And Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Efrata, which is Bethlehem.

And Jacob erected a monument on her grave.

And this is the monument of the tomb of Rachel to this day.

(Gen. 35:19-20)

 

And Rachel died, and she was buried on the way to Efrata - the Sages interpreted (Breshit Raba 82,9), it is an honor to women for their burial to be in the place where they died, for Rachel died in Bethlehem, and she was buried in Bethlehem, and so we have found with Sarah, who died in Kiryat Arba, which is Hebron, she died in Hebron, and she was buried in Hebron, as it is said (Gen. 23:19): and afterward Abraham buried, etc. and we have also found with Miriam, as it is aid (Num. 20:1): and Miriam died there and she was buried there.

(Rabeinu Bahya, Gen. 35:19)

 

Scholars of the Land of Israel disagree about the correct identification of place of the tomb. The verses in Genesis support the traditional identification for many generations of a site north of Bethlehem. However, the verses in the Books of Samuel and Jeremiah provided the basis for a theory that quotes Midrashim and is supported by evidence, mainly that of Charles Clermont Ganneau, which place Rachel's Tomb in a site north of Jerusalem near the Hizma Junction, at the entrance to East Jerusalem. The Arabic name of the place is Qubur bani ishrail (the Tomb of the Children of Israel).

(from Wikipedia, and see also the article by Dr. Hagi ben Artsi in the Weekly Page no. 893 of Bar Ilan University)

 

"And we have found that in all cemeteries one builds a monument on a grave, but for Tsadikim one does not build a monument on their graves, because their words are their memorial, and one should not visit their graves".

(Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Mourning, 4,4)

 

 

"Not by might and not by force, but by my spirit."

Ephraim Hamiel

In our Parasha, the private story of Jacob and Esau becomes the story of the general future in which there is a struggle between cultures and nations. The eternal historical struggle between Edom, which represents political and material power, with an idolatrous component, and Israel, which represents the spiritual and ethical power of the individual, the family, and the nation, whose liberty derives from the liberty of a transcendent deity, free of the material that it created, just begins. For Edom, the individual is a tool in the hands of material and political power. For Israel, political power is a tool to for the spiritual elevation of the individual and the community.1

Before encountering Esau and his army, Jacob feels the natural trepidation that arises in any person who is in uncertainty and physical danger, and he quickly makes arrangements for his safety.2 For Jacob, whose personality is one that shuns confrontations, this fear is even more understandable. He is aware of the divine promise that he received, but in addition to the fear, which arouses him to action, it is clear to him that he must do everything that he is capable of, with initiative, with wisdom, and with a clear mind, and not sit still and do nothing, as he also did in Padan Aram. He knows that the fulfillment of the promise depends on his being worthy of it and also on the implementation of the potential of wisdom and initiative that the Creator graced him with for him to use. Jacob teaches us what the correct degree of confidence is. A person is not permitted to depend upon miracles and fold his hands sanctimoniously, like someone to whom everything is promised. Likewise, it is to be expected of him not to succumb to fear, not to flee from battle, and not leave those who depend on him exposed to danger. True heroes fear, but they overcome their fear and do everything they can to escape danger, and they hope for rescue from God. Only people like that have a chance of receiving divine assistance.3

Before the fateful encounter with Esau, Providence presents Jacob with a further challenge, in order to sharpen awareness of the mission incumbent upon him and on his progeny, and to prove to him that he really can confront fear, danger, and threat face to face. During the night before the encounter Jacob does not manage to fall asleep because of his anxiety. He rises in the middle of the night with the decision that had matured within him for tactical reasons, to bring his nuclear family north from Naharayim to the Yabok Ford to make a larger distance between them and the other camps, and perhaps he suddenly got cold feet and decided to flee. After bringing his family and most of his property across, Jacob remains entirely by himself, and during the whole night, a mysterious man wrestles with him, one who represents the forces of darkness, who are opposed to the light, which is represented by Jacob. The purpose of the struggle is to strengthen Jacob for his meeting with his brother, and Jacob's progeny, throughout the generations, in their struggle with other cultures. The struggle symbolizes that of the Jewish people throughout human history, which has been a period of darkness and long exile for it. In the wrestling match the adversaries grip each other with equal force, and there is no victor, despite the superhuman physical force of the man, which is greater than the force of the mortal Jacob. Indeed, Jacob's physical integrity is injured, for at the end of the battle he is no longer stable on the earth, but he limps on his dislocated hip. However, his spiritual strength stands him in good stead. The man who cannot bear light asks the mortal to free him from his grip, "because the dawn has risen" (32:27). Toward the end of exile, spiritual and moral strength will gradually increase. The Torah does not tell us when we will know that the time has come for the rising of the dawn. Do the voices of liberty, equality, and fraternity, which began to overcome the forces of subjugation and darkness in the nineteenth century, symbolize its arrival? We have seen that the dreadful Holocaust came after them. Are the establishment of the State of Israel and the return of the Jews to their sovereign state in the twentieth century a sign? For the time being it is impossible to know, and it could be that it depends primarily upon us. In any event, Jacob demands a blessing from the man before he permits him to disappear. Only recognition by the nations of the superiority of the Jews' monotheistic, moral stance, and their enlistment in that cause, can free the world from the grip of the forces of darkness. Spiritual power overcomes material power and proves to it that not only physical force but also pure human values are necessary for the Jacob's divine spirit to flourish and not to be trampled by sensual-material force. Jacob now receives that recognition, immediately upon his return to Canaan, only by virtue of retaining his uniqueness, after not assimilating in the general human culture that threatened him and that will continue to threaten him in all his places of exile. According to the biblical view, the nations always wanted the Jewish spirit to assimilate among them so they could rule over all of human culture. However, the struggle will end differently, the Jewish people will retain its uniqueness, and the nations will accept its way and be blessed by it, as God promised to Abraham. The sinew that the man tore in Jacob's hip symbolizes physical vulnerability and weakness. Israel will always remember that material power is subject to the spirit, and so it will always preserve its uniqueness and strength. The prohibition against eating the hip sinew is a reminder of that.4 The man announces to Jacob that he is about to receive a new name, Israel, "because you have struggled with God [the wrestler] and with men [Laban] and triumphed" (32:29), and he blesses him. From now on two countenances will vie with one another in Jacob. On the one hand, there is the sophisticated Jacob, who survives and avoids confrontations, and on the other hand there is Israel, erect in stature and bold. The mysterious man disappears at sunrise, and Jacob calls the place Pniel as a mark of his rescue from the face to face struggle with a representative of the divine world.

