Vayishlach: The Night Encounter (Contemporary Commentary)

Rabbi Dr. Erin Leib Smokler (from Noticing the Nekudah; Pathways to Discernment with the Sefat Emet, VaYishlach)

The Sefat Emet sees something else in Rashi’s words. Jacob’s representation of himself as a ger reflects an essential insight into the nature of at-home-ness. As Jacob leaves one temporary home (with Laban) and journeys back toward his ancestral home, he contemplates the spiritual power of rootlessness or stranger-ness. To be a ger is to be on the outside looking in; to inhabit the margins of society; to not be at home in the world. A ger is a newcomer, a passer-through, an unintegrated group member. It is one who is not quite at ease, not settled in their body or in their space.

The Sefat Emet picks up on this. When Jacob wants to communicate to his brother who he has become, he chooses one core feature of his being: He is a ger.

We humans are complex beings, comprised of body and soul, material concerns and transcendent aspirations, physical needs and spiritual hungers. We live in this earthly world (הזה בעולם ,(but are enlivened by higher worlds of supernal consciousness (העליון עולם .(We live between states, with our feet on the ground and our heads in the heavens, so to speak, rendering us full residents (תושבים (3 of neither. The Sefat Emet suggests that we ought to keep this tension alive. We ought to stay mindful of ourselves as foreigners, gerim, neither here nor there.

God as Ger

The essential spiritual importance of this stranger-consciousness is articulated beautifully by another Hasidic thinker, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim of Sudlikov (1748-1800), the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov. In his work, Degel Machane Ephraim, he comments on a verse from Leviticus 25:23: וְהָאָ֗רץ ל֤א תִמָכֵר֙ לִצְמִתֻ֔ת כִי־לִ֖י הָאָ֑רץ כִֽי־גֵר֧ים וְתושָבִ֛ים אַתֶ֖ם עִמָדֽי׃ But the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers (gerim) resident (toshavim) with Me (imadi).

In contrast to the simple reading of the word "imadi," “with me,” in Lev. 25:23 which takes our lot to be strangers relative to God, the Degel Machane Ephraim renders the phrase to mean together with God. We are strangers (gerim) and residents together with God, just like God. For God is the ultimate ger, the ultimate stranger in this world.

God is therefore a stranger who sits on the sidelines of the world, unable to fully enter-- rootless, unanchored to a place, unbound to the physical world. And so, says the Degel, the Divine is alienated from the very beings and things It created--alone, vulnerable, and misunderstood. In an act of subversive irony, God's infinite greatness becomes the source of God's infinite loneliness.

We too are gerim, just like God. Just like the Creator, we are ultimately rootless. Just like Divine, we are alienated from one another and from our environment. Just like the Ineffable, we often sit on the margins, unable to relate even to our own creations. Just like God, we are profoundly vulnerable. And just like God, we can be profoundly lonely.

So the Source of Life comes along--in the face of that unsettling awareness, that awareness of our essential unsettlement--and says: כִי־גֵרים וְתושָבִים אַתֶם עִמָדי You are resident aliens with Me. Together we can commune in our mutual displacement. Precisely through our consciousness of difference, we can join in solidarity. Like a person so very isolated in her unique pain who meets another who shares her story, let us connect in deep empathy. Let us be friends, whispers God, through shared experience. Let us reside together, mindful of our mutual marginality. The Degel Machaneh Ephraim, like the Sefat Emet and Jacob before him, invites us into an improbable relationship with the Divine--a Creator who is so essentially other and who asks of us to join there, in and through our own experiences of otherness and alienation. Gerut, each of our paths of stranger-ness, has the capacity to lead us to the strangest of them all: God the ger.

Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg Vayishlach: To Be the Deeply Defeated (from Connecting Inner and Outer Worlds; IJS weekly Torah Commentary)

This is oh, so very familiar – maybe not the running away from a murderous sibling thing – but definitely the anticipating an encounter with a difficult-person-with-whom-I-have-baggage thing. I can imagine the inner monologue taking place in Jacob’s mind as he contemplates re-entering a relationship that he hasn’t managed to skillfully navigate in the past: Will I be able to act differently this time? Will Esau act differently? How can I plan and script and strategize beforehand so that I’ll be prepared? Maybe this time I can be in better control…

I see in Jacob’s behavior so many of the ways I know I try to avoid facing what is scary or unknowable. If I can run around accomplishing things – posting articles on Facebook, attending meetings, hitting the streets for just one more protest – then I won’t have to feel my worry about the future. I build up defenses of busy-ness so I simply won’t have enough time or space to be alone with what’s really happening. It’s all about creating the illusion of control. If I can overcome and succeed at all of these small things, I won’t have to feel the big Presence of the Unknown that is truly bearing down on me, that I can’t overcome. At a certain point, I hit a wall. The fear or anxiety or restlessness becomes overwhelming, and there is a need for prayer, for breath, for a pause.

It can happen in the most mundane moments. I recently found myself reaching for a cereal box in the kitchen and catching a glimpse of how overwhelmed I was feeling. My mind was racing with Connecting Inner and Outer Worlds: Torah, Mindfulness, and Social Justice 3 plans and logistics, the phone in my back pocket was dinging away, I needed to eat breakfast, I wasn’t sure how I was going to meet a deadline, we needed a babysitter so we could go to a protest the next day, and we still hadn’t found a dentist or a pediatrician in our new neighborhood, and, and, and…my head felt like it was going to explode. Thankfully, I saw what was happening, took down the cereal box, turned off the phone, and just stood there in my kitchen, closed my eyes, brought attention to my breath, to the sounds outside the window, in the house. And then I felt it – the fear, the sadness, the worry, the not-knowing of this moment. A moment of acknowledgment was all I needed...

