Parshat Vayishlah

JACOB BECAME VERY FRIGHTENED AND WAS DISTRESSED; SO HE DIVIDED THE PEOPLE WHO WERE WITH HIM AND THE FLOCKS AND THE CATTLE AND THE CAMELS INTO TWO CAMPS... I HAVE BECOME SMALL FROM ALL THE KINDNESSES AND FROM ALL THE TRUTH THAT YOU HAVE RENDERED YOUR SERVANT, FOR WITH MY STAFF I CROSSED THIS JORDAN, AND NOW I HAVE BECOME TWO CAMPS.

(Bereishit 32: 8, 11)

 

Two camps

So he divided the people, to teach you proper conduct that one should not put all of his wealth in one place. Who do we learn this from? From Jacob, for it says, So he divided the people, etc. and it also says [Obadiah took one hundred prophets] and hid them fifty men in a cave (I Kings 18), and he said, "If Esau comes to one camp and strikes it down" - these are our brothers in the south; the remaining camp will escape" - these are our brothers in the Diaspora.

(Bereishit Rabbah 76:3)

 

...and he was distressed: see Jacob, when he was given over fully to the whims of Esau, who was coming to him at the head of an armed force - he divided his people in order to save something as a remnant.

So our dispersal in exile was also a means for our survival and success. Esau's sword could never catch all of us together at one time in one place. When our blood spilled in the west, our brothers in the east lived in tranquility, and vice-versa. "The Holy One blessed be He was charitable to Israel when He dispersed them among the nations" (Pesahim 87b); this is exactly what Jacob did in his time of trouble.

(Rabbi S.R.Hirsch on Bereishit 32:8)

 

The Price of Suspicion

Ariel Rathaus

Scripture itself hints that the mysterious "man" who wrestled all through the night with Jacob was an angel of God (as Jacob states: For I have seen God face to face and my life was saved - Bereishit 33:30). The opinions of the Sages were divided in regard to the angel's identity and the reason for his attack upon Jacob. According to one view, it was the angel Michael, one of the Holy One Blessed be He's established messengers to human beings and the purpose of the struggle was actually to encourage Jacob and to demonstrate to him that he had no reason to fear Esau: "Michael told him: ‘If you could do this to me, when I am one of the first among {God's] princes, how can you fear Esau?" (Yalkut Shimoni, Vayishlah 32:132). According to another view, the angel was the "Prince of Esau" (Bereishit Rabbah 77:3), and their struggle is to be understood as an integral part of the unending conflict between the two brothers and between the human essences and spirits that they represent (this approach became very popular thanks to its having been adopted by Rashi).

Whether the angel came to encourage Jacob or whether he is to be identified with "the Prince of Esau," there is no doubt that the struggle with him has an important narrative function in setting up the great surprise to come when the brothers finally meet. The wrestling match that lasts until dawn and the serious injury to Jacob's thigh would seem to foreshadow the coming conflict and to imply that the peace alluded to by the angel's blessing to Jacob cannot arrive without war and bloodshed. In this way the story again ratchets up our expectation of an outbreak of violence, which has already grown in the course of earlier passages. From the very beginning of parashat Vayishlah we find Jacob struck with fear and anxiety, planning for conflict. He sends messengers to placate Esau, he prays that God will save him from his enemies, lest they strike down mother and children alike. He prepares entire herds of sheep, cattle, camels, and donkeys as a gift sent to my master, to Esau. He gives his servants strict orders regarding exactly what they should say to his cruel and terrible brother and how the herds were to be led.

Behold the wonder! All of this pent-up pressure pops like a harmless soap bubble. Esau manages to surprise us - and apparently, to surprise Jacob as well. After all of the expectations of blood-shed described in many verses, and following the struggle with the angel, which also contributes to our increasing anxiety, there comes a simple and succinct verse which turns everything on its head: And Esau ran to him and embraced him and fell upon his neck and kissed him (Bereishit 33:4). Instead of spilling his blood, Esau kisses Jacob.

Esau's character as described in parashat Toldot also sets us up to be surprised. Of course, it is possible to maintain that Esau is portrayed in Toldot as an impulsive man who acts upon his momentary inclinations and is thus capable of demonstrating sudden and ephemeral affection towards his brother. However, we must not in any event discount the fact that he had planned to kill Jacob, even if he would have to wait until after Isaac's death to wreak his vengeance. As a result, his treatment of Jacob in their encounter was not foreseeable nor to be taken for granted. Esau's earthiness and coarseness do not lead us to expect him to advance at all spiritually or psychologically; there is a foundation for the derasha that derives his name from the word asuy ["formed"]: Esau was born covered with a mantle of hair, like a grown man. He was completely "formed" and assumed his final form from his first day. That form would accompany him throughout his life (se Rashi and RaShBaM on Bereishit 25:25). Could such a man, one "formed" from his early infancy, be able to change?

