Orthodox rabbi, Torah scholar, and international speaker Rabbi Mendel Kessin has been helping his students understand the spiritual significance of President Donald J. Trump since Trump was a presidential candidate. In a Torah lecture given this past week, Rabbi Kessin connected the Trump impeachment hearings to an episode from the Book of Genesis.
In Genesis, chapter 25, a pregnant Rivka (Rebecca) goes to inquire of God why there is so much turmoil within her. She is told that she is carrying two nations and that one will always be stronger than the other.
and Hashem answered her, “Two nations are in your womb, Two separate peoples shall issue from your body; One people shall be mightier than the other, And the older shall serve the younger.” Genesis 25:23
The Bible says, “One people shall be mightier than the other.” Jewish history is a chronicle of the rivalry between Rivka’s twin sons Yaakov (Jacob) and Aisav (Esau) and the nations they represent. Yaakov represents the Jewish nation and Aisav represents Rome which became Christianity which became Western Civilization in general and the United States in particular.
According to Rabbi Kessin, the two powers operate like a seesaw. When one is up, the other is down and vice-versa. This rivalry for the top spot has been going on for thousands of years.
Rabbi Kessin emphasized that “We’re not talking about people. We are talking about kingdoms – one kingdom versus the other kingdom and it is always a rivalry.”
In other words, Aisav’s spiritual job is to overthrow Yaakov, the Jewish nation. But President Trump, as the spiritual descendant of Aisav, is doing exactly the opposite. Instead of harming the Jewish nation, he is helping it, particularly through actions such as moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem and confirming the legality of the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria.
These actions are, according to Rabbi Kessin, making the angel of Aisav fume with anger. Why? Because President Trump is helping the Jews instead of trying to dethrone them. So the angel of Aisav, operating on a spiritual level, is trying to take Trump down through the impeachment hearings.
The persecution of President Trump is so extreme, according to Rabbi Kessin, that, “if he steps on the White House lawn, they will go after him for trying to destroy government property. I mean it’s absolutely insane.”
Rabbi Kessin spoke about another aspect of President Trump, in his role as the partial spiritual embodiment of Aisav.
“It’s not just a case of trying to destroy him because his job is to dethrone the Jews and instead [he’s] restoring the throne [to the Jewish nation].” Rabbi Kessin also mentioned the amount of personal suffering President Trump is experiencing with constant court cases being issued against him. “It’s very hard to imagine his suffering, but it must be enormous.
“Why does God allow this? Because Aisav has to suffer for what he did to the Jews for 2000 years and the way, the form of the punishment, is the exact same thing that they were doing to the Jews. You want to overcome and dethrone the Jews? Guess what? The one who is going to help them, he himself has to be under threat of being dethroned.”
Rabbi Kessin’s full lecture “The Deeper Meaning of the Trump Impeachment Hearings” is available on YouTube.
