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Parsha Vayishlah (Genesis 32:4-36:43)
Shabbat 19 Kislev 5761

Generally speaking, we have two choices in how we approach the Torah stories about the patriarchs and matriarchs in Genesis. One, which we'll call devotional, sees the actions of the ancestors through an almost iconic lens; the other responds to a more critical approach.

Take, for example, the story in which Avraham passes off Sarah as his sister during the sojourn in Egypt. The devotional view doesn't fault Avraham in any way for this deception. A local Chabad rabbi explained that we cannot begin to understand the true mystical, spiritual significance of our patriarch's action. A more critical view starts with a exclamation: what could he possibly be doing!

We certainly have those same issues in this week's portion, a complex continuation of Yaakov's saga, his conflict with his brother Esau, and what appears to be both a foreshadowing and introduction to the longest single story in Torah, the Joseph s novella.

Undoubtedly, Yaakov is a complicated man, whose story reflects much unfinished business and the painful truths of living in an unredeemed world. One needs to work hard to hold on to a devotional, heroic view for much of the Yaakov story. Even Yaakov himself really doesn't. Skipping ahead, to Genesis 49:9, Yaakov replies to Pharaoh's question, saying "few and bad have been the days of the years of my life."

One of the great fantasy-dreams of the exuberantly religious is that faith leads to unequivocal happiness. We could battle about the words: do we mean happiness, or contentment, or personal satisfaction, or really, truly rah-rah joyousness? The fair answer, I think, is that religious faith allows for, and can aid, some experience and expression of all those feelings. It does not, as Yaakov's life so to well proves, act as a universal anodyne. Yaakov, coming to the end of his life, blessed with family, wealth, faith, G-d's promises made and fulfilled, is nonetheless fully of aware of the pain and bitterness of his life.

If faith is not a happiness narcotic, then what is it, and how are we to understand it? Moreover, not only how odd of G-d to choose the Jews, but how odd of G-d to choose Yaakov, full of guile, intrigue, cunning. One would think that the eponymous founder of B'nei Yisrael (and not, note, B'nei Avraham nor B'nei Yitzhak) would model for us the paradigmatic religious virtues we seek today: contentment, peacefulness, happiness. (Think for a minute, for example, about the modern avatars of eastern religion in the west from Alan Watts to the Maharishi to our new age melding of mystical Judaism with various eastern approaches. Very high value is placed, it seems to me, on finding one's point of peace and contentment in those rituals and techniques imported, often wholesale, into our religious life.)

Chapters 32 of Genesis can be read in counter-point, if not outright opposition, to this list of values. This is a complicated chapter, about a complicated man. Even a chapter summary is complicated: Returning from Paddan-Aram with his wives, concubines, children and herds, Yaakov sends a messenger (or an angel) ahead to his estranged brother Esau. Upon being informed of Esau's approach with a mass of retainers, Yaakov is frightened. Anxious about a confrontation with Esau, he divides his camp into two, so if one is attacked, the other will be a refuge.

He then prays: "G-d of my father Avraham and G-d of my father Yitzhak, L-rd Who said to me, 'Return to your land and to your birthplace, and I will do good with you.' I have been diminished by all the kindness and all the truth that You have done Your servant, for with my staff I crossed this Jordan and now I have become two camps. Rescue me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him lest he come and strike me, mother and children. And You had said, 'I will surely do good with you and I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea which is too numerous to be counted.'" (32:10-13)

Yaakov then separates from his herd a tribute of goats, ewes, rams, camels, cows, bulls and donkeys to send forward with servants and a message of reconciliation to Esau. He prepares his camp for the night.

Suddenly, during the night, Yaakov rouses his camp and has them cross the Jabbok to settle back down on the other side. He stays back, and encounters the mysterious stranger, or angel. They wrestle, battle for the rest of the night. The stranger injures Yaakov's hip. At sunrise, the stranger tries to leave, but Yaakov restrains him, demanding a blessing. He changes Yaakov's name to Yisrael, one who strives with G-d, blesses him, and disappears. Yaakov names the location Peniel saying, "For I have seen the Divine face to face, and yet my life was spared." (Peniel is a play on the Hebrew Panim E-l: face of G-d.)

