Before I speak, I’d like to say something…
Actually, I’d like to say three things, which I will try to tie together. I suspect many of you saw the large poster when you came into shul this morning advertising an event we are running with AIPAC a week from this Thursday evening. I think it will be an important event, and an educational event about important issues facing the American-Israeli relationship right now and is worth attending. But, in addition to the educational value of the event itself, we are hoping that this event will increase our community’s representation at the AIPAC conference in Washington this coming March. The conference is important for the American-Israeli relationship and I do hope our shul can increase our turnout there.
Those of us who were at the conference last year, surely remember Pastor Chris Harris. His presentation was the emotional climax of the conference – he spoke about how an AIPAC educational mission to Israel inspired him to build the “Bronzeville Dream Center” to bring Israeli techniques for post-traumatic therapy and rehabilitation to young people in his Chicago neighborhood. This weekend, Pastor Chris Harris is asking for our solidarity and support. Pastor Harris is leading an effort for all churches throughout the city to be involved with an action to stop traffic between 1:00 pm and 1:30 pm on Sunday, December 7th to draw attention to the fact that Black lives matter and have sacred value. Chicagoans of all faiths can meet outside Bright Star Church at 735 East 44th Street at 1:00 pm….
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Our minds naturally think in dichotomies. We organize our experiences by categorizing them in that way. In our Wednesday evening Talmud class, we’ve been discussing the Talmud’s mention of the various “havdalot” dichotomies that are incorporated in the havdalah blessing, some say seven, some say three, our practice is to mention four – “between holy and profane, between light and dark…etc.” This way of thinking seems to be wired into our neural hardware.
The dichotomy between between physical abilities and more cerebral, intellectual, and spiritual excellence is a significant one and is a theme in the life of Yaakov. Yaakov is the yoshev ohel. He stays home and cooks rather than hunt with his brother. Whenever he is faced by the possibility of confrontation, he evades that confrontation and finds a way to avoid direct conflict.
This pattern began at Yaakov’s birth. He is born grasping the heel of his twin brother. Holding onto his older brother’s heel is a weak and ineffective assertion of primogeniture. Yaakov can’t claim the birthright from Esav through threats or intimidation, but he can manipulate his brother’s voracious appetite to claim the birthright. And then, Yaakov manipulates his own father to claim a blessing intended for his brother. Yaakov does not confront his father with the obvious fact that he, Yaakov, was a more deserving recipient of his father’s blessing, he gets what he needs without having to demonstrate any strength or risk any confrontation.
Yaakov is named for his grasping at his brother’s heel, the “ekev” but his brother gives Yaakov a different etymology for his name: “vayakveini – he has deceived me.”
Yaakov is himself outsmarted by Lavan, but in time, learns to outsmart even Lavan. Yaakov does not confront Lavan directly to claim what is rightfully his, he gets what he deserves through a sneaky trick involving sheep genetics – the first instance of genetic engineering in human history.
As our parasha opened this morning, Yaakov is preparing, after years of separation, to return to Eretz Yisrael and this means confronting Esav. As they prepare to meet, it is clear that Yaakov is, once again, in a position of weakness. Esav has an army of 400 and Yaakov has his family and a lot of sheep. He has a LOT of sheep, but sheep don’t fight. So, he sends gifts, prepares for a defensive war, and he prays. This is how Jews have responded to threats throughout the ages and the rabbis saw Yaakov’s preparations for Esav as paradigmatic of Jewish survival.
But, before he meets Esav, Yaakov has a mysterious encounter on the far bank of the River Yavok. With whom did Yaakov wrestle? Was the entire encounter a dream, as some commentators assert, or did Yaakov wrestle with a real flesh-and-blood person while awake. If it was a dream, how come Yaakov acquired a limp? If the encounter was real, how did any man have the power to bestow a new name upon Yaakov?
And, if, as the Torah tells us, Yaakov was “left alone,” how could he have wrestled with a mysterious man? Yaakov was alone and Yaakov fought with himself. Yaakov wrestled with his conscience. Yaakov wrestled with himself and confronted all of his ways of acting with his family. And Yaakov emerged with a new name and a new identity. He leaves behind his identity as a “trickster” – “vayakveini”- and takes on the identity of Yisrael, one who struggles – one who confronts directly.
The episode blurs the boundary between the physical and the spiritual. Yaakov engages in self-scrutiny and personal introspection, but kicks up the dust in a violent fight. He is utterly alone, fights with himself, and emerges with a limp. Perhaps Yaakov’s limp was akin to the limps that afflicted Freud’s earliest patients who could not walk normally, entirely because of psychosomatic reasons. Freud was able to prove that their paralysis had no organic cause – someone with a physical ailment would limp differently than these patients. In Yakov’s life, there are physical consequences of psychological processes and internal introspection manifests itself in fierce wrestling.
