Vayishlah

Jacob is a particularly compelling ancestor for contemporary Jews because he is so very human. Just think of the words that come readily to mind as descriptions of his character: heel, trickster, schemer, cheat. The man exhibits courage from time to time. He can be noble, loving, wise. We have seen his depths. But he is often so much less than he could be. The Rabbis imagined Jacob studying Torah all day while his brother, Esau, was out hunting game (and see him pausing just long enough from the holy books to put the soup on for dinner), but that is not the way we see Jacob. We are not sure whether or not Rebecca ever told Jacob about God’s promise that he, her younger son, would eventually supplant and rule his older brother. But we certainly watch Jacob with awe as he moves swiftly to acquire the birthright from Esau and steal the blessing. The Torah lavishes unusual detail on the story of how Jacob outmatches his uncle and father-in-law, Laban, in deception, but also makes us witness to the moment at the beginning of Jacob’s journey to the old country () when God affirms that Jacob and his descendants will inherit the promises made to his grandfather Abraham: land, fertility, protection, the ability to bless and be blessed by others, the gift of God’s enduring presence. He is a man of many parts and little wholeness.

I don’t know about you, but I treasure Jacob’s very human response to God’s promise, at once an example of the very best of which we mortals are capable and of behavior that is transparently limited and self-serving. You do all this for me, Jacob tells God—you bring me home in one piece, you feed me and protect me—and I (who owe my very life to you!) will give back 10 percent and have you be my God! By normal human standards, the tithe seems generous, as indeed it is. By God’s standards and the Torah’s, however, given that we owe absolutely everything to God and own absolutely nothing, the offer looks quite different. The description given of Jacob at the start of this week’s portion is precious to me for the very same reason. The man who has just bested Laban with God’s help; who has escaped from Laban’s clutches with both his wives and all his children; who carries with him the promise that God will protect him as he now heads home and prepares to encounter the brother whom he wronged so grievously many years ago—this man Jacob, the Torah tells us (), “was very afraid and distressed.”

The Rabbis are both incredulous and understanding: incredulous that God’s chosen vessel for the covenant should fear his brother at this moment despite God’s promise of protection; understanding of that fear because, as one particularly astute midrash points out (), fear comes naturally to human beings. Moses too is afraid, as he prepares to fight Og, king of Bashan (), even though he bears a promise of divine protection and has just defeated Sihon, king of the Amorites, as Jacob had just defeated Laban. The ancestors, like us, are mortals. They too have a lot to lose. Indeed, their encounters with “the living God,” far from immunizing them against fear, only make them treasure life all the more and so give them more to fear. Picking up on both words used to mean “fear” in this verse,  adds another layer of explanation: Jacob feared that he might be killed and was distressed that he might kill others (or, I would say, be responsible for their deaths). Jacob has been guilty of great wrongs in the course of his life. He desperately wants to be in the right from now on. He knows from experience that fear and vulnerability sometimes lead us to compromise of virtue. Put another way: Jacob wants to maximize the part of him that is Israel and minimize the part that is Jacob. Fear takes him in the opposite direction. He does not want to go there.

The Torah knows that its readers have much to fear and ample reason to fear it. We walk the streets, going about our daily business, as if we feared nothing, but that is often not the case. There are moments when adrenaline and courage rise to meet an imminent challenge—as when Jacob confronts Esau in this week’s parashah—and there are moments of quiet trepidation: a visit to the doctor, for example, or a conference in the principal’s office about a troubled child, or an interview that will determine if we get the job, the security that it entails, and the self-respect with which it is bound up.

I asked a 91�첥 rabbinical student who teaches teenagers to ask them what they most fear. “Letting people down,” said one. “I feel like I have a lot of stress nowadays and I have a lot of people I NEED to make proud.” Such fear of failure is widespread among teens. The college application process is a time of particular anxiety. Love sometimes seems conditional on achievement: fail to be the person your parents and your friends want you to be, and perhaps they won’t love you as much or will not love you at all. (God’s “chosen people” have had this problem from time to time, aggravated by prophets who warned Israel that God was not pleased with them and by disasters that seemed to be proof of that displeasure.) One 20-something, when asked what that age-group fears, said this: “What are we not afraid of is probably a better question. I personally am afraid that I am not on the right path or that I don’t know what the right path is. I’m afraid that I’m not enjoying these years that are supposed to be so ‘enjoyable’ enough. I’m afraid that I’m going to be lonely or unhappy.” And then there are the times when those sorts of fears vanish, or seem small, in the face of immediate threats to health or life itself. We all learn to live with fear, if we are lucky. We cross the river, as Jacob does. We throw ourselves into life, which surrounds and contains fear with joy and blessing. We are filled with gratitude for what we most fear to lose.

