Originally written December 5, 2020.
This week’s Torah portion is Vayishlach. I’ve never written a Dvar before, but I figured this week was as good a week as any to try it - especially with a portion as rich and full as this one. In this week’s portion, many things happen, but the most famous is the story of Jacob wrestling with an angel.
The night before seeing his brother, Esau, for the first time since he stole his father’s birthright, Jacob is overwhelmed with heavy anticipation. At this point, he has multiple wives, concubines, children, and cattle. He is assured in the life he has put together, and seemingly moved past the struggles he has endured. But the night before seeing his brother, from whom he stole this birthright decades ago, diminishes him.
Once more, he has a childlike anxiety, but for different reasons. He now holds things he cares about - his family, his property, and the narrative he has crafted about himself. This narrative is self-protective - that he is worthy of all that he has gained, that the pain of taking the birthright was worth it. As he confronts the most vulnerable parts of himself, his narrative unravels. Having to confront Esau makes him realize that he could lose control of the version of himself he has worked so hard to create.
So, he prepares for this encounter with Esau in several ways. He divides his family and animals into two camps, so if one camp is destroyed the other will survive. He puts together a selection of animals to gift to his brother Esau, to try and win his favor. And finally, he prays to God, asking for deliverance, saying he is not worthy of the kindness he has been shown, etc.
Nowhere in this preparation does Jacob prepare himself for the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation. All of his defenses are raised - he is either going to bribe his brother, fight his brother, or enter into a great unknown that only God is aware of. He’s not able to see the possibility that Esau could forgive him, because he has not engaged with the process of internal forgiveness. Instead, he has created a version of himself that is powerful and impenetrable, devoid of vulnerability and the possibility of change.
Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.
When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him.יֹּ֙
Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”
Said the other, “What is your name?” He replied, “Jacob.”
Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.”
Jacob asked, “Pray tell me your name.” But he said, “You must not ask my name!” And he took leave of him there.
So Jacob named the place Peniel, meaning, “I have seen a divine being face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”
So, in this scene, although it’s not explicitly clear in the English translation, Jacob wrestles with an angel, a messenger from God. So what is this moment?
Jacob is alone, and then another man appears, and the first thing they do is fight. There’s this inner turmoil and conflict in Jacob that is so wrenching, all he can do is fight it out. He has to wrestle with an angel, but who is this angel when he is alone? Some say it’s an embodiment of the past, others say it’s Esau, and some say, I say, it’s himself. And even when this angel-Jacob-memories-creature says, I have to leave at dawn, Jacob refuses until he feels like he has reached some kind of release, some kind of breakthrough.
The revelation, in this case, takes its form as a blessing and a new name. Jacob is called Israel, lots of baggage there, but we see the power not only of a new name, but this process of naming. In other words, a process of rewriting who we are and what our narrative is. This process is hard, painful, fighting with ourselves to understand who we are, and what made us that way. To really hold, really own, all the things we’ve done, good and bad, in order to come to the most complete version of ourselves, one in which we have multiple names, multiple narratives we tell about ourselves.
Only at the end of this wrestling match can we receive a blessing, really, from ourselves. In this conflict, this process of holding ourselves accountable, we’re able to embody the old name and the new name. The anxious, confused, agitated version of ourselves, and this angelic, divine, ethereal version of ourselves.
There’s a blessing practice I love, in which you offer yourself a blessing. You say, may I be safe and peaceful, and then you can offer it to other people, may they be safe and peaceful. At the end of the blessing, there’s a reminder: we offer these blessings to ourselves because there is no one more deserving of them. And as we wrestle with ourselves, holding ourselves responsible for our lives and our actions, and the narratives we create to protect ourselves, it’s also a reminder. We deserve to be blessed for the work of knowing who we are, and who we can be.
Amen.