Another example of Yaakov blurring the boundary between the physical and the spiritual occurred when Yaakov and Rachel first met years earlier at the well. Yaakov is so overcome by love for Rachel, that he singlehandedly rolls away a heavy stone that had been placed over the well. Yaakov, until very recently, the “yoshev ohel,” the man who sat in the tents all day, is transformed by his powerful emotions into a physically powerful human being.
I saw how this can work, how ethical commitments can have physical repercussions, and how love can create strength, when I ran the half-marathon last winter raising money for Chai Lifeline. I don’t run very fast over distances that long so I had a chance to see a lot of what was going on around me and reflect on what I saw. A long-distance run is a wonderful chance to engage in people-watching and it was truly notable to see the number of charity-fundraising teams taking part in the half-marathon that day. And it was notable and moving to see the ahavat Yisrael, the Jewish solidarity among the runners and supporters of the various Jewish organizations – Chai Lifeline, NCSY Yachad, Chabad Friendship Circle and others. That encouragement certainly kept me running and gave me the strength to finish the race.
And, once the race was over, without that framework, weeks turned into months when I did not even wear my sneakers. Until…I began training again for the January 2015 half-marathon. Once again, I’m joining others from this community, hundreds of others from around the country, who are running a half-marathon the last weekend in January to raise money to support the life-affirming work of Chai-Lifeline. Our own “Team Cara” raised over $80K last year and we hope to exceed that amount this year.
Information about this fundraising campaign are printed in the shul bulletin. The support from all of you in the community is appreciated, inspiring, and crucial to this effort being successful. The ethical commitment to support charity is translated into physical endurance, our running is translated into dollars, and the love that we feel towards children confronting serious illness can give those children strength when that love is filtered through the sort of interventions that Chai Lifeline provides.
Returning to Yaakov, we find that his encounter with the mysterious man, or, perhaps, his encounter with himself, was a prelude for his direct encounter with Esav.
Despite his army, Esav sees Yaakov, embraces him and kisses him. There are dots written in the Torah over the Torah’s reference to Esav kissing Yaakov, and these dots fuel suspicions about Esav’s motives. Perhaps, some midrashic traditions assert, Esav’s intention was to bite Yaakov, but Yaakov’s neck was transformed into pillar of marble – that explains why Esav was crying – have you ever bit into marble? (The dentists here can explain for you what it’s like). And Yaakov was crying because his neck turned into marble (the orthopedists can explain).
But the midrash also contains the opinion of Rabbi Shimon ben Eliezer who said, “Surely each and every one of Esav’s deeds were motivated by hate – except for this one which was inspired by love.”
I always found this second approach to be more persuasive and to be more attuned to the plain sense meaning of the Torah. It is this interpretation, that Esav’s kiss was a kiss, and his hug was a hug, that has captivated the minds of some of the greatest Jewish scholars of the past two hundred years.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, writes with almost naive optimism, that the destiny of Yaakov and Esav is to reconcile and live as brothers. It is precisely Yaakov’s very weakness that inspires Esav to treat his younger brother with love. He writes:
“The allusion to weeping is a sure sign that what we have here is a revelation of genuine humanity. A kiss can be superficial but an outburst of tears is a strong presumption in favor of sincerity. Esav betrays his Abrahamic origins and reveals himself as not merely a cruel hater…When the strong respects the strong, this is discretion, But when the strong, i.e. Esav, falls on the neck of the weak, of Yaakov and casts his sword away, then we know that humanity and justice have prevailed.”
Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin, Netziv, who harbored no illusions about the children of Esav among whom he lived in Czarist Russia, has an even deeper understanding of the encounter between Yaakov and Esav:
“Both wept, implying that Yaakov love too was aroused towards Esav. And so it is in all ages. Whenever the seed of Esav is prompted by sincere motives to acknowledge and respect the seed of Israel, then we too are moved to acknowledge Esav, for he is our brother.”
Nechama Leibowtiz, perhaps the greatest scholar of parshanut in the 20th century, pointed out that the Netziv, “was not impressed by the weeping of Esav but by that of Yaakov, who in spite of all that he had suffered at the hands of his brother, was ready to let bygones by bygones, so long as the smallest gesture of sincerity was forthcoming.”
And this is the question that confronts us today. There is no shortage in the world today of people marching against each other in hatred. There is no shortage of brothers refusing to act towards each other with brotherhood. And, after a week like this past one, the same is true here in the United States. There is no shortage of examples of those with power, leveraging their power with violence, or the threat of violence, to take advantage of those who are weak. And there is no shortage of those who are weak, reacting to their oppression with hatred and resentment. But reconciliation is possible.
The responsibility for reconciliation must rest first upon the shoulders of the one who has more power in any dynamic. And of course having power is relative. Each one of us has power and leverage over others, even as others exercise power over us. Power operates in a interconnected web of relationships. The first step towards acting with ethics and with justice is recognizing and acknowledging when and where we do have power. When those with power acknowledge and respect those who are weak, then, as Netziv wrote, “we too are moved to acknowledge Esav, for he is our brother.”
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 