TBA Tribune - December 2024

VaYishlach
Gen. 32:4 – 36:43 

By Rabbi Gary Pokras 

This week’s parasha contains one of the most enigmatic moments in Torah. Jacob, having finally escaped with his family from the manipulation and oppression of his uncle Laban discovers that his twin brother Esau is on his way with four hundred armed men, presumably to extract vengeance for all the harms that Jacob caused him twenty-one years earlier. Given their history, Jacob has reasonable cause to fear for his life. So, he divides his family into separate camps, with the idea that if Esau attacks one, the others could escape. Then night falls, and the real mystery begins: 

“And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.” (Gen. 32:25) 

Who is this strange man? And why do they wrestle through the night? 

The sages argue about the answers, which is to say, we cannot know for sure. It could be that a random stranger just showed up and that they wrestled for no good reason. This answer is discounted by the majority, especially since Jacob refuses to stop until his opponent blesses him. I mean, why would he do that? Another possibility is that Jacob wrestles with God, hence the request for the blessing, and the blessing itself: 

“Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human and prevailed.” (Gen. 32:29) 

A third possibility is that Jacob wrestled with an angel, a messenger from God. According to Rashi, the angel was Esau’s guardian angel, which suggests that this was a spiritual battle between the two, before they would face each other physically in the morning.  

Finally, a fourth possibility is Jacob wrestled with himself, or rather, with his conscience.  

There is a fascinating Talmudic midrash which shares two opposing views about how Jacob saw this strange man. (Hulin 91a) According to one view, he looked like an idolator; according to the other, like a Torah scholar. Most of the Hassidic masters interpreted this in connection with the idea that Jacob wrestled with Esau’s angel, which they understood as representative of our enemies both physical and spiritual. For example, Rabbi Y.I. Herzog taught: “In our struggles with us, our enemies always use two means, whose aim and goal is the same. The one is brutal force, physical pressure (he appeared to him as an idolator). The other means is … spiritual annihilation,” by example of which he cites the required disputations forced upon us by the church and their scholars at various times in our history. These scholarly disputations were an attempt to prove their superiority over us through the lens of Torah.1 Similarly, Rabbi Avraham of Sochachew suggested these two manifestations describe the two ways that the Evil Inclination seeks to control us, saying: “The first is by openly enticing the person to sin, while the second is by camouflaging the sin and explaining that in reality it is not even a sin at all.”2 These Hassidic teachings feel especially relevant in a moment when we face ever rising antisemitism and uncertainty and they help us to understand (and defend ourselves against) the very real kinds of threats we face: physical, intellectual, emotional, and even spiritual. 

Yet, there is another point of view worth our consideration. Rabbi Amy Scheinerman wonders if, instead of being a manifestation of Esau’s angel, both the idolator and the Torah scholar represent a division within Jacob himself.3 What if we each contain within us the idolator and the Torah scholar, the urge to ignore or break from God and the urge to embrace our spiritual heritage? I think most of us have faced this struggle one time or another, and for many of us, it is ongoing. 

In VaYishlach Jacob overcomes his urge to idolatry and unethical behavior and as a result is transformed from Jacob to Israel. We are his direct descendants. This parasha reminds us that like Jacob, we face struggles both external and internal, and as the children of Israel, we have inherited the strength to prevail. 

VaYeitzei
Gen. 28:10 – 32 

By Rabbi Gary Pokras 

Jacob has been all about Jacob. Wrestling with his brother Esau in their mother’s womb, he got his name Ya’akov (heel) because he grasped onto Esau’s heel, trying (and failing) to prevent Esau from becoming the first-born son and receiving the benefits thereof. And Jacob was just getting started. 

“Sell me your birthright,” he tells Esau (Gen. 25:31). 

“Sit up and eat my game so you can give me your innermost blessing,” he demands of his blind father Isaac, tricking him into giving Jacob the blessing of the first born (Gen. 27:19). 