I could not help but think as I read Jacob’s story this year that American Jewry is once more engrossed by the specter of its own diminishment and disappearance. Jacob feared the death of his family—the covenant family—at the hands of a vengeful brother. We fear the death of our community—the covenant community, or a substantial portion of it—at the hands of disinterest in the tradition of the ancestors. We worry that the story might soon find its place in “Bible as Literature” courses, but not be translated into the stuff of life, ethics, law, and policy. I think that Jacob has a lot to teach us about this as well. Watch him as he summons his courage, strategizes the best he could to meet the situation, and then sets out to meet his brother. He survives intact the encounter he had so much feared—and he knows enough about life by this point, and about God’s covenant, to know that other challenges await: losses and sufferings mixed with immense joys and blessings, with God’s protection there to guide him along the way, but not to save him from fear or what occasions fear. Jacob earns the name of Israel the hard way, the only way: by living it. May this be true of us as well. I, for one, am grateful for his example, and his company, as I too walk the path of Torah.

This commentary was originally published in 2013.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee and Harold (��”l) Hassenfeld.

And, while we’re on the subject, did Esau have anything to fear from Jacob? That’s not at all far-fetched. Jacob had, after all, shown himself in the past to be unscrupulous and uncaring about his brother. And he just may have heard about the many grown sons of Jacob, some of whom were tough guys, able to take down an entire city, as it later turned out. It was an explosive moment as they approached each other, each fearing the other, and expecting the worst. The rabbis tell us that when Esau ran to Jacob and embraced him and kissed him, it was a moment of divine intervention, in which Esau’s hatred was miraculously turned to love, despite himself. Well, there was no doubt a miracle here, but given Jacob’s deep-seated fear, it seems that the miracle was rather that Jacob did not interpret Esau’s running towards him as an act of war, and have his sons, in concert with him, shoot a barrage of arrows at his brother and his men. What horrors could that scene have eventuated in? And yet, we have to recognize that given all the ingredients of panic, it is, indeed, a miracle that blood was not shed that day.

Both as Americans and as Jews concerned with and connected to Israel, we are not strangers to how mutual and pervasive fear and mistrust across the lines of race, across the lines of policers and the policed, across the lines of occupiers and the occupied, create the conditions for tragedy and the perpetuation of hostility. And miraculous escapes, of the kind the Torah treats us to in Vayishlah, have neither been forthcoming nor very readily imaginable. (I should add that I do not speak here of the unfathomable crimes of October 7 itself; those are in a category by themselves, and the impulses behind the unique cruelty of which human beings are capable are things I will likely ponder without success for the rest of my life.) 

 A story about fear and suspicion: almost 20 years ago, I traveled with a group of families from my synagogue to Eastern Europe, and we spent Shabbat in Budapest. We had a definite plan for where we would worship on Shabbat morning (the Dohány Street Synagogue), but Friday night worship plans were left open. Now we were accompanied by a local “docent”—a very kind and knowledgeable Jewish woman from Budapest. And when I made what seemed like a natural suggestion on a fair summer evening, “why don’t we just go across the street to the public park and sit on the grass and pray there?”, our Hungarian friend kind of blanched, and said that she did not think that was a good idea. When I asked her why, she couldn’t quite say, but it was clear she was anxious about it. We managed to allay whatever fears she had, and we went to pray in the park. About halfway through the tefillah, we noticed that a group of police officers had gathered a short distance away, and they were watching us, and talking to one another.  Finally, they began to approach us. What was this about? We didn’t know, but it was clear to me that my reflexes and those of our Hungarian friend were quite different. I wasn’t sure what they would say to us, but I didn’t feel threatened. She apparently did. And when they strongly suggested to us that we might be more comfortable in a corner of the park where there was less human traffic, I more or less took that at face value. Maybe I was being naive—I do not know to this day. But the essential point is that police officers trying to be helpful is part of my daily experience as a white American. Our friend, living in Budapest over many turbulent decades, was not taught in the same way that “the police officer is primarily your friend.” We finished praying just fine in the corner of the park to which we obediently moved. But the incident made vivid for me at that moment how our experiences craft our lenses, especially those through which we see uniformed authority, and those lenses get case-hardened, such that what may look entirely neutral and innocent to one person may trigger all sorts of panic in another. Add to that the reality—which was not the case on that Leil Shabbat in Budapest—that there are often reasons why police officers or soldiers might also have experiences generating fear and terror for them. Consider all of this, and you begin to understand something: that when people talk about the need for communication and understanding, the need for more sophisticated training and mentoring for police officers and soldiers, and the overcoming of the tendency we have to collectivize the “other,” they are not simply mouthing platitudes. None of it is easily done, but it is crucially important.

