagnes-sur-Mer, a town in southeastern France, prompting local authorities to open an investigation for “destruction and antisemitic damage.”
According to local reports, a 29-year-old man with no prior criminal record has been arrested. While he admitted to the acts, he denied any antisemitic motive and is now awaiting trial.
Last year, a tree planted in memory of Halimi was also vandalized and cut down in Épinay-sur-Seine, a suburb north of Paris.
Two Tunisian twin brothers were arrested and convicted for cutting down the tree, but were acquitted of the antisemitism charges brought against them.
Both of them were sentenced to eight months in prison, but one of them received a suspended sentence, meaning he will not serve time unless he commits another offense or violates certain conditions.
According to local media, one of the brothers has reportedly been deported from France.
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, Halimi was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, French authorities planted the first olive tree in Halimi’s memory. However, the young Jewish boy’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne, where he was found dying near a railway track.
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Mourner’s Kaddish for Bondi Beach victims recited in Australian parliament as tougher hate crime laws pass
(JTA) — A Jewish member of Australian Parliament recited the Mourner’s Kaddish in an address Monday to honor the victims of the Hanukkah massacre on Bondi Beach.
The address, delivered by Jewish parliamentarian and former attorney general Mark Dreyfus, came over a month after two gunmen motivated by what authorities said was “Islamic State ideology” opened fire on a celebration in Sydney, killing 15 and injuring dozens more. Most of the victims were Jewish, and Dreyfus read all of their names aloud.
Dreyfus, who wore a kippah for the presentation, then commended the “acts of extraordinary courage” by bystanders and emergency workers during the attack, naming Ahmed al-Ahmed, the Muslim man who received widespread support from the Jewish community after he was shot while disarming one of the attackers. He also told the Australian House of Representatives that the country’s “response cannot be confined to grief,” exhorting his fellow lawmakers to take action around “upholding our laws against hate.”
Then he invited everyone present to rise for the Mourner’s Kaddish, recited in Jewish communities in memory of the dead.
“You don’t have to be Jewish to feel this in your chest, an attack like this hurts all of us,” Dreyfus said, describing the prayer as “a prayer about life, dignity and the hope for peace at times of profound loss.”
The public recitation was redolent of the decision of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to publish the Hebrew text of the prayer on its front page following the murder of 11 Jews in their synagogue there in 2018.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DTtw-r7Dehs/?hl=en
Late Tuesday, Australia’s parliament passed anti-hate speech and gun reform bills initiated in the wake of the attack. The gun reform bill included new checks on firearm license applications and a national gun buy-back program, while the anti-hate speech bill banned hate groups and imposed penalties for preachers who promote hate.
The hate speech component won support from liberal lawmakers who said they had free-speech concerns after it was weakened from its initial version.
“The terrorists at Bondi Beach had hatred in their hearts and guns in their hands,” wrote Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a post on X. “Today we passed new laws that deal with both. Combatting antisemitism and cracking down on guns.”
The new laws come as Australia grapples with another searing antisemitic incident. Late in the day on Monday, five Jewish teenagers in Melbourne were chased for several minutes by a car whose occupants chanted “Heil Hitler” and performed Nazi salutes at them.
The boys, aged 15 and 16 and easily identifiable as Orthodox Jews, were walking home from Adass High School when the incident occurred in the proximity of Adass Israel Synagogue, which was firebombed in December 2024. No arrests were immediately made.
“The antisemitic hate incident last night in St Kilda targeting young Jewish boys has no place in our country,” Albanese in a statement, according to The Australian. “At a time when Australians are joining with the Jewish community in sorrow and solidarity, it is beyond disgusting to see these cowards shouting Nazi slogans at young people.”
The post Mourner’s Kaddish for Bondi Beach victims recited in Australian parliament as tougher hate crime laws pass appeared first on The Forward.
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Number of UK Schools Marking Holocaust Has Dropped by Nearly 60% Since Oct. 7 Massacre
Tens of thousands joined the National March Against Antisemitism in London, Nov. 26, 2023. Photo: Tayfun Salci/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The number of British schools commemorating the Holocaust has plummeted by nearly 60 percent following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.
Since Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists perpetrated the largest single-day massacre of Jews since World War II, the number of secondary schools across the UK signed up for events commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day, which takes place annually on Jan. 27, dropped to fewer than 1,200 in 2024 and 854 in 2025, according to data from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
The figure had been rising each year since 2019, reaching more than 2,000 secondary schools in 2023.
There are about 4,200 secondary schools in the UK.
Sir Ephraim Mirvis, chief rabbi of the UK, commented on the figures in an essay published in The Sunday Times, expressing alarm about an increasingly hostile environment for the British Jewish community.
“I fear for what will happen this year,” Mirvis wrote. “For if we cannot teach our children to remember the past with integrity and resolve, then we must ask ourselves what kind of future they will inherit.”
Mirvis urged readers to put themselves in the shoes of a UK teacher preparing a Holocaust memorial event. “Now imagine that as you begin to organize such an event, you learn that some parents of pupils at your school are unhappy about it,” he added. “One of the claims that Holocaust education is a form of “propaganda”; another insists that the event must not go ahead unless it also highlights the awful suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.”
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, described to The Times how some students “arrive in the classroom with views shaped by social media trends rather than evidence.”
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) released a statement on Monday reflecting on the drop in UK schools recognizing the Holocaust.
“Holocaust Memorial Day is not about politics. It is about memory, responsibility, and education. It exists to honor the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and to remind future generations of the consequences of hatred, indifference, and extremism,” the EJC stated. “Avoiding commemoration out of fear of controversy undermines the very purpose of education. When remembrance becomes optional, memory itself becomes fragile.”
The EJC continued, “Now is precisely the moment when Holocaust education matters most: when misinformation spreads easily, when antisemitism is openly visible, and when fewer survivors remain to bear witness. Schools play a vital role in preserving this memory, not only for Jewish communities, but for society as a whole.”
Dwindling commemoration of the Holocaust comes amid a steep surge in antisemitism across the UK.
The Community Security Trust (CST) — a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters — recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents from January to June this year. This was the second-highest number of antisemitic crimes ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following 2,019 incidents in the first half of 2024.
In total last year, CST recorded 3,528 anti-Jewish hate crimes — the country’s second worst year for antisemitism, despite an 18 percent drop from 2023’s record of 4,296.
“When a trigger event such as the Oct. 7 attack occurs, antisemitic incidents initially spike to a record peak; then gradually recede until they plateau at a higher level than before the original trigger event occurred,” CST stated.
These figures juxtapose with 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 in 2021, and 1,684 in 2020.
The struggles of the UK’s educational establishment to counter the rising antisemitism problem mirror the ongoing challenges confronted by its medical institutions.
In November, UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting called it “chilling” that some members of the Jewish community fear discrimination within the NHS, amid reports of widespread antisemitism in Britain’s health-care system.
The comments came weeks after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a new plan to address what he described as “just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively” in the country’s National Health Service (NHS).
One notable case drawing attention involved Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan, a trainee trauma and orthopedic surgeon, who police arrested on Oct. 21, charging her with four offenses related to malicious communications and inciting racial hatred. In November, she was suspended from practicing medicine in the UK over social media posts denigrating Jews and celebrating Hamas’s terrorism.
Other incidents in the UK included a Jewish family fearing their London doctor’s antisemitism influenced their disabled son’s treatment. The North London hospital suspended the physician who was under investigation for publicly claiming that all Jews have “feelings of supremacy” and downplaying antisemitism.