12/05/2024 Torah Commentary

The name of this week’s parashah is “VaYishlach:  meaning: “He sent forth.” You will find it in the Book  of Genesis: 32:4-36:43. The parashah revolves  around Jacob’s maturation and spiritual  growth. Perhaps the section’s most famous tale is  that of the battle between Jacob and what is called  in Hebrew “the ish.” The Hebrew word “ish” is a  complex word meaning: “a divine being,” or “another  person”, or even “oneself”. Due to the text’s  ambiguity, we are faced with an intellectual  quandary. Exactly with whom or what is Jacob  fighting? Is the text’s lack of clarity meant to force us  to wrestle with its meaning just as Jacob had to  wrestle with the ish? 

This tale also presents us, for the second time, with  the idea that Jacob seems to have a habit of  “holding onto or grabbing onto” another being. We  note that Jacob facilitated his birth by holding onto  Esau’s heel, now he wrestles with the “ish” and  refuses to let go until he receives the ish’s blessing.  (32:27). What is the text teaching us by this holding  on; by this wrestling match? Is the text teaching us  that Jacob has finally come to realize that he must  take responsibility for his future actions, that he  cannot ride on others’ coattails forever?

Reviewing Jacob’s life, we see a man who begins  life as a schemer. Now as he prepares himself to re encounter his brother by crossing the River Yabbuk  both physically and spiritually we meet a man who  has come to realize that in life cleverness is not  enough. Jacob must grapple with the fact that  humans must balance their need for the tangible  with their need for the spiritual. Does Jacob’s  wrestling with the “ish” represent this realization? Is  Jacob symbolic of every human being and the fact  that each of us must wrestle with our own humanity  and frailties? Did Jacob come to understand that he  need balance between the daily actions of life and  the eternal spiritual side of life? 

In this week’s parashah we note that in life’s  struggles between the sense of self-knowledge and  the knowledge of the other, Jacob comes to realize  that to find G-d one must seek G-d. Might this be the  reason behind his name change from Jacob (holding  on to another) to Israel (struggling with the Divine)? 

From this point until the end of the Hebrew Bible two  themes will be ever present, the theme of the “I” in  contrast to the “we” and the question of how do we  resolve the struggle between our sense of self and  our sense of the other, between the tangible and the spiritual? 

In this text Jacob had to learn how to trust in the  goodness of G-d and at the same time accept the  need to be self-sufficient. From that perspective  Jacob represents each of us. How do you answer  these questions? What do your answers tell you about who you are?