The Blessing of Being Israel

The Blessing of Being Israel
D’var Torah for Parashat Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4—36:43)
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

In this week’s parashah, for the first time after fleeing from Esau some twenty years earlier, Jacob has to face his brother. His early fears—though not unfounded—seem positively trivial at this point. Then, he had little to lose (OK, Esau swore to kill him, but things could be worse). Now, however, he has a family. He has children, wives, cattle and sheep, many servants, much gold. Life has become precious to him over the years.

And the news is bad: Esau is coming toward him at the head of a full contingent of men armed to the teeth.

Twenty years earlier, Jacob could run. But now? Then, with his whole life yet ahead of him, Jacob, youthful, hopeful and confident, headed east towards Haran, the home of his mother’s family. But now, having left that home—where he had found not only love and wealth, but also jealousy, cheating in-laws and budding anti-Semitism—he can’t go back there anymore.

Jacob has run out of options. He can’t run any more.

More than ever before, Jacob knows he has to rely on his cleverness and cunning if he is going to survive the faceoff with his brother. He musters all his strength, physical as well as spiritual. Sending forth several herds of livestock as gifts for his brother (Vayishlach means “he sent forth”), Jacob divides the remainder of his camp into two—Leah and her children first, then Rachel and hers. He sends them all ahead, hoping against all hope that Esau won’t attack—but that if he does, at least the beloved Rachel might be spared.

That leaves Jacob alone, on the far shore of the Jordan River, alone to figure out what to do next.

Years ago, when I first saw the movie Exodus, I was deeply affected by it. One of the scenes that always stayed in my mind was the one when, in anticipation of an Arab attack on Kibbutz Gan Dafna, the order is given to evacuate the women and children. With loud Hebrew music playing as a diversionary tactic in the background, the children—their mouths sealed with masking tape—are silently carried out under cover of darkness. The remaining defenders, camouflaged, lying quietly on the watch for the impending attack, are left alone with their thoughts, their fears, their hopes and their prayers. Just like Jacob—who after this night will be known by the name of Israel.

That night, Jacob has to wrestle a mysterious being, variously explained as an angel, a demon, or as a personification of Jacob’s own personal fears. The fight lasts all night. Just before daybreak—when, as we know from countless vampire movies and books, demons must flee into the darkness—Jacob finds himself hurt. Yet he does not loosen his hold on his adversary. At the last possible moment, as recompense for letting the angel go, Jacob demands a blessing from him.

The angel responds by renaming Jacob: “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel, inasmuch as you have striven with God and with men, and you have prevailed” (Gen. 32:29). Filled with renewed confidence and hope, Jacob releases the angel and moves on with his life. He is hurt—as are we all by our struggles with our own angels and demons in life—but he does not let that stop him. If anything, his limp will continually remind him of this night and its successful outcome.

It may have taken 20 years to learn, but the message—for Jacob as for the rest of us—is a hard-won lesson. Running away from our issues and demons is not a solution. Yet, for so many of us, that is precisely what we do through most of our life, devoting immeasurable energy into avoidance and denial. When Jacob asks for his adversary’s name, the angel refuses to divulge it. And that is the way it should be. Each of us has individual fears, unique to our experience and our life. Often, our fears have no name. We sometimes conceal these inner terrors with extroverted macho behavior; sometimes we resort to drug or alcohol abuse. We may spend countless hours at work, or sometimes we “shop till we drop.”

But eventually we all have to come home.

Learning this lesson is not easy for any of us. We are afraid of the night and its creatures, even if some of them live only in our minds.

Sometimes the fears are real. There may indeed be real dangers and real enemies lurking in the dark. But, real or imaginary, running away is not the solution. We may get hurt along the way, but, just like Jacob, in facing our adversaries and in overcoming our adversities, we may also discover our strengths.

Up until that fateful night, in addition to his own cleverness, Jacob had relied on luck, magic and superstition. The night that Jacob became Israel, he learned to rely on God. He learned to pray—not only for things, not even for victory, but rather to pray in recognition and gratitude for the values he was so richly blessed with: kindness, love and generosity. He learned to understand that his strength lay not only in his own cleverness, but in these values. The blessing he had wrested from his brother and father was small in comparison to the blessing he won through his struggle with God and the angel. He now knew for a fact that God—as God had promised him twenty years earlier—would always be there for him and with him. Jacob finally learned—through his spiritual struggles—to integrate God into his life.

No longer afraid, Jacob limps slowly forward. He meets his brother Esau and asks for his forgiveness. He offers Esau half of all he owns. Generously, Esau forgives Jacob, as the two brothers reconcile (at least for now).

Jacob is ready to move on. No longer running away, he is deeply aware of the dangers that yet face him and his family. But he knows he will survive. He has wrestled with God and with humans before, and he prevailed. He will prevail again and again, no matter what battles lie ahead.

Life is a series of struggles. Yet, if we, like Jacob, unflinchingly face up to these, we can be sure that we, too, will prevail.

Maybe it’s embedded in our genes. I don’t know. I prefer to think of it as a blessing.

©2010 by Boaz D. Heilman