Why all this right before Yaakov's partial reconciliation with Esau? The practical machinations we can easily understand. Esau, in Yaakov's estimation, is still enraged at Yaakov's perceived theft of both the birthright and the blessing of Yitzhak. Yaakov, fearing the worst, makes worst-case scenario plans.

Even the prayer, if we take it as an almost modern emotional interlude in the action, fits our literary schema. But the whole odd story of angel-wrestling and name changing certainly throws us off balance.

Yaakov, as we have seen, ends his life not a happy man. Yet, nonetheless, he is the father of Am Yisrael. Perhaps that is the case because the values embedded in our tradition is not of self-contentment, but rather of a twin pairing of obligation and self-awareness.

Yaakov, soon to be rename Yisrael, repairs not to some safe haven far away but goes where G-d tells him to go, right into the heart of danger. He prepares for that danger, in part, with prayer. Remember the Hebrew word "to pray": l'hitpalel. At its root, it means to probe, interpose, intervene, hence to judge. In this reflective verbal form, to judge ones' self. In other words, Yaakov's pray reveals the truths Yaakov has learned about himself: G-d's kindness have made him smaller, and now smaller, humbler, accepting of the truths of his dependence upon G-d, he can meet Esau and survive. To fulfill the obligations G-d has set upon him, Yaakov needs to grow smaller, to grow into his humility, to accept the fragility and frailty of his life. He needs to recognized that all he has, he has not on his merits, but as an act of G-d's grace. He needs this not to achieve happiness, but to do his duty, to his G-d and his destiny. (Let me add, as I have failed to previously, that any errors in interpretation here are my own, but the thoughts not original to me. These ideas have been developed in a pure and more accurate form by, amongst others, Ovadiah Sforno and Nehemia Leibowitz.)

Built into this language, this growth into smallness, is the seed of Yaakov's victory with the wrestling angel at Jabbok. Yaakov's acceptance of his role as G-d's servant in some way prepares him to hold onto the angel until the morning. Comes the sunrise, and Yaakov knows what he needs: the angel's blessing. As with most requests, Yaakov get more than he asked for, he gets a new name. The name formalizes the relationship: Israel struggles with G-d, as only one who serves G-d can struggle with G-d. The nature of that struggle: to recognize that even in a failed world, human beings bear the responsibility living moral lives. Yaakov, favored by his mother, deceitfully blessed by his father, hated by his brother, needs to make himself smaller, to crawl to his brother, in order to bring his true mission to fruition. He may not be happy with his life, but he does what he must. From him, through his descendants, the message of G-d's oneness goes to the world. He may not have died happy, but he died fulfilled.

This is problematic for us. Even the promoters of traditional Judaism often present the tradition as the most, if not only, effective path towards happiness. What we have a much harder time grasping, in our daily lives, in our social views, are more abstract, less personal values that rest on transcendent foundations. We live, after all, in a republic dedicated to the proposition that the Creator endows all unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Perhaps the founders' notions of happiness was different than ours, for they also dedicated their sacred honor to the ends of the Declaration of Independence.

Where is Yaakov's true happiness-watching the flocks in Paddan-Aram or leading his growing clan into the land G-d has promised his descendants? His life was bitter, but also filled with the discharge of both honor and duty, words too often lost on us today, particularly we privileged few in the United States. We need not false honor, but the honor found in humbly serving G-d and our fellows. Yaakov bowed seven times when approaching Esau. Perhaps those prostrations gave Esau the chance to accept his fate also. In that way, Yaakov, his wives, concubines and children entered into Eretz Yisrael not with strife, but in peace.

May the Almighty grant complete peace to his holy land and holy people, quickly, and in our times.

Shabbat Shalom.

Dennis Gura