Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Vayishlah Genesis 32:4-36:43

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - “And Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until the rising of the morning star... And he said, Not Jacob shall be your name any more but rather Yisrael, because you have fought with G-d and with men, and You have prevailed” (Genesis 32:25,29).

Who was this mysterious, anonymous assailant who wrestled with Jacob all that long night before his confrontation with brother Esau? Was it a heavenly angel, the spiritual power of Esau, as is suggested by the midrash (based on Daniel 10), or was it G-d Himself, as the verse immediately following the wrestling match would infer, “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, ‘because I have seen G-d face to face and my soul has been saved’”(Genesis 32:31)?

If we carefully examine the structure of the Biblical tale in greater detail, I believe the answer will become self-evident; indeed, the anonymous assailant was both of the possibilities outlined above.

Our Torah portion opens with Jacob’s preparation for his imminent encounter with his brother Esau after more than two decades of estrangement, a guilt-ridden encounter with a twin sibling who had threatened to kill him because he stole his elder-brother’s blessing by his having posed as Esau before their father. Jacob learns that his brother is marching towards him with no less than four-hundred men, a veritable army! He responds with gifts, - Jacob returns the “blessing” to Esau in the form of cattle, - preparation for war (if necessary), and prayer. (Genesis 32:4-24).

Chapter 33 details the encounter itself, a remarkably tension-free meeting in which “Esau runs toward (Jacob) and embraces him (Vayehabkehu means embraces him’, andVa yeabkehu would mean ‘wrestles with him), fell on his neck and kissed him, as they both wept” (Genesis 33:4). Between both of these accounts, the anxiety-ridden preparation and the emotion filled rapprochement, are the five verses describing the mystical wrestling match with the anonymous assailant (Genesis 32:25-30). So who was the “man”?

Clearly the anonymous “man” who wrestled with Jacob was the divinely-given and heaven-originated “power of Esau,” thereby Biblically confirming the initial prophecy which established the struggle between the twin foetuses in Rebecca’s womb as mirroring the universal-eternal battle between the two antithetical forces of spiritual Judea and militant Rome: “There are two nations in your womb, and two peoples who will separate from your innards; nation will struggle against nation, and the elder will serve the younger” (Genesis 25:23). The wrestling match mirrors the cosmic tension between these forces. Once the spirit of Jacob emerges triumphant - for Israel is guaranteed to ultimately prevail - the two brothers can play out their temporal meeting in relative ease and equanimity.

But there is another and deeper level to the struggle between these forces. Rome certainly poses a physical, external threat to Judea, as evidenced by the destruction of our Second Temple by Vespasian and Titus, and our consequent dispersion to all four corners of the earth for close to two millennia. On Jacob’s ability to emerge triumphant is reflected our return to Zion and Israel’s eventual spiritual domination over Rome, when “all the nations will rush to the Temple Mount, for from Zion shall come forth the Torah and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2, Micah 4).

Rome and all that it stands for, the militancy of Rome and the Christianity of the Vatican, the Greco-Roman values of beauty and knowledge divorced from absolute truth and morality, poses an equally dangerous threat to Judea from within; assimilation into secularism, materialism, post-modern relativism and anti-Traditionalism can extirpate Judea from its roots in a far more dangerous and total way than any external enemy can ever hope to accomplish.

This too was Jacob’s fear as he prepared for his encounter with Esau. After all, hadn’t he, the wholehearted dweller in the tents of Torah study, garbed himself in the hunting attire of Esau and utilized the crafty hands of Esau in order to wrest the blessings from his father and outwit his uncle Laban? Was it possible that Jacob would win the external battle against his rival Esau in his father’s home, only to find his very self overtaken by Esau in personality and activity until the voice of Jacob would be completely silenced and all that would be left of the younger son of Isaac and Rebecca would be another incarnation of Esau?!

The anonymous wrestling match, where “Jacob remains alone”, is therefore also an external struggle within Jacob to retain his own soul, to reclaim his pristine persona. And whenever one struggles to reclaim his true self, he is struggling with and for G-d, that image of the Divine which informs each of us and gives us our truest essence. Jacob had embraced Esau, or Esau-ism, for too long a time; and two individuals locked together may be embracing, may be wrestling, and may be struggling to become free of an interlocking relationship which could well turn into a kiss of death.

Jacob’s success in returning home to his original self is also his success in re-discovering his G-d and the G-d of his fathers. During that fateful and faithful night, Jacob met the power of Esau as well as the face of G-d - the forces of Rome as well as his own Divine Image. And only after successfully defeating both the external and internal Esau, could he establish an altar which he called, “G-d, Lord of Yisrael,” the G-d who emerged triumphant.

Shabbat Shalom.