Black Americans, Palestinian Israelis and those in the West Bank—given their experiences, and the natural mental projections to which they give rise—have also, like our friendly guide in Budapest, not learned at their parents’ knees the mantra “the police officer or the soldier is your friend.” Their not-unrealistic suspicion also begets suspicion and fear in those facing them. And we, as Jews, should be able to understand that. If we are honest with ourselves, we cannot avoid the conclusion that, given the traumas in our own history, we do not always approach those who are different—and especially those who have power over us or who can otherwise harm us—with a neutral demeanor, free of fear and suspicion.

 What Jacob’s story teaches us is this above all: that there is a terrible and dangerous deficit of understanding, and of trust, and of generous faith, in what we assume are the motives of those who look, talk, and live differently from us. And this is what urgently needs to be addressed. The public figures who have said so are not giving us bromides. They are speaking the truth, though it will not be easy to accomplish it. First and foremost, because it requires us to go beyond our comfort zone, and beyond the ingrained fears we may not even know we have. It takes honesty, determination, and courage. Not miracles.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l). 

Vayishlah

All the Class of 2024 Senior Sermons

Dinah’s story is often overlooked in a parashah rich with other narratives that are easier and more pleasant to explore. But this is not a time to shy away from difficult stories or avoid stories of sexual violence. Shabbat Vayishlah can be an opportunity for our communities to center the stories of women and girls in their fullness and explore the ways our communities can become communities of support.

Dinah is a singular character in Genesis. The only named daughter born to Jacob, her existence is something of a paradox in the Torah. Her whole story is contained in two verses. Far more attention is given to the story of her brothers’ avenging of her rape than the story of the rape itself. We know nothing of Dinah’s story before or after. Dinah herself never speaks.

וַתֵּצֵ֤א דִינָה֙ בַּת־לֵאָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר יָלְדָ֖ה לְיַעֲקֹ֑ב לִרְא֖וֹת בִּבְנ֥וֹת הָאָֽרֶץ׃

Now Dinah, the daughter of Leah, who she bore to Jacob, went out to visit the daughters of the land.

(Gen. 34:1)

Why is she named in this way? Rashi, citing several midrashim in Bereishit Rabbah, comments that this is to emphasize that she has inherited an undesirable characteristic of Leah’s. Like her, Dinah is called a “�ⲹ�ٳ����Ծ���—one who likes to go out,” since Leah went out to meet Jacob to seduce him with the mandrakes (Gen. 30:16). This is in contrast to the women in Jacob’s family of origin, Sarah and Rebecca, who traditionally stayed in their tents. Ramban explains the reference to Jacob is to draw the connection to Dinah’s brothers, Simeon and Levi, who will avenge her. In these explanations, Dinah is blamed for her rape, as women often are.  The focus is then diverted to her brothers’ vengeance; their interpretation of what happened to her, and their decision of how to react. We never hear from Dinah again.

In her introduction to Dirshuni: Contemporary �´dz����’s Midrash, Tamar Kadari elucidates the limitations of midrashim written by men in a time when women’s lives and women’s agency were understood through a very narrow lens. She writes that these perspectives express “mistaken understandings of God’s will and intentions . . .. This is not what God truly wants.” In these cases, we may need to depart from classical rabbinic literature and create new interpretations.