“Give me my wife,” to Laban his uncle (Gen. 29:21). 

“Give me my wives and my children … that I may go,” also to Laban, who to be fair, by then had himself tricked Jacob into twenty-one years of labor (Gen. 30:26). 

Jacob, so far, has not been the kind of Jewish role model we hope to find in Torah.  

Rabbi Amy Scheinerman teaches that Jacob’s focus on “me, myself, and I” is starkly contrasted by those of his second wife Rachel1, who was arguably the love of his life.  

This week’s parasha, VaYeitzei, relays how Jacob asks Rachel’s father (his uncle) Laban to marry her in exchange for seven years of labor, and Laban agrees. When the seven years are up, Jacob demands, “Give me my wife.” But Laban brings Leah instead of Rachel to the marriage tent that night, and Jacob does not learn that he has married “the wrong woman” until the morning. When Jacob confronts Laban to express his anger, Laban responds with a shrug of the shoulders and explains that the younger daughter should not be married before the elder and then offers Rachel in exchange for another seven years of service.  

Talk about family dysfunction! Nobody (except for Laban) was happy that morning. We might wonder, who are the real victims here?  

For Jacob, this feels less like victimhood and more like Divine justice. As he deceived his blind father, he is now himself deceived into a “mistaken” marriage.  

As for Leah, if she did not consent, then she is a victim in the worst way, forced into an unloving marriage. Yet, there is much to suggest that she was a willing participant in the deception. She could have said something to Jacob at any time but chose instead to remain silent. Plus, she went on to compete with Rachel for Jacob’s love. 

If she did not consent, then she would also be a victim here. Yet, the rabbis wonder if she too was part of the plot to fool Jacob. In fact, the story of Rachel’s complicity in the deception is detailed not once, but twice in the Babylonian Talmud (Megillah 13b and Bava Batra 123a). To wit: Rachel and Jacob both knew that Laban was serial cheater, so they devised secret hand signs through which Rachel, while fully veiled, could confirm her identity to Jacob at and after the wedding. True to form, Laban switched Leah for Rachel at the last moment, at which point Rachel thought: “now my sister will be humiliated.” So, she gave Leah the secret signs, and Jacob did not know it was Leah until the morning. The sages consider this proof of Rachel’s great compassion, loyalty, and modesty.  

Surely Rachel and Jacob could not have been more different. Jacob thought only of himself, and Rachel only of her sister. 

And, yet …  

I have long believed that the Torah contains a passive commentary, built right into the text. While the Torah does not specifically label the actions of Jacob and Rachel as good or bad, it makes sure that we, the readers, learn about the results of those actions. In that way, we can decide for ourselves who we wish to emulate.  

What happens next? 

Rachel succeeds in one way and fails in another. On the one hand, Leah’s reputation is preserved because as the eldest sister, she is married first. On the other hand, her humiliation is only postponed until the morning – when Jacob discovers her identity. One can only imagine how harsh and public his reaction must have been. Then he goes right to Laban and says: “What is this you have done to me? I was in your service for Rachel! Why did you deceive me?” (Gen. 29:25) Note the pronouns: nowhere in this complaint is there any sensitivity to Leah or to Rachel. Jacob’s only concern is for himself.  

Laban responds in kind: “It is not the practice in our place to marry off the younger before the older. Wait until the bridal week of this one is over and we will give you that one too, provided you serve me another seven years.” (Gen. 29:26-27) 

To put it mildly, Jacob’s marriage to the sisters, one loved and one spurned, did not lead to a happy family life.  

While the rabbis saw Rachel as a paragon of virtue, the Torah itself presents both Jacob and Rachel in behavioral extremes, and each approach led to profound pain and unhappiness. This passage does not ask us to make a false binary choice between total self-involvement and total self-negation. Instead, it warns us against both. There is a middle path, a healthier way, and Torah will provide us with examples.  

But that is another story.