1. See Maimonides, 32:26, S. R. Hirsch, 32:8.

2. As distinct from the view of Rashi, Rashba, Hizquni, Rashbam, and Maimonides, all of whom, respectively, base their interpretation on the Midrash, saying that Jacob is afraid of causing sin and that the promise will not be fulfilled, and he will killed, but according to Radak on 1 Samuel 16:2 and on Abarbanel 32:8, who is also quoted by Nehama Leibovitz, Investigations of the Genesis, p. 247. Cf. Radak 12;12.

3. See Radak 32:14, Abarbanel ad loc. And also Aqedat Yitshaq in his introduction to this Parasha.

4. See Sefer Hahinukh Commandment 3, S. R. Hirsch 32:25-27. Cf. Maimonides 32:25-26, and Abarbanel ad loc. The source for the this interpretation of the struggle with the man is in Midrash Leqah Tov, quoted by N. Leibowitz, Inquiries into Genesis, p. 257.

Dr. Ephraim Hamiel is a scholar of modern Jewish thought and teaches at the Hebrew University.

 

 

"And Yaakov was left alone" - Said Rabbi Elazar: He remained (he had forgotten) for small items. From this we learn that tsaddikim value their property more than their persons. And why is this? Because they do not steal.

 (Bavli Hullin, 91a)

 

"And Yaakov was left alone": Our Rabbis expounded 'alone' (ודבל) were written 'for his pitcher (ודכל), to teach that he returned for small vessels, to teach that tsaddikim value their property so that they distance themselves from theft - thus did Rashi explain. The intent of this is that the little children not be endangered en route by insufficient drink, and therefore he jeopardized himself by returning, and the adversary confronted him immediately.

(Rabeinu Bahya, Bereishit 32:25)

 

"Therefore the Children of Israel do not eat the sinew that is on the socket of the thigh" This is to say that it is right that the Children of Israel be fined and punished by the prohibition against eating that sinew, for they left their father alone, as is written "And Yaakov was left alone". They were brave men, and they should have waited for their father to help him if necessary, yet they did not accompany him and because of them he was injured, and from here on this will be a remembrance and they will be diligent in the mitzvah of 'levaya' - accompaniment - and therefore Yosef accompanied Yaakov.

(Hizkuni, Bereishit 32:33)

 

"And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn." - the torah's doctrine of warfare and its ethics of battle

 "And a man wrestled with him"; not Yaakov, but his antagonist, is the attacker; Yaakov fights a defensive battle. As long as night covers the earth, as long as man's consciousness is dim, and things are confused beyond recognition to the point where it is impossible to ascertain their truth and their clarity, throughout all this time he may expect struggle and opposition - this is the content of that nocturnal experience, which is, in itself, but an answer to Yaakov's cry. He must wrestle with "the Minister of Esav"... dressed in royal garb, his sword at his side, and the struggle will continue until darkness departs from the face of the earth.

(Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch on Bereishit 32:25)

 

"And esau ran… And he embraced him... And he kissed him and they wept': is it possible to trust him?

And Esau ran to meet him... and kissed him": Do not read 'and he kissed him' (vayishakehu) but 'and he bit him' (vayinshachehu).

(Pirkei Derabbi Eliezer XXXVI).

 

"And he kissed him" - the word has dots above it. Should one suppose that this was a kiss of love? R. Shimon ben Elazar said: But were not all Esau's acts of hate at the beginning? - Except for this one, which was an act of love.

 (Avot Derrabi Natan II)

 

The word "and they wept" is a sure sign that we have before us pure human emotion. A person may indeed kiss without his heart being in it, but we can rest on the assumption that the tears which burst forth at such moments come from the depths of the heart; this kiss and these tears show us that Esau too was a descendant of Abraham our father, and not just a savage hunter, for how else could he have attained the rank of a ruler in the development of mankind? The sword alone, mere physical force, do not make a person fit for such status.

(From the commentary of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch on the Torah)

 

"And they wept" - Both of them wept. This teaches us that, at that moment, love for Esau stirred in Jacob too. And so it is down the generations: when the descendants of Esau are inspired by a pure spirit to recognise the descendants of Israel and their qualities, then we too are stimulated to recognise Esau, for he is our brother. Thus Rabbi Yehuda Hanassi truly loved the Emperor Antoninus - and there are many more such examples.

(From the commentary "Haemek Davar" of R. Naphtali Zvi Yehuda Berlin)

 

 

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