How do we discern God in Dinah’s story? We can start by not blaming her. As Noya Sagiv notes in her commentary in Dabri Torah: Israeli Women Interpret the Torah, Abravanel is one of the only classical voices who comes to Dinah’s defense, claiming that the comparison to Leah is actually meant as praise. In her midrash in Dirshuni, Rivkah Lubitch offers a few alternative readings. If it is Dinah’s “going out” which likens her to Leah, Lubitch suggests it is referring to going out for an act of mitzvah (proactively seeking procreation with Jacob).  Going out also makes her like her father (Gen. 28:10) who went out on account of his brother, Esau; likewise, she went out “on account of her brothers, to find a place for herself. Dinah, Lubitch writes, knew her place wasn’t with her brothers, “and went out to see the daughters of the land. As it says, ‘Either friendship or death.’” Dinah was isolated, the only sister among brothers, and went out seeking friendship among the women of the land.

Lubitch also expounds on Dinah’s silence:

Dinah was a quiet person and had no voice. Why to such an extent? Because the members of her household did not listen to her and didn’t engage her in conversation, as the sages said, “Do not engage in excessive conversation with a woman.” And that is why she went out to see the daughters of the land.

Dinah was like a mute, as it says, And Dinah went out . . . to see. She went out to see and not to hear. What’s more, it says, he bedded her and abused her and it does not say “and Dinah cried out.” Is it conceivable that she did not? But it’s as if she was mute, out of the pain and the shame she hushed up and fell silent.

Perhaps this is one more way that Dinah took after her father. As Sagiv asks, “How is it possible that Dinah’s father, Jacob, was silent [after she was raped]?”

Many of the women and girls who were subjected to terrible sexual violence on October 7 have no voices—they were murdered or kidnapped or are suffering from unimaginable trauma. Those in the international community who would deny the sexual violence inflicted with such brutality on that day are willfully averting their eyes to further their own agenda at the expense of Israeli women.

There is another group of Israeli women who, like Dinah, saw and were not listened to: the tatzpaniyot, the spotters. For months before October 7 these young women soldiers, whose job it was to constantly survey the border with Gaza, repeatedly reported deeply concerning observations that they asserted were Hamas training for incursions against Israel. They were ignored and overlooked. And they paid some of the highest prices on October 7. Listening to their brave and insistent voices will necessitate an important reckoning on the climate for women in the Israeli Army, and on the Army’s state of preparedness before that terrible day.

All too often, women are blamed, silenced, and forgotten. Earlier in the parashah, after their dramatic reunion, Jacob says to Esau that seeing his face “is like seeing the face of God” (Gen. 33:10). Blaming Dinah for her rape, or obscuring her story, conceals the face of God. As painful and uncomfortable as the story of Dinah is, we must not ignore it or shy away from it. We must grapple with that text, and what it teaches us about the rabbinic understanding (or misunderstanding) of women’s experience and learn how we must repair what is damaged and missing. We must recognize that we see more of the story and indeed more of the face of God when we see every member of our community. In the name of Dinah, as Israeli women give testimony, we must listen, we must recount their stories, and we must amplify their voices.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

In this story, Dinah, the only mentioned daughter of Jacob, goes out among the women of the land. A local prince, Shechem, sees her and has sex with her. Following their sexual union, Shechem urges his father, Hamor, to enter into negotiations with Jacob so that he can marry Dinah. Deceitfully, Dinah’s brothers agree to Hamor’s proposal that Shechem and Dinah marry and that the family will continue to intermarry with the Shechemites. They claim, however, that they can only give their sister to a circumcised man. Hamor and Shechem agree and have all the male Shechemites circumcised, including themselves. While they recover, Simeon and Levi massacre the town. The chapter ends with Jacob complaining to his sons that they have jeopardized their clan’s safety, while the sons counter with the accusation that Jacob has not adequately responded to Shechem’s act.

And yet, Dinah is barely present in this narrative. She never speaks and acts only once when she goes out, in 34:1. Thereafter, she is referred to only as an object. After the brothers appear, she is only mentioned by name one time between verses 6 and 25. Beyond Genesis 34, she is something less than a character. She is reported as the last of the children born to Leah, but no other information is given beyond her name. In contrast, the naming of her brothers includes explanations of the meanings of their names. From the beginning, she seems to be an afterthought. After chapter 34, she is only mentioned again in the genealogy in Genesis 46:15.

