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Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Vayishlah Genesis 32:4-36:43
By Shlomo Riskin
Efrat, Israel - This week's Torah portion records the mysterious and mystical encounter between Jacob and an anonymous assailant, an adversary who Jacob overcomes and from whom he receives a blessing as well as a new name:
Yisrael. And this nocturnal struggle leads into Jacob-Israel's meeting with his brother Esau, from whom Jacob takes his leave and goes to live in
Sukkot. Who is this anonymous wrestling partner? What has he to do with Esau? And why the introduction of a place with the very same name of our Festival of redemption,
Sukkot? The
first appearance of Sukkot at this point in time must be more than mere coincidence!
We have already seen how Mother Rebeccah was anxious to get both the spiritual birthright
(bekhorah) and the material blessing (brakhah) for her son Jacob; she was not in favor of Isaac's initial intent to divide between the spiritual and the material, to give the birthright to Jacob and the blessing to Esau. Rebeccah understood that the two realms of the
religious and the physical dare not be split apart in a neno-platonic rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's and to G-d what is
G-d's".
No, thought Rebeccah, everything must be G-d's, and so the material must protect and provide for the spiritual and thereby become sanctified by the spiritual. The Torah voice of Jacob must be buttressed and strengthened by the hand of Esau if Torah is truly to overtake the world. But in order to effectuate this, she had to convince Isaac that the naive, whole-hearted, tent-dwelling, Torah-studying Jacob was capable of adopting the more aggressive hands of Esau if the situation warranted it - and this she succeeds in doing when Jacob masquerades as Esau. Jacob receives the blessing!
Undoubtedly, however, there exists a serious, even existential danger when the spiritual Jacob adopts the physical prowess of Esau; the material may over-run the spiritual, the excitement of the army may completely overwhelm the bet
midrash, the Esaurian hands may become the masters of - rather than the handmaidens to - the voice of Jacob. This is an especial possibility in the case of Jacob, who knows that his father Isaac favors his aggressive son Esau, who feels that the more Esau-like he becomes, the more likely it will be that he will receive his father's affection. And so Jacob spends twenty years with his uncle
Laban, waxes rich and powerful, out-maneuvers the master maneuverer, out-tricks the master trickster, even dreams of spotted, speckled and striped cattle. In short, the hands of Esau have overtaken the voice of Jacob!
Finally, Jacob returns to his ancestral land and family mission. An angel had come to him in a dream, had pointed out to him the massive change in his personality, instructed him to "go home" (Genesis 31:11-13). He leaves his materialistic uncle, instructs his messengers to give an atonement of his offering "blessing" (Genesis 32:21) to his brother Esau, and crosses the River
Jabbok, passing into the land of Israel. "And Jacob remained alone, and a man wrestled with him until the
rising of the morning star" (Genesis 32:25). Who was this "man"? The classical Rabbinic interpretation is that he was the "spirit or power of
Esau;" Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch suggests that he was the Esau within Jacob, those powerful hands of Esau which had so completely overwhelmed the voice - and Divine essence - of Jacob. Jacob overcame this power of Esau, and so returned to his true, pristine self.
But the actual verses of the Torah suggest something else: "And Jacob called the name of the place (of the struggle) Peniel 'because I have seen G-d face to face and my soul has been preserved'" (Genesis 32:31). Does this not sound as though the anonymous assailant is none other than
G-d Himself?
I would submit that both interpretations are true. In the first instance, Jacob is battling with the Esau within himself, exorcizing the
hands of Esau which had overtaken his personality. And until and unless he succeeded in returning to his true self, to his G-d given essential identity, he would not succeed in finding his own G-d. During all the years of his sojourn with
Laban, Jacob recognizes the G-d of his father and his grandfather, but not his own G-d, who he so desperately wished to discover in the oath he made in Beth El ('If G-d will be my Lord" Genesis 28:20). Indeed, Jacob - as so many of us - is engaged in a dual struggle, with himself and with his G-d. Once he succeeds in re-claiming
his own personality he will likewise succeed in discovering his own G-d.
Hence, he is named Yisrael, "because you have struggled with G-d and with men (yourself, Esau within yourself), and you have overcome "(Genesis 32:29). And he receives a blessing from G-d, perhaps the very same blessing he had taken by deception from his father and was now returning to Esau; but since he must return Isaac's blessing to Esau, he
now requests the blessing from G-d. This time, however, the hands of Esau would be a mere handmaiden rather than a master. And after he meets
the flesh and blood Esau, after he tells him that "I saw your face as one sees the face of G-d" (Genesis 33:10), and after he returns his blessing to him (Genesis 33:11), he is finally able to erect an altar named "G-d the Lord of
Yisrael" (Genesis 33:20); Jacob has found his own
G-d at last. His struggle vis a vis G-d is also successfully concluded.
Sukkot is the Festival of redemption, celebrating our entry into the land of Israel (the four species are fruits of the Promised Land) and the tabernacle symbolizing the Holy Temple, as we recite in our Grace After Meals throughout the Festival, "May the Merciful one re-establish for us the fallen Tabernacle of David". Sukkot is also one of the three Pilgrim Festivals, when all the Israelites are expected to come to the Holy Temple and see - and be seen by - G-d. Is it not fitting that, after Jacob has become
Yisrael, vanquished the Esau with himself and seen his own G-d face to face, he arrives at a place called
Sukkot, Tabernacles. The personal redemption of Yisrael our Patriarch mirrors the ultimate national redemption of Yisrael our people.
Shabbat Shalom.
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