Eisav vs. Yaakov: The image of a Jewish leader

Though Eisav is often seen in our mind's eye as a hairy red-faced brute, lacking grace, or intellect, it's hard in many ways to reconcile that conception with our reading of this week's parsha. 

Eisav was a man who Isaac was a step away from granting the mantle of Jewish leadership until this very day. There was something on a spiritual leader that appealed to Isaac very much, not simply the knavery, the question Eisav was wont to ask, "How do I tithe salt" and the like. 

In the end, Isaac also acquiesces and blesses Eisav. What was is that he had that was so alluring? 

I heard an interesting explanation from Rabbi Faivelzon. The verses tell us:

"The lads grew up, Eisav becoming a hunter, a man of the field, Yaakov, wholesomely dwelling in his tent." 

I have exercised a little poetic license in translating the above verse, though I feel that it's no less accurate than that of Artscroll or JPS. 

Within the above verse, related Rabbi Faivelzon, one can find a hint into what was so attractive and enticing about Eisav. A man of the field, a go-getter, an archetype of a man who set out to conquer the world. Rabbi Soloveitchik talks about two typologies, Adam I and Adam II, but neither is really the father of the Jewish people. It was Yaakov Avinu, our father, the pinnacle of the father figures who struck a balance between the ways of Abraham and Isaac, and what was the way of Yaakov, of Jacob, our forefather? 

Unlike Eisav, the hunter, whose stomping ground was the field, who felt most at home using cunning, deception and trickery for catching his prey, it was Yaakov's simple, wholeheartedness, wholesomeness, that could instill in the home the Jewish ethics and ethos for cultivating the moral fiber that most distinguishes the Jewish people. And that, I would add, is perhaps why we are named after Yisrael, the people who engaged society, striking the proper balance, in the face of threats from without and within. 

There was nothing inherently wrong or evil about Eisav. And Isaac wasn't blindsided to Eisav's true character, but he did feel that there was something inherently valuable in being able to develop the world, and advance the world through bold decisiveness, and actively engaging the world. What then became a paradigm for our people was the Jew, who dwelled in the tent, who mustered the confidence, and wisdom to engage the world, and only then set out to make his mark, as Jacob would do after leaving his tent, the Yeshiva of Shem V'Ever, and using Hashem's divine providence to defeat Lavan, who sought to undermine the very existence of our people. 

Yaakov was no less apt or up for the role than his brother Eisav, but needed to first crystalize in his mind's eye an image of the ideal world, a world of principle and values, before embarking on his course and realizing that the world, the way it was, was far from what he thought. Were he to have taken down his tent, and engaged the world before realizing what a Torah world ought to be, he may have reconciled himself with norms in the world far from Torah ideals, without even realizing the extent to which these alien values, and principles strayed from the conception of a world guided by truth, integrity, and devotion to a higher cause, namely, leaving God's imprint on our lives.