At first glance, the story appears to be one in which the brothers avenge the honor of their sister, especially because their father’s response is tepid at best. The men in the story—Jacob, her brothers, Shechem, and Hamor—move around her, and act for and against Dinah, rendering her more of a prop than a character. But what is she propping up? The brothers’ actions, using the sign of the covenant as an excuse and a weapon (the command of circumcision given to Abraham not 20 chapters ago) to massacre the men of the entire town, are extreme. But they had an alternative. They could have conceded to Shechem’s request and married their sister to him, supported by the ancient social convention that allowed for a restoration of a virgin’s honor (see Deut. 22:28–29). The rejection of Shechem demonstrates that the brothers were not concerned with their sister and her honor, but rather with the implications of the marriage alliance. Hamor suggests (and his men agree) that they intermarry, become as one people, share their land, property, and livestock. In doing so, he offers to erase any differences between the two peoples, even physical ones (i.e., circumcision). In the brothers’ minds, the offense is his suggestion of intermarriage, rather than Shechem’s sex with Dinah. The brothers reject the alliance and see the threat to their uniqueness as a people as a declaration of war or worse, as trying to turn them toward idol worship.^[3] Dinah and what happens to her are a narrative excuse to make this point.

I’m not sure that I can answer the question of why this story is included among the Genesis narratives. Nevertheless, I offer the following proposal for how we might read it productively. We should not hold up the brothers as heroes, despite the readings offered by some Second Temple literature, which grant Simeon and Levi divine and eternal rewards (Testament of Levi, Jubilees 30), while indicting Jacob for not protecting his family and willingness to exchange his daughter for financial gain. This is the accusation of the text in the brothers’ closing words, “Should our sister be treated like a whore?” (Gen. 34:31). We should not devalue the story by saying “that’s the way it was back then” (by then I mean the context depicted in the narrative and the historical context of composition), accepting that the story of Dinah was set in a historical context in which women were regarded frequently as objects and did not have their own sexual autonomy. “That’s the way it was back then” does not need to be apologetic but instead can be empowering. We can highlight where we can identify patriarchy in the text—in a narrative that does not care about the feelings and trauma of its daughter, who is silenced by the men around her and the text itself. Reading this story publicly each year, even if it challenges us to wonder why it is included, reminds us that the worlds described in the Torah are not necessarily the worlds that we want to inhabit. Instead, we should strive to inhabit a world in which we listen to the voices of victims, in which we deal honestly, and in which we use our identity with pride and do not wield it as a weapon of destruction.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

[1] Alison L. Joseph, “Understanding Genesis 34:2: ‘Innâ,” Vetus Testamentum 66:4 (2016): 663–68; “Who is the Victim in the Dinah Story?,” TheTorah.com, November 30, 2017, http://thetorah.com/who-is-the-victim-in-the-dinah-story/; “‘Is Dinah Raped?’ Isn’t the Right Question: Genesis 34 and Feminist Historiography,” Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Gendered Historiography: Theoretical Considerations and Case Studies, 19:4 (2019): 27–37; “Redaction as Reception: Genesis 34 as Case Study,” in Reading Other Peoples’ Texts: Social Identity and the Reception of Authoritative Traditions, ed. Ken S. Brown, Alison L. Joseph, and Brennan Breed (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020), 83–101.

[2] Michael Fishbane, “Composition and Structure in the Jacob Cycle (Gen. 25:19-35:22),” Journal of Jewish Studies 26, no. 1–2 (July 1, 1975): 15–38, https://doi.org/10.18647/734/JJS-1975.

^[3] Deut 20:14–18; 21:10–14; cf. Num 31.

Hearing this “Jacob was greatly afraid, and he was distressed, and he divided the people that were with him, and the sheep and the cattle and the camels into two camps. And he thought, ‘Should Esau come to the one camp and strike it, the remaining camp will escape’” (32:8). 

Translators and commentaries have considered how to understand the apparent redundancy or superfluity of “greatly afraid” and “distressed.” Further, they ponder the trigger for these emotions, especially since Jacob had just received God’s assurances. Through the commentators’ responses to Jacob, we can learn about what drives our own emotional responses.

A Psychology of Fear

Rashi (Rabbi Shelomoh Yitzhaki, France, 1040–1105), who regularly addresses questions of superfluity, does not disappoint and makes a distinction between “fear” and “distress,” stating that Jacob “became frightened that he might be killed and distressed that he might kill others.” Rashi presents a psychology of one who is in a possibly dangerous situation and is doubly concerned: for his own life and for the ostensible ramifications of taking another’s life.