The Torah answers this question in the affirmative. The important lesson to be learned from the story of Jacob and Esau's encounter is that one must not rely too heavily on prejudices - people are liable to change and surprise us. R. Shimon bar Yohai's famous comment on the verse, and Esau ran to him, etc. seems to be intended to make precisely that point: "It is a set law that Esau hates Jacob. However, at that hour his compassion overcame him and he kissed him whole-heartedly" (Sifri, Beha'alotkha 69).

The dictum just quoted above is often brought as evidence of the eternal and inevitable enmity of Esau and of the nations in general towards Jacob/the Jewish People, so much so that that it becomes drained of its meaning and is rendered indistinguishable from the stance of R. Shimon bar Yohai's opponent in argument, who claimed Esau's kiss to have been insincere (Sifri ad loc). The truth of the matter is that R. Shimon bar Yohai seems to be teaching us something entirely different, and the dictum simply gives expression to the surprise felt by any normal reader upon reading the story of Jacob's encounter with Esau: while prejudice, based upon verses from parashat Toldot, says that it is Esau's custom to hate Jacob, the reality described in the story's continuation gives the lie to that prejudice, since when the brothers actually did meet, Esau honestly and truly kissed Jacob, since he was overwhelmed by compassion for him. Suddenly, Esau behaves in an unexpected fashion, and this behavior is sufficient to "overcome the prejudice, for he did kiss him whole-heartedly," as the NeTzIV Mi'Volozhin explains in his illuminating comments (Emek HaNeTzIV LeSifri, Jerusalem 5737, pg. 218).

Even someone who is "formed" like Esau, a man wicked from the womb, can change for the better - and not just for a short moment. Of course, the unexpected behavior of someone who changes suddenly from an enemy to a friend would not necessarily earn our trust in someone usually thought to pose an existential threat. It is not easy to become convinced that "there is someone to talk to." It is simpler and surer to continue distrust of the enemy and to be careful of him.

Scripture attests that Jacob did in fact continue to be suspicious of his hot-headed brother who had one promised to kill him; we see him asking Esau and his men to move ahead of his own caravan, apparently in order to leave him and his household an escape route in case of surprise-attack. None of us will condemn him for this natural distrust, but there are some among the authors of the midrashim who count as a sin Jacob's lack of faith in his wicked brother, a sin for which Jacob and his household were punished. Even before Esau fell upon his neck, Jacob should have believed in the possibility of his brother's repentance, but he did not have any faith in it at all: he hid his daughter Dinah in a closet because he feared that Esau would see her and ask to marry her. That is why Dinah eventually suffered the events that befell her, as Rashi writes on Bereishit 32:23: "Jacob was punished for his, that he kept her from his brother, for she could have returned him to goodness, and so she fell into Shekhem's hands." (The source of this midrash is in Bereishit Rabbah 76:9) Esau might have repented with Dinah's help, but Jacob, still wary, prevented that possibility.

The story of Shekhem, with its humiliations, violence, and bloodshed, came as punishment for Jacob's having doubted his brother's ability to change. At the end of the day Jacob, who had so feared his enemy Esau, finds himself in an ever worse situation, surrounded by more numerous enemies, as we hear in his rebuke of his sons Simon and Levi: "You have troubled me, to discredit me among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and among the Perizzites, and I am few in number, and they will gather against me, and I and my household will be destroyed."

the events that eventually befell Dinah" (Bereishit 34:30). From here we see that trusting enemies and the wicked is not always a matter of naïveté, as cynics and those of little faith would have it. Sometimes wariness carries with it a very high and even unbearable price.

Dr. Ariel Rathaus is a literary researcher and translator.

 

 

What was the Messengers' Answer to Jacob?

and he is also coming toward you: They [spoke] as if convinced that Esau is coming only to honor him and protect him on the way. Perhaps this was Esau's intent, and perhaps they understood from Esau's reply that he had no evil in his heart or hate towards his brother, and perhaps they also told Jacob all of the words of peace and fraternity that he had spoken to them. However, Jacob did not believe all of that because when he heard that Esau was coming to him with 400 men he became afraid, and Scripture did not want to write at length about the words spoken by Esau and the messengers since they made no difference because Jacob did not trust in them. And it appears (as is the opinion of my student Rabbi Avraham Hai Minchower) that Esau did not tell the messengers that he wanted to go to Jacob with four hundred men, rather they understood it from that which they saw and from that which they heard from his men. Esau was unaware that they thought this and so he was able to believe that Jacob did not know that he was coming, and that the herds were being sent to Seir and the people walking behind the herds did not know him, see verse 17. The word ve'gam [and also] means "we have performed our mission and it has also born fruits, for here he is coming to you."