This is new for Jacob. In the past, his habit was to outsmart, outstrategize, or run away from the unpleasant. Here, he engages with it, and through this “wrestling,” Jacob comes “face to face” with Divinity, with truth. Perhaps that means he sits with the pain that he and Esau have caused each other. Perhaps he feels remorse for his past behavior. Maybe he even feels love for his brother. In the end, Jacob “prevails.” His opponent declares, “va-tuchal,” which is usually translated as “you prevailed.” However, a more literal reading would render this word as “you were able.” Jacob here is able to be present with the truth- that he is not in control, that he is vulnerable, that he can’t predict how Esau will receive him. Jacob doesn’t emerge unscathed - this wrestling hurts, and he is left with a limp. But he does leave the experience having opened to a new way of being. He has a new name, and he has received a blessing: in coming “face to face” with this truth, Jacob lets go of his habitual modes of defending and manipulating. The next morning, he is able to greet Esau in a new way - limping, vulnerable, humbled. He bows seven times on his way to greet his brother. Clearly Jacob has been transformed, and Esau can sense it. Esau runs to greets him, they embrace, weep and kiss each other. Jacob’s heart opens, and he is able to bless his brother, saying “to see your face is like seeing the face of God.” (33:10)

Rabbi Yael Shy Vayishlach: Angels Among Us (from The Silent Center of Things, IJS weekly Torah commentary)

Jacob finds his blessing in the struggle with the angel. He leaves the wrestling match a transformed man- in body, with a dislocated hip, in name, Israel, and in spirit : "I saw an angel face to face, and my soul was saved," he says (Chapter 32:31). He is closer to God. He is able to reconcile with his brother. He becomes spiritually mature. Rabbi David Cooper beautifully describes this transformative quality of angels in his book, Invoking Angels, and on his blog: It is said that every blade of grass has an angel hovering over it, calling to it, saying: “Grow!” The instant the angel calls forth a single urge to grow, it fades away. In the next moment another angel appears over the blade of grass, and it calls out, “Grow!” It too then instantly disappears, while yet another and another and another angel appears, fresh in every moment, urging the grass to Grow! Thus, every single blade of grass has untold trillions of angels attending it, urging it to live. So too every leaf, every living being, and indeed every atom has its angels urging it to move, to fly, to be whatever it is. Jacob’s angel shows up as his wrestling partner in order to whisper the “grow!” that Jacob needed to hear. Although limping and in pain from the fight, Jacob emerges as who he is meant to be – Israel – the father of our nation.

Rabbi Larry Bach Vayishlach (from Torah In Mind; IJS weekly Torah study)

Jacob is utterly transformed that night. He is changed physically, his hip strained from the wrestling. The name change is perhaps the deeper transformation. “You shall no longer be Ya’akov, the sneak, the schemer, the supplanter.” As explained in the text itself, the patriarch’s new name, Yisra’el, points to his successful striving with the ish who opposed him. But that etymology isn’t the only one embraced by our tradition. One Hasidic reading (Kedushat Levi on Gen 32:27) sees yisra’el as an anagram for li rosh. In this reading, the “wrestling” was more of a “settling,” as Jacob learned to let go of distraction and remain attached to the Source. He is able to connect “directly to God” (yashar el, for which we need not unscramble any letters, but simply re-vocalize them). This is a hindrance-free mind state, and it’s new territory for the patriarch. So Jacob named the place Peniel, meaning, "I have seen a divine being face to face, yet my life has been preserved." The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip (ibid., vv. 31-32). In place of the worrying and planning Jacob we find the sun shining on Israel. He is transformed, physically as well as spiritually, by his experience. He is Yisra’el...Yashar El.

Rabbi Marc Margolius Vayishlach: Kavod/Dignity Witmessing the Divine in Each Face (from Mindful Torah: Engaging the Better Angels of Our Nature; IJS weekly Torah study)

...the metaphor of a wrestling match in which we subdue the yetzer hara is an obvious interpretation of Jacob's grappling with the stranger. In tikkun middot practice we apply hitlamdut ,investigating the yetzer hara without judgment, acknowledging its power and exploring its roots. When we notice fear, we recognize and honor its sacred function: protecting us as creations of infinite value. We discern whether that yetzer, that fear-based energy, is serving its proper function or constricting us, blocking our vision, leading us to demonize ourselves or others. With this greater clarity, we steer the energy within our fear towards a wiser path more consistent with our yetzer tov,“ the better angels of our nature.”

Practicing Kavod towards others thus begins by acknowledging our difficulty in discerning the Divine Image in others, particularly those who arouse within us strong feelings of aversion and fear, who reflect and invoke our “shadow.” Like Jacob, rather than repressing or fleeing from these thoughts and feelings, we “lift our eyes, see, and behold:” we “wrestle” with them and refuse to let them go, observing them directly with as much curiosity as we can muster, without judgment, with self-compassion. Like Jacob, we dive deeply into our own yetzer hara, our wounded humanity, our own dark side, in hopes of extracting a blessing, a spark of light.

In these challenging times, many of us have a heightened awareness of the yetzer hara, the darkside of human consciousness. We are called to practice Kavod by defending against that darkness not only in others, but within us as well; to grow in discernment and wisdom, avoiding projecting demonic images onto the other, even while guarding against the presence of genuine danger. Even as individuals and as a society we reproach and confront wrongdoing in others and in ourselves, we remain mindful of and connected to the innate dignity of every human being, including ourselves, as unique, precious beings created in the Divine Image.