Fear for Self vs. Fear for Others

Beer Yitzhak (Yitzhak Horowitz d.1864, Yaroslav) expands upon Rashi’s interpretation, distinguishing further between the concern for one’s own life and the concern for taking the life of another:

“He [Rashi] resolved the issue of redundancy in his usual beautiful way: Fear and distress are both emotional reactions occurring as a result of some potentially troublesome outcome in the future. . . . Fear, however, is greater than distress. Therefore, he [Rashi] explained that fear is referring to the great(er) pain related to one’s [personal] misfortune in the future while concerning the misfortune of others the word distress is used. . .” 

Toledot Yitzhak (Yitzhak Karo, 1458–1535, Spain) offers a textual support for Beer Yitzhak’s interpretation, noting the lack of parallelism: “concerning the possibility that he might be killed, the text states that he [Jacob] ‘feared GREATLY’ while concerning the [possibility] of killing others the text did not state GREATLY distressed but simply distressed” since the act would be in self-defense. As the rabbis state, “if someone is coming to kill you, hashkem lehorgo, kill him first.” Nevertheless, as Divrei David (R. David Halevi Segal, 1586–1667, Ukraine, Poland) states, “it is still painful to him that by his own hand it comes to this.”

Danger to oneself understandably causes the greatest fear, but killing another person is a traumatic event, even in self-defense or where otherwise justified by the circumstances.

Radak (R. David Kimhi, 1160–1235, Provence), on the other hand, disagrees with Rashi and the others stating that the two words—fear and distress—highlight the extreme nature of Jacob’s fear. The repetition is a stylistic device of emphasis rather than reflecting two different aspects of fear. His comment is best reflected in the New Living Translation (NLT) where only one word, “terrified,” is provided in place of the two.

A Psycho-theological Interpretation of Fear

The Malbim (Meir Leibush ben Yehiel Mikhael Weiser, Russia, 1809–1879)takes a different approach and sees the two words as causally linked: “one who trusts in God has no need to fear humankind, meaning that fear indicates that one’s trust in God is not as it ought to be . . .” In Jacob’s case, “he was assured by God, he should not have feared . . . and once Jacob realized that he feared, it consequently distressed him . . .” In other words, Jacob was distressed because he realized that his fear of Esau indicated that his faith in God was deficient.

The Mei Hashiloah (R. Mordechai Yosef Leiner of Izbica, Poland, 1801–1854)                                              offers a psycho-theological interpretation similar to the Malbim’s.  Commenting on Exod. 1: 21, “since the midwives feared God, He made houses for them,” the Mei Hashiloah notes that the midwives disobeyed Pharaoh’s command to kill the male babies, and that “when a person fears another person, he has no peace of mind. Fear of God, however, has within it a sense of peacefulness. The houses God made for the midwives are emblematic of peace of mind . . . and when [the midwives] experienced this sense of equanimity because of [their] fear of God, they had no fear whatsoever of Pharaoh’s decree . . .”  This psycho-theological interpretation is a meaningful one on a theoretical level though implementing the lesson may be challenging; many of us tend to be overly concerned by the reactions and impressions of others.

A Psycho-political Interpretation of Fear

Keli Yekar (Shelomoh Efraim Luntschitz, 1550–1619 Poland, Prague) also addresses the question of why Jacob was afraid even “after God had promised him twice that He would protect him!” He suggests the answer can be found in the Talmudic passage “whoever flatters his friend, in the end will fall into his hand” (Sotah 41 b):  

Jacob realized on his own that he had sinned by flattering the evil one [Esau] by saying ‘thus says your servant, Jacob’ and by addressing Esau as ‘my lord’ by way of flattery; he therefore feared because Jacob knew such is the way of those who flatter an evil one:” in the end they fall into his hand.

Is this, perhaps, a psycho-political interpretation whereby one is being cautioned of the potential dangers of flattery and thereby revealing weakness to one’s enemy?

Immobilizing Fear

Finally, Bekhor Shor (Joseph ben Isaac Bekhor Shor, France 12th century) suggests that Jacob feared and was distressed because he did not know what to do. If Esau’s intentions were dangerous, Jacob would consider the possibility of fleeing. However, since Esau might be coming to honor him, if Jacob were to flee, Esau’s hatred could be aroused and cause him to pursue Jacob. On the other hand, if Esau’s intentions were dangerous, Jacob felt that he could not prevail over Esau and his 400 men. Therefore, Bekhor Shor concludes, Jacob “was distressed that he didn’t know what to do: whether to flee or to remain!!!”  He decided to split the people with him into two camps so that Esau “would not sense that it was being done” on his account. Have we all not encountered situations where we are unable to make a decision because we are uncertain of the correct path to take.

