A Jew ends up sleeping in the same train compartment as a general of the Russian army. He tells the conductor to wake him up at 4 a.m. so he can get off at his stop. He is awakened at the proper time, yet in the dark, he mistakenly puts on the general's clothes instead of his own.
When he gets home, his wife asks him if everything is all right. He looks in the mirror and answers, "It seems like the conductor woke up the general instead of me."
The episode in this week’s portion, Vayishlach, in which the Jewish people acquire its eternal name, Israel, is among the most mysterious in the entire Torah. Yet if we fail to grasp this enigmatic story, we cannot understand who we are and what our name, calling, and destiny are.
The episode takes place as Jacob is returning home after an absence of twenty years. He had left because his brother Esau was threatening to kill him. Esau was outraged that Jacob dressed up in his garments and seized their father’s blessings. Esau was angry that Jacob had bought the birthright from him, years earlier. Jacob fled for two decades. Now he is finally coming back and is about to meet Esau again. The night before the fateful confrontation, Jacob suddenly encounters a stranger:
“Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overcome him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Jacob was now limping.
“Then the man said, ‘Let me go for it is daybreak.’ But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
The man asked him, “What is your name”? “Jacob,” he answered. Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel because you have struggled with G-d and with men and have overcome.”
Many questions come to mind upon reading the story. Let me mention a few.
- Who was this mysterious man that Jacob was struggling with?
- Why did Jacob seek a blessing from his vicious adversary? Blessings we seek from saints not from villains who attempt to kill us!
- If the man did not know Jacob’s name, how did he know to approach Jacob and attack him and not release his wrath on Mr. Henry Schwartz?
- What was it about this moment that bestowed a new name, Israel, not only on Jacob but also on the entire Jewish people for eternity?
We were preparing for a combative and harsh encounter. Hearing that Esau was coming to meet him with a force of four hundred men, Jacob was “very afraid and distressed.” He made elaborate preparations. As the narrative makes it clear, he adopted three tactics: diplomacy, prayer, and readiness for war.
Yet when Esau finally appears, all the fears turn out to be unfounded. He ran to meet Jacob, threw his arms around his neck, kissed him, and wept. There is no anger, animosity, or threat of revenge in Esau’s behavior. What happened? Esau once vowed to kill Jacob. Even now he was approaching with 400 men to combat. Whence this sudden metamorphosis?
The narrative of Esau and Jacob captures one of the most poignant themes that would define Jewish history. I want to study the story as a metaphor for Jewish history.
If there is one thing that stands out in Jacob’s life it is this: From his very beginnings, he seeks to be his brother Esau, to assume his identity, to take on his persona. He struggles with him in the womb. He is born holding on to Esau’s heel. He buys Esau’s birthright. He dresses in Esau’s clothes. He takes Esau’s blessing. When the father Isaac asks him who he is, he replies, “I am Esau, your firstborn.”
It did not work for Jacob, because when you are trying to be someone else, you live in constant turmoil and anxiety. When you believe that your failure to shine is the fault of someone else who has “stolen” your destiny, you are destined to a life of
insecurity and agony. When you feel that your success will come by being someone else, you subject yourself to never-ceasing inner stress.
Now, in the middle of the night, a few hours before he would encounter his brother, alone at a river, Jacob faces the defining crisis of his life. Each of us faces a similar crisis at some point in our own lives. It is the crisis of identity. Who Am I?
“Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.” Yet he was still alone. Because the man he wrestled with was none other than... he.
During the battle, Jacob realizes he is limping. When I define my life based on another human being, when I feel that if only you would not be you, can I be I, can I finally be successful—I can’t walk straight and erect. Lacking the confidence to be me, I march the course of life limping. How sad.
So, Jacob asks this “inner man” to bless him. I want closure; I want healing. I want to be me.
And the man’s blessing consists of a name change: “No longer shall your name be called Jacob; rather, Israel shall be your name. Stop defining yourself based on Esau—holding on to his heel, seizing his blessings, represented by the name Jacob; stop fighting with Esau. Start celebrating your own life and destiny. The war must be over. Embrace yourself and walk the path that was destined for you, not for Esau.
In Hebrew, the name Jacob means “a heel.” The name Israel means a leader or a head. The new name signifies a change of identity: Don’t hold on to your brother’s heel; rather embrace your head. Stop limping. Make peace with your own deepest sense of self.
And what is the next scene? Esau sees Jacob and instead of fighting with him, he embraces him and kisses him. Animosity is replaced by affection. When Jacob makes peace with Jacob, Esau, too, can make peace with Jacob.
We can now fully understand why this is the moment we obtained our name as a people of Israel, Am Israel, the land of Israel. The people of the covenant are not the children of Abraham or Isaac but “the children of Israel.”
The reason is clear: This struggle is at the core of Jewish existence.
If you were to ask me what is the greatest struggle of the Jewish people? I would say that it is this: Jacob wants to be Esau. He wants to look like Esau, dress like Esau, feel like Esau, be like Esau. He feels that if he could only get rid of Jacob’s “nose,” and become a perfect Esau, Esau would cease to hate him. Anti-Semitism would fade away.
The Jewish comedian Groucho Marx once remarked: I would never belong to a club that would have me as a member.
Rabbi Dr. Abraham Twersky is a Chassidic psychiatrist, who dresses in "serious Chassidic garb": Once on an airplane, he was approached by a very irritated and angry Jew. The Jew began chastising him in Yiddish:
"A shandeh! What’s the matter with you? Why do you insist on prancing around in that medieval get-up? Don’t you realize how ridiculous you look? You bring scorn and derision onto all Jews! If you could only dress and behave like everybody else..."
"I fail to understand your verbiage," Dr. Twersky responded in a perfect English accent. "Is there something that is bothering you? Perhaps you're mistaking me for somebody else, but I am Amish!"
"Oy vey! I beg your forgiveness," pleaded the quickly back-pedaling Jew. "I didn’t realize that you were Amish. I thought you were Hassidic. You should know that I only have the utmost respect for you and your people — keeping your ways without bowing to society’s whims of the day."
Now it was Dr. Twersky's turn to respond in Yiddish:
"Aha! If I had been Amish, then you have nothing but the utmost respect for me; but since I am Jewish, you are ashamed with me. Hopefully one day you will respect your own people that you admire in other people."
You know the riddle: In what country is the speed of sound faster than the speed of light?
Answer: Israel. Only in Israel can you hear cars hooting even BEFORE the light changes. The tension is powerful. The turmoil is deep.
One compelling factor has of course been Anti-Semitism. We believed that the more we looked like Esau, the less we would stand out—the more our condition would be normalized.
Jackie Mason says, that at the end of each of his shows, where he spends 50 percent of the time making fun of Jews, the Gentiles walk out saying: What a great show, he is hysterical. The Jews go out with this comment:
Too Jewish!...
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky
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