זוהר בראשית — דף קלט ע”ב

The Zohar explains that Jacob “cooked a stew” because he knew Esau’s root, and prepared a red dish, lentils, to break the strength of the color red. Esau was thus sold to him as a servant and sold his birthright; Jacob then knew that through one goat offered by Israel, Esau would become a servant to his sons and would not accuse them. A bracketed passage comments on the repetition of “that red, red stuff” and on the redness of Esau, his land and his people. Rabbi Yehuda notes that Jacob acted likewise with Laban, the sorcerer, going with the pious through kindness and with the crooked through severe judgment. The text then opens on “there was a famine” and on “the Lord tests the righteous,” and recalls that God judged Adam only after commanding him.