Vicariously Experiencing Torah

Reading the details of the Torah text sensitively, along with the insights of the commentators, can provide us with opportunities to examine personally relevant real-life situations and reactions. We all have moments when we are seized by fear and distress but the nature of and trigger for these emotions may vary. The commentators’ analyses of Jacob’s reactions allow us to consider when and why we have felt fear and distress in our own lives.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

The moment of reconciliation between the two brothers is destined to be a liminal milestone that allows each of them to move forward with a full heart. Jacob seeks to repair the breach by bestowing gifts on Esau and his family. Ultimately, Esau, after gently refusing, will accept Jacob’s gift. What does this material exchange teach us about these characters? And to what extent does this moving encounter give us a window into the journey that Jacob has been on over the last twenty years?

Regarding the encounter, the Torah relates:

And he [Esau] asked, “What do you mean by all this company which I have met?” Jacob answered, “To gain my Lord’s favor.” Esau said, “I have much (rav) my brother; let what you have remain yours.” But Jacob said, “No, I pray you; if you would do me this favor, accept from me this gift; for to see your face is like seeing the face of God, and you have received me favorably. Please accept my present which has been brought to you, for God has favored me and I have everything (kol).” And when he urged him, Esau accepted. (Gen. 33:8–11)

Note well Esau’s reply to Jacob’s attempt at paying reparations for the damage from twenty years before: Esau acknowledges that he has much. Jacob on the other hand makes a similar statement, but rather than the Hebrew rav employs the Hebrew kol—as in Jacob has everything.

Rabbi Yehuda Leib Alter, author of the Sefat Emet, shares a beautiful commentary on this difference in language:

The meaning of “all” seems to indicate more than Esau meant when he previously said, “I have much” (Gen. 33:9). But how can any person say “all”? Surely there were some things that he didn’t have! But for one who is attached to the Divine, whatever he has is “all.” For everything contains a point of divine life. In that point all is included. Thus the Midrash says, “all are considered blind,” with regard to Hagar who found the well. This means that all is really found everywhere, because everything contains that godly life. That is why God is called shalem because every point of divine energy contains all. (Trans. Arthur Green, The Language of Truth, 52)

According to this beloved commentator, Jacob’s statement is not simply about his material wealth but about a deeper worldview reflecting his relationship with the larger world and with God. Those who can root themselves in and attach themselves to the Divine have a sense of wholeness and equanimity. They relate to their own lives and the people around them with fullness and joy (even though they clearly lack certain things, like every human being). It is a posture of gratitude that people like Jacob project to the world. In contrast, the one who has much may be incessantly acquisitive—seeking more and more and failing to live within more modest constraints. A posture of much, the Sefat Emet writes, derives from “human hands”; a stance of all, of the unity connecting everything,  has its roots in the Divine.

Esau and Jacob, seemingly from the beginning, represent two different and opposing worldviews. Esau, recall, is described as “a man ensconced in the art of hunting, a man of the field,” אִישׁ יֹדֵעַ צַיִד אִישׁ שָׂדֶה ,and Jacob is called a “simple man, who sits within his home,” אִישׁ תָּם יֹשֵׁב אֹהָלִים (Gen. 25:27). Esau’s way of life is far more deeply connected with the physical and human realm, while Jacob seems to be the character more deeply connected with the spiritual and divine aspects of life. Though many of us fall into one category or other, most of us find ourselves, at different points, wandering between these two poles. Sometimes we are more deeply connected to the physical, and sometimes we resonate with the Divine. But when all is said and done, it is the posture of kol, everything, that we seek and desire.

Last week, we celebrated Thanksgiving—a time which typically (in non-pandemic years!) is devoted to family reunions and appreciation. How different the world would be if we could embrace a posture of unity, wholeness, and satisfaction. To eschew acquisitiveness and go forward with an attitude of generosity of spirit is indeed what our world needs today—especially now. May we be inspired by this sacred reunion between brothers and hold fast to the view of Jacob all the days of our lives, approaching our world and God with a sense of fullness and peace.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).