(ShaDaL Bereishit 32:7)

 

Simon and Levi are brothers

This is problematic, for it would seem that they had acted with the consent of - and in consultation with - her [Dina's] father; for they stood before him, and he understood that they were speaking deceitfully - why, then, was he angry? Furthermore, it cannot be that he wished to marry off his daughter to the Canaanite who defiled her, and if all the brothers were partners to the deceitful answer - though Simon and Levi alone perpetrated the act - why did the father cursed the wrath of Simon and Levi alone?

The answer is thus: The deceit of all the brothers lay in their telling them to circumcise all males. They assumed that all the men of the town would not do so, and even should they obey their leaders and circumcise themselves, the brothers would arrive on the third day, when all were in pain, and take back their daughter from the house of Shekhem. This was the strategy of the brothers, approved by their father. But Shimon and Levi sought vengeance, and decimated all the men of the town...

Because the people of Shekhem were evil, and they considered blood to be no more important than water, the sons of Jacob wanted to take revenge by the sword of vengeance, and they killed the king and all the inhabitants of his city, for they were his servants, obeying his commands, and the covenant of the circumcision was considered by them to be meaningless, no more than an act of obsequiousness to their masters. Here Jacob says that they endangered him, as is written, You have brought trouble upon me, making me odious; later on, he curses their wrath because they wronged the people of the town who had said to them in his presence, And we shall dwell with you and be one people and they might have turned to God; and they reneged on their word, and perhaps they [the people of Shekhem] would have turned back to God and they killed them with no justification, for they [the people of Shekhem] did them no harm whatever, and this is the meaning of their weapons are tools of lawlessness (Bereishit 34:13).

(RaMBaN 34:13)

 

...And he was further angered lest people say that it was upon his advice that the act was done, and this - a prophet performing acts of lawlessness and plunder - would constitute a profanation of God's name. This is the meaning of Let not my person be included in their council - excusing himself by explaining that he was not aware of their intent as they answered deceitfully, and he was not counted in their assembly when they came upon the town and murdered them.

(RaMBaN Bereishit 49:6)

 

...Even the Holy One, Blessed Be He seems to present a problem, for one might come and claim: The Torah itself justifies their behavior, for what is written following the incident? The fear of the Lord was upon the surrounding town, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. Does not that miracle constitute proof that God approved of their action?

The Torah teaches and reiterates that miracles and omens are not proofs of truth. Pharaoh's magicians also succeeded in their magic... daily and throughout all of human history we are witness to the victorious arm of falsehood - but none of this proves anything... for - as a contemporary sage said - among the many and varied terms employed in description of God's attributes, we do not find the word "success."

(Prof. Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in the Book of Bereishit, 267-268)

 

 

Readers Respond

As an "obsessive" reader of Shabbat Shalom, I would like to give a big yeyashar koah [‘more power to you"] to all involved in this sacred work. Occasionally I comment on things that I believe require correction, but it is always out of complete identification and great appreciation.

A midrash from tractate Ta'anit of the Bavli is reproduced in the Chayey Sara issue of Shabbat Shalom. In the context of s discussion of the question, "Is it permissible to criticize the actions of the righteous?" the midrash is quoted as follows: "Three made improper requests, two were answered properly, and one was answered improperly... Eliezer, servant of Abraham, as is written (Bereishit 24) May it be that the maiden to whom I say: Pray lower your pitcher etc. Even if she were to be crippled, even blind!? Nonetheless, he was answered properly, and Rebecca appeared."

I set the troubling words in boldface; I feel that the editor must attend to them in some way. Shabbat Shalom is supposed to be an educational instrument. Thank God, in today's society our attitude towards physically handicapped people and people with special needs has changed in the direction of emphasizing their being human beings equal in value to other human beings created in the divine image. I would expect that especially when the possibility of criticizing our predecessors is being discussed that the editor would add a note of dissent from the attitude of the Sages as it is expressed here in the Bavli. In our view, a lame or blind woman can be a worthy wife.

Dr. Debbie Weisman, Jerusalem

 

Pinchas Leiser, editor of Shabbat Shalom, comments:

I thank our member Dr. Debbie Weisman for her response and comments.

As for the matter itself: it is clear that if the Sages were prepared to relate critically to certain actions of positive characters and thus emphasize their humanity. Thus they relay to us a message that our making certain criticisms of their own words or deeds does not lessen our appreciation of the Sages themselves. Rather it makes them very human.

However, I feel that at the end of the day, the term kehogen ["properly"], as it appears in the passage in question, should be understood as expressing the notion of a correct match between what is asked for and what happens in reality. That is to say - in contrast to Yiftah, Eliezer receives a "proper" response, i.e., one that matches his expectations, even though he "gambled." While we find the particular examples offered grating, they are of entirely minor importance in the context under discussion.