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Follow up on this M.Y. question.

Genesis 32:4:

וַיִּשְׁלַ֨ח יַעֲקֹ֤ב מַלְאָכִים֙ לְפָנָ֔יו אֶל־עֵשָׂ֖ו אָחִ֑יו אַ֥רְצָה שֵׂעִ֖יר שְׂדֵ֥ה אֱדֽוֹם׃

And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother unto the land of Seir, the field of Edom.

For some reason, Ya'akov feels a need to discover if his brother Esav still wanted to kill him. As we see, a few verses later, Esav was heading his way with an army of 400 men and this frightened Ya'akov. He prays, divides his family, and prepares for war.

I assume that Ya'akov knew about the condition that Esav made regarding killing him, i.e., that Esav would wait until Yitzhak died. So, prior to sending messengers to Esav, why didn't Ya'akov send messengers to his hoime to inquire if his father was still alive?

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  • It is possible that he did contact Yitzchak, but since it is not relevant to the story the Torah does not mention it. – DanielEvalUlai Nov 25 '15 at 07:01
  • @Daniel, I think the question amply explains why it is relevant. Namely, had he gotten information that Yitzchak was still alive, he would (wrongly) not have feared Esav. – msh210 Nov 25 '15 at 19:26
  • @msh210 In general it is hard for us to understand why the Torah chooses to tell us the stories it does and not the many events that it does not mention. We cannot conclude that since we would consider a certain event important and the Torah does not relate that event, that therefore it did not happen. If Yaakov's not contacting Yitzchak is critical to understanding the story the Torah could have told us, just as it makes a point of telling us that Rachel did not tell Yaakov about her taking the teraphim, instead of letting us understand from its silence that she had not told Yaakov. – DanielEvalUlai Nov 26 '15 at 07:32

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