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וַיִּגַּשׁ יַעֲקֹב אֶל־יִצְחָק אָבִיו וַיְמֻשֵּׁהוּ וַיֹּאמֶר הַקֹּל קוֹל יַעֲקֹב וְהַיָּדַיִם יְדֵי עֵשָׂו׃ - So Jacob drew close to his father Isaac, who felt him and wondered. “The voice is the voice of Jacob, yet the hands are the hands of Esau.” Genesis.27.22

Apparently, Isaac was puzzled with the choice - whether to believe his senses (touch and smell) or to believe his feelings and logic (Yaakov's language). And he chose to stick with his physical senses and think it's Esov.

I would expect a Tzadik to look at the essence of a person and not the outer form as the Mishnah in Avos: Don't look at a jar but its content.

Why did Itzhak trust his senses over his feeling?

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    Why isn't this a conflict between senses (feeling) - and senses (hearing)? Both are external and the outer form.
    – MichoelR
    Nov 29, 2020 at 3:32

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ולא הכירו כי היו ידיו כידי עשו, he did not recognise him since his hands were like those of Esau. Isaac rejected the doubt created by Jacob's voice since a person can change his voice or the listener may mistake a voice for that of someone else, whereas he cannot change the hairs on his hands, a very distinctive mark of identification.

ויברכהו, he blessed him. Before Isaac touched Jacob and established that he was Esau nothing had contradicted his impression that it was Jacob's voice he heard and that therefore he was faced by a swindler.

Or HaChaim on Genesis 27:23
https://www.sefaria.org/Or_HaChaim_on_Genesis.27.23?lang=bi

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  • So he's saying Yitzhak couldn't imagine somebody putting furs on his hands and following him in such a simple way, whereas everybody can change his voice. My point wasn't about his "voice" but his Middos he exhibited through his talk. THere was no point for Esov to change his way of talking while there was a clear advantage for Yaakov in fooling Isaac.
    – Al Berko
    Nov 30, 2020 at 20:01
  • "The reason that Isaac wanted to give the wicked Esau a blessing was that he hoped to effect a change in Esau's character on account of the blessings he would bestow on him" sefaria.org/Or_HaChaim_on_Genesis.27.1.3?lang=bi ...therefore applying that logic...Esau changing his middos/language momentarily could possibly have made enough sense to Yitzchak in that moment to follow his hope even though he was caught off guard by it in the pasuk as well...
    – code613
    Dec 1, 2020 at 4:20

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