Drash - Parshat Vayishalach

I've led lots of text studies, but it has been a while since I've given a more formal 'drash'  or sermon.  Here's an advance copy of one I will give this coming Sabbath.  

Jacob, for some mysterious reason, decided to be alone after supervising the transportation of all of his goods across a river.  Once he is alone, Jacob has a famous struggle with a man or ‘Aish’  in Hebrew.  This ‘aish’ is generally thought to be an angel, as it states after a stalemate that Jacob has struggled with both people and divine creatures, changes Jacob’s name to Israel, and refuses to divulge his name. 

Why did Jacob decide to be alone at that moment?  I looked at the classical commentators, and found some answers that aren’t terribly compelling.  Rashi, for example, says that Jacob decided to cross the river alone because he left some small bottles behind.  Jacob was a wealthy man – surely a servant could have done that for him!  There must have been a more important reason. 

Why did Jacob wrestle with an angel?  Radak says the purpose of the struggle with the angel was to give Jacob a boost of confidence for his encounter with Esau.  A stalemate that left Jacob slightly crippled doesn’t seem like a compelling way to make someone optimistic. 

Rather than rely on the commentators, I’m going to share some of my own thoughts on these questions. 

Jacob had an awful life.  His father wasn’t so into him, his brother wanted to kill him, his wives tricked him (imagine marrying someone who conspired to get you to marry someone else!).  His sons tried to kill each other.  He wasn’t a passive victim, though.  When he summarized his life before Pharoah, he said  “Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life spans of my fathers during their sojurns.”  This is probably one of the most eloquent kvetches in the history of our people.  He was also far from a passive victim – his trickery with his father, brother-in-law, and brother shows that he gave as good as he could get. 

I think that he took some time alone because he is feeling doubt.  Imagine the feelings evoked by a new, uncertain chapter in such a life journey.  Perhaps, rather than confront his estranged brother that he so feared, he was tempted to run away to some other land.  Maybe he even thought about ditching his wife and children, and going it alone.  Elsewhere he would be anonymous rather than immediately hated.  He was also probably anxious about confronting the consequences of his first trickery, deceiving his father and taking his brother’s birthright.  Perhaps he had not explained what he had done to anyone else before; imagine the shame and guilt he might have experienced.  Of course, had he gone elsewhere, our people’s history would be very different.  Perhaps we would have inherited some of those oil fields, for example!  At the same time, Jacob knew that his destiny lay in the land of Israel, down the path of continued trouble and strife.  What should he do?

In such a bind, an angel appears!  I propose that the angel gave Jacob more than just an ego boost for an upcoming confrontation.  Rather it provided him with a greater breadth of vision .  I’m going to support my argument with a couple of remarks about angels, and then conclude.

Angels have a special role in Judaism.  I would argue that they are, among other things, a symbol of the ability to transcend our reality when we feel trapped, and especially when our future seems foreclosed.  Hagar encounters angels twice, both times when it seems her chance to have descendents is threatened.  An angle interrupts the Akeda’s bloody conclusion.  During Israel’s domination by the Phillistines, our liberator Samson’s conception is announced by angel.

Beyond the Chumash, angels in Jewish mysticism are thought of as messengers who live in higher planes of existence.  The world we live in, according to the Zohar, is where G’d is most obscured.  As we travel closer to the divine, where angels live, the infinite becomes more visible; language, divisions, boundaries fade and we approach the ‘Ain Sof’, the characteristic of G’d that is without limit and beyond understanding.  In the Zohar’s Idra Zuta Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on his deathbed described the highest parts of these worlds as ‘Uncountable, beyond general categories or calculation, and only captured by the heart’s unspoken desire.’  Angels allow us to transcend the world as we see it. 

I think Jacob’s struggle with the angel represents his own struggle with his journey.  His world, were he to continue on the path to Eretz Israel, seemed bound to continue to be confrontation and pain.  Contact with an angel allowed him to see beyond the narrowness of this vision of the future.  There was something to his journey, probably beyond his immediate understanding, which had to continue.  As far as he could tell, his life was all about deceit, limits, and betrayal.  The angel showed him the greater possibilities and perhaps even our people’s difficult but miraculous and glorious history that would emerge from his continuing this journey.  As the psalmist said, “I called to you from a narrow place, and G-d answered me with wide open spaces.”

I bless us that, when we feel trapped by life’s circumstances, we have the courage to refuse to be hemmed in.  We should remember that, in a world perhaps beyond what we see, these limits can fade away and we can triumph.  We should have the strength to remember that, even as darkness increases, our connection to the divine gives us access to infinite light. 

Shabat shalom!