The Victory At The End of the Road: Vayishlach

The Victory At The End of the Road

D’var Torah for Parashat Vayishlach

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Parashat Vayishlach (Genesis 32:4—36:43) comes on fast and furious.  Few other portions in the Torah contain as much bloodshed and violence as this one.  If not for its many important lessons, it might as well be rated “R” and turned into pulp fiction.

The portion begins as Jacob is coming home after his long stay (close to 21 years) in Haran.  At Laban’s house he has become a wealthy man, a family man.  He now has two wives (plus their two handmaidens), 12 children and many flocks and herds of various livestock.  Jacob receives word that Esau, his twin brother who has sworn to kill him, is coming at him with a full contingent of armed men.

Fearful of losing everything, Jacob is forced to divide up his camp, placing some in front, closer to the line of danger, so that even if harm comes to them, he might still have the second half as a remnant.  He also sends Esau presents, flock after flock of animals from his herd.

After helping his family cross the river into the Promised Land, Jacob returns to the lookout post in the highlands overlooking the valley below.  There, in the dark of night, he wrestles with a mysterious being—perhaps a demon, perhaps an angel, perhaps his own alter ego.  As the struggle persists, neither gives in; at one point the “angel” wrenches Jacob’s hip joint.  Then, as the light of dawn begins to breaks, the “angel” begs to be released and agrees to bless Jacob in return.

Jacob is now free to face his brother, probably with greater trepidation in his heart than actual hope.

But once again, Jacob’s ruse works.  Esau’s anger is assuaged by all the gifts he has received, and he agrees to let Jacob and his tribe continue on their path unmolested.

Some time later (Rashi, the great medieval commentator, says it was eighteen months:  summer, winter and summer again), Jacob encamps by the city of Shechem.  One day, his daughter, Dina, is raped by the prince of the city.  Ten of Jacob’s sons, led by Simeon and Levi, ravage the city and, in violent and bloody retribution, murder all its men and boys, taking the women and possessions as loot.  They earn Jacob’s anger and scorn, but the tribe will now wander throughout the land unmolested, as other people learn of the swift and total response that any attack upon them might engender.

Then Rebecca’s nurse, Deborah, dies.  How she came into the story is unclear, but it foreshadows yet another, even greater sorrow that is about to take place.  Rachel, Jacob’s beloved wife, dies, leaving the world of the living at the same time as she delivers Benjamin, Jacob’s twelfth and last son, into it.

And yet one more event, as though all that wasn’t enough for the “R” rating:  Reuben, Jacob’s first born, sleeps with his father’s concubine Bilhah—Rachel’s handmaiden, mother to two of Jacob’s sons.  This wasn’t just lust, however.  In taking Bilhah, Reuben is actually guilty of rebelling against his father, a moral sin for which he will be punished by being passed over for the position of leadership after Jacob’s death.

Why do all these terrible things happen?

Some rabbis explain that this is Jacob’s punishment for his eager participation in Rebecca’s plot to make sure Jacob receives Isaac’s blessing.   Yet was this one youthful failing sufficient cause for so much pain, tragedy and violence?

The Torah goes out of its way to relate details from Jacob’s life.  We know precious little about Abraham, and even less of Isaac.  Yet we’re told so much of what befalls Jacob, from yet before his birth and all the way to his death and burial.  Can all the bad things be simply payback?  Divine punishment for what, after all, simply had to happen?  For realistically speaking—and Jacob as well as his father and mother knew this fact—Esau was incapable of maintaining the responsibility inherent in the birthright, the responsibility of taking care of the rest of the family.  Esau rarely saw beyond the next meal, beyond his own instant gratification—surely he wasn’t qualified to be the bearer of God’s and Isaac’s blessing!  No, all that happens in this portion (and even later) cannot be Jacob’s just rewards.

A clue to the presence of so much violence and bloodshed can be found in the blessing Jacob receives from the “angel,” a blessing reiterated by God later on:  Jacob’s name is changed to Yisrael, meaning “one who wrestles with God and with people—yet overcomes.”

It’s a figurative as well as literal struggle that the Torah refers to.  Jacob does not really strive with God—God is of course far too powerful.  Rather, Jacob struggles with his internal image of God.  Jacob lacks the all-out faith of his grandfather Abraham and the blind submission of his father, Isaac.  Jacob is filled with doubt.  He knows intrinsically that promises are only that—promises.  Blessings are only as truthful as their reality factor; half the time they are no more than wishful thinking.

The truth is, we can relate more to Jacob, the realist, the doubter, the skeptic. There is more of him in us than there is of his father and grandfather.  His life is much more like ours—maybe not in detail, but certainly in the larger picture. 

We all live a drama that could easily be turned into pulp fiction:  The family entanglements and jealousies, the loves and losses, the winning and losing.  We all make our way through foreign terrains, through peace and wars, through calm and agitation.  Like Jacob, we all struggle not only with other human beings, but also with the higher values and almost-impossible demands of our God and tradition.  Like Jacob, we find ourselves at times filled with faith and awe, yet at other times overcome with doubt and questioning.

It’s human nature.

Yet the blessing that Jacob receives from the angel, and then again from God, is not only that we struggle through life.  That, I’m afraid, is a given.  Rather, it’s in the implication that at the end of the road, we find that we do overcome.

Jacob may not see the rewards that will be his any time soon, but his people, Israel, will.  They will, after all, outlast all their oppressors.  They will survive through all their striving and struggling with themselves, with God, with all the evil in the world.

The struggle itself will make us stronger.  That is why we are called Israel.  At the end of all this struggling, with God’s help, we win.

It’s with this certain knowledge in his heart, mind and soul that Jacob can now face the rest of his journey, the rest of his life, difficult as that might be.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman