Vayishlach
Genesis 32:4 - 36:43
Précis: As he nears a return to his homeland, Jacob "sent" (vayishlach) messengers to Esau to ascertain Esau’s state of mind after their 20 year separation. While he awaits a reply, Jacob encounters an “adversary” (most assume an angel) with whom Jacob wrestles through the night. As dawn breaks, the adversary announces that Jacob’s name is to be changed to Israel – “He who wrestles with God.” On the following day, Esau approaches, and despite Jacob’s fears, there is a happy reunion.
We then read the story of how a local prince rapes Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, and then asks to marry her. Jacob agrees on condition that all of the men of the city are circumcised. While the men are recovering, Jacob’s sons Simon and Levi attack the city and kill all of the inhabitants in revenge for the insult to their sister.
Jacob soon travels to Beth-el (the site of his ladder dream), and on the way, Rachel gives birth to Benjamin and dies following her labor. Thereafter, Isaac’s death is noted, as is his burial by Esau and Jacob. The parasha ends with a genealogy of Esau and his descendants.
Genesis 32:4 “And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother to the field of Edom. And he commanded them, saying, ‘Thus shall you say unto my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob...’"
After 20 years, Jacob fearfully returns for a reunion with his twin brother Esau – with the person whom he deprived of the primary parental blessing. Fearful about Esau’s reactions, Jacob sends gifts and separates his people into two camps before the planned meeting. These actions are demonstrations of subservience and of defensive preparation.
According to Nachmanides, Jacob chose not to rely solely on God's protection. A hesitancy to place all of his faith in God is not a new mode of behavior for Jacob: last week, following a dream in which he was promised to be a great nation and to be returned safely, Jacob questioned whether God would actually provide the security he needed (Jacob says, essentially, “If God will provide protection, I will return and build an alter on this spot.” Gen 28:20). Jacob is a person who might be comfortable with Ronald Regan’s famous misquotation of a Russian proverb: “Trust, but verify.” On the eve of his reunion with Esau, Jacob took detailed, practical steps to protect himself and his family from anticipated dangers and the potential of reprisal.
What is the lesson for us? One might say that it is "God helps those who help themselves." Or perhaps it is the Boy Scout motto of “Be prepared!” There is a second level we might consider: Jacob was not assuming that the protection he had been provided in the past would continue. From this we can learn that we should never assume that because we prevailed in the past, that we will do well again in the future. The past is not always prologue.
Like Jacob, Executive Directors, other Jewish professionals, parents and every individual must plan for all eventualities. Such contingency planning may be exhausting or even depressing. Nevertheless, I believe that a lesson of this story is that such planning is necessary if we are to succeed in life.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
To Be Jewish is to Struggle
Toldot
Genesis 25:19-28:9
Précis: The introductory phrase to this parasha is “These are the generations (“toldot”) of Isaac.” What follows is the birth of the twins, Esau and Jacob. Their childhood is omitted from narrative, and we know only that Jacob was a quiet man while Esau was a cunning hunter, that their mother Rebecca preferred Jacob, and that Isaac preferred Esau. We then have the story of the sale of the birthright by Esau to Jacob for a bowl of porridge. A famine takes place, and Isaac journeys to the land of the Philistines where he claims that his wife Rebecca is actually his sister (as Abraham did with Sarah in Lech Lecha) and again, the woman escapes unharmed. The story then turns to the “great deception” where Jacob pretends to be Esau in order to obtain the primary blessing from his father Isaac. Esau hates Jacob and threatens him; Rebecca urges Jacob to escape to her family in Haran, to where he sets off at the conclusion of the parasha.
Gen. 25:22 “And the children struggled together within her; and she said: 'If it be so, wherefore do I live?' And she went to inquire of God.”
From a literary perspective, the Bible is a remarkable work, having the power to convey rich detail in a concise manner. On a thematic level, the parasha introduces us to the essential core of Jacob’s life: struggle. He struggles with Esau in the womb (as noted in the cited verse), is the object of struggle between his parents (Isaac preferring Esau, Rebecca preferring Jacob). He struggles with Esau (and perhaps with his father) over the blessing, with his father-in-law over his marriages, with an angel when his name is changed to Israel, again with Esau upon his return home, and with his sons over their jealousy of Joseph. His struggles culminate when, after his reunion with the long-lost Joseph, Jacob encounters Pharaoh in Egypt, telling the Egyptian king that “‘The days of the years of my sojourning are a hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life” (Gen. 47:8-9).
The concept of struggle, of course, has become the central metaphor of Jewish existence. Jacob’s second name, “Yisrael,” has been translated as “struggle with God” and our experience, both temporally and spiritually over the centuries, can be defined by struggle. Struggle, of course, continues today for Jews in Israel and around the world. Some of the current struggles have their roots in ancient times (some point to Esau as the progenitor of Edom, a traditional enemy of the Jewish People; others note that Ishmael, Jacob’s half-uncle, was the father of the Arab nation). Other struggles within the Jewish world have a more recent genesis.
Spiritually, the Jewish People have had to face the dislocation of the Babylonian Exile, where we “wept by the waters.” The destruction of the Second Temple created the struggle for continuity which found its expression in Mishna, Talmud, and rabbinic Judaism. In later times, the spiritual struggle was manifest in the epic challenges of denominationalism (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox), and today, the Jewish spiritual struggle seems to have adopted the same kind of partisan extremism which dominates American political discourse.
While, in Jacob’s words, one may view the Jewish “life” as “few and evil,” I submit that we can take heart and hope from the fact that we have survived the struggles of millennia, and remain confident in our ability to overcome the challenges we face today, and will inevitably face tomorrow. Judaism as a belief is profoundly hopeful, based at its spiritual core on the Covenant between the Jewish People and the Creator, and based on the knowledge that each of us has within us not only a spark of the Divine, but also the ability to continue the struggle begun so long ago.
Genesis 25:19-28:9
Précis: The introductory phrase to this parasha is “These are the generations (“toldot”) of Isaac.” What follows is the birth of the twins, Esau and Jacob. Their childhood is omitted from narrative, and we know only that Jacob was a quiet man while Esau was a cunning hunter, that their mother Rebecca preferred Jacob, and that Isaac preferred Esau. We then have the story of the sale of the birthright by Esau to Jacob for a bowl of porridge. A famine takes place, and Isaac journeys to the land of the Philistines where he claims that his wife Rebecca is actually his sister (as Abraham did with Sarah in Lech Lecha) and again, the woman escapes unharmed. The story then turns to the “great deception” where Jacob pretends to be Esau in order to obtain the primary blessing from his father Isaac. Esau hates Jacob and threatens him; Rebecca urges Jacob to escape to her family in Haran, to where he sets off at the conclusion of the parasha.
Gen. 25:22 “And the children struggled together within her; and she said: 'If it be so, wherefore do I live?' And she went to inquire of God.”
From a literary perspective, the Bible is a remarkable work, having the power to convey rich detail in a concise manner. On a thematic level, the parasha introduces us to the essential core of Jacob’s life: struggle. He struggles with Esau in the womb (as noted in the cited verse), is the object of struggle between his parents (Isaac preferring Esau, Rebecca preferring Jacob). He struggles with Esau (and perhaps with his father) over the blessing, with his father-in-law over his marriages, with an angel when his name is changed to Israel, again with Esau upon his return home, and with his sons over their jealousy of Joseph. His struggles culminate when, after his reunion with the long-lost Joseph, Jacob encounters Pharaoh in Egypt, telling the Egyptian king that “‘The days of the years of my sojourning are a hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life” (Gen. 47:8-9).
The concept of struggle, of course, has become the central metaphor of Jewish existence. Jacob’s second name, “Yisrael,” has been translated as “struggle with God” and our experience, both temporally and spiritually over the centuries, can be defined by struggle. Struggle, of course, continues today for Jews in Israel and around the world. Some of the current struggles have their roots in ancient times (some point to Esau as the progenitor of Edom, a traditional enemy of the Jewish People; others note that Ishmael, Jacob’s half-uncle, was the father of the Arab nation). Other struggles within the Jewish world have a more recent genesis.
Spiritually, the Jewish People have had to face the dislocation of the Babylonian Exile, where we “wept by the waters.” The destruction of the Second Temple created the struggle for continuity which found its expression in Mishna, Talmud, and rabbinic Judaism. In later times, the spiritual struggle was manifest in the epic challenges of denominationalism (Reform, Conservative, Orthodox), and today, the Jewish spiritual struggle seems to have adopted the same kind of partisan extremism which dominates American political discourse.
While, in Jacob’s words, one may view the Jewish “life” as “few and evil,” I submit that we can take heart and hope from the fact that we have survived the struggles of millennia, and remain confident in our ability to overcome the challenges we face today, and will inevitably face tomorrow. Judaism as a belief is profoundly hopeful, based at its spiritual core on the Covenant between the Jewish People and the Creator, and based on the knowledge that each of us has within us not only a spark of the Divine, but also the ability to continue the struggle begun so long ago.
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