Benjamin Zwarenstein – Year 7

Parashat Vayishlach

The beginning of this week’s parashah concentrates on Ya’akov’s reunion with his brother Eisav. It is the first time the two connect with each other in 20 years, after Ya’akov fled for fear of his life after he and his mother Rivkah tricked his father, Yitschak, into giving him Eisav’s birthright blessing.

Ya’a’kov is worried what his brother will do to him, so he sends messengers to greet Eisav with offerings of peace and hope. His messengers report back that Eisav is coming to greet Ya’akov with 400 men. Ya’a’kov is very worried that Eisav could be coming to hurt or kill him and his family, to get revenge.

To try and protect them, Ya’akov divides his family and all their belongings into two groups, so that if there was an attack, one group could flee while the other fought. Ya’akov removes himself from the group and he asks God to protect him as he faces uncertainty in what will happen.

We are then told that while Jacob slept, he had an encounter with what seems to be a messenger of God. The Torah describes it as a struggle, like fighting or wrestling. In the fight, the unidentified messenger wounds Jacob in the thigh.

There is a Midrash, a Rabbinic teaching about the text, where the messenger wanted to know how Ya’akov could keep fighting for so long, and he concluded that Ya’akov must be a divine being. 

People do not have this ability, so we can be overwhelmed and give up on the fight.

The messenger struck Ya’a’kov in the hip joint, and discovered that he was human.

From this we also learn about the prohibition against eating the thigh vein of an animal, which, is the only negative mitzvah in the whole book of Bereishit!

Although there is no direct prohibition on eating the hindquarter, the removal of the thigh vein, as well as a few other prohibited items, is very complicated and time consuming. Therefore, many kosher butchers do not even attempt to do this, but rather they sell the hindquarters to non-kosher butchers.

Just as we might think that the hindquarter of animal isn’t kosher because of something found in the Torah, rather than a practical reason, perhaps Ya’akov’s idea of what Eisav might do to him made him worry and put plans into place in case the worst happened.

Sometimes we need to understand the full picture to make the right decisions.

Kayla Orlievsky – Year 11/12

Ya’akov returns to the Holy Land after a 20-year stay in Charan, and sends emissaries to Eisav in hope of a reconciliation, but his messengers report that his brother is on the war-path with 400 armed men. Ya’akov prepares for war, prays, and sends Eisav a large gift (consisting of hundreds of heads of livestock) to appease him.

That night, Ya’akov ferries his family and possessions across the Yabbok River. He, however, remains behind and encounters a “person” with whom he wrestles until daybreak. Ya’akov suffers a dislocated hip but vanquishes the unidentified individual, who bestows on him the name Yisrael, which means ‘he who wrestles with the divine’.

Ya’akov and Eisav meet, embrace and kiss, but part ways. Ya’akov purchases a plot of land near Shechem, whose crown prince — also called Shechem — abducts and rapes Ya’akov’s daughter Dinah. Dinah’s brothers Shim’on and Levi avenge the deed by killing all male inhabitants of the city, after rendering them vulnerable by convincing them to circumcise themselves.

Ya’akov journeys on. Rachel dies while giving birth to her second son, Binyamin, and is buried in a roadside grave near Beit Lechem. Reuven loses the birthright because he interferes with his father’s marital life. Ya’akov arrives in Hevron, to his father Yitschak, who later dies at age 180. (Rivkah has passed away before Ya’akov’s arrival.)

Our parashah concludes with a detailed account of Eisav’s wives, children and grandchildren; the family histories of the people of Seir, among whom Eisav settled; and a list of the eight kings who ruled Edom, the land of Eisav’s and Seir’s descendants.

LIFE LESSONS: True Wealth

Ya’akov saw his brother, Eisav, for the first time after many years of hiding from him. During their childhood, Eisav was angry at Ya’akov because he thought that Ya’akov had stolen his birth right. Ya’akov now wanted to give Esau some of his flocks as a peace offering, but Eisav declined, saying: “I have plenty … let what you have remain yours.” But Jacob said: “I have everything.” 

I think there is a world of difference between Eisav’s saying he has “plenty” and Ya’akov declaring that he has “everything”. Eisav, caring only about his materialistic possessions, proclaimed that “I have plenty” because “plenty” is quantitative. His material possessions are what he saw as his net worth. If he would ever lose the majority of his possessions, then he would have plenty no more.

Jacob, however, who had his entire family with him, proudly declared, “I have everything.” Our most valuable and prized possessions will always be what money can never buy – our lives, our health, our families. For thousands of years, the wisest men have been preaching this truism. But why do we fail to embrace it?

In interviews with elderly people who look back on a life gone by, they speak dejectedly about how they should have spent more time with their families, taken better care of themselves, and certainly focused less on their careers. In fact, there isn’t a grave headstone that could be found that states that the one buried achieved great success in business, real estate, athletics, or the Arts. Rather, it proclaims the virtues that the deceased possessed as a grandparent, parent, sibling or spouse.

And this is the world’s most ironic paradox. While society, the media and the world-at-large shower accolades and praise on those who achieve business or personal success, when you pass away this isn’t at all how your life is judged – by man or by God.

Izacc Khedoori – Year 8

The story of Ya’akov is a story of a character who changes. When we first met Ya’akov, he was doing things like tricking his brother Eisav, tricking his blind father and tricking his uncle out of several hundred sheep. But now it’s years later and he hears that his twin brother Eisav, the one whose inheritance he stole many years ago, is coming to meet him along with 400 men.

The night before this confrontation, the Torah tells us, a “man” wrestled with Jacob until daybreak, and then we’re told when the man saw that Jacob was winning, he wrenched Ya’akov’s hip at its socket. Then the man said to Ya’akov, “Let me go because dawn is breaking,” as though he were some sort of zombie who can’t be seen by the light of day. Ya’akov tells the man that he won’t release him unless the man blesses him. But instead of blessing him, the man who injured him changes him, telling him “Your name will no longer be Ya’akov but Yisra’el,” which means ‘Wrestles with God’, because you have struggled with God and men and succeeded.

Ya’akov then asked the man what his name was but the man responded: “Why do you ask me my name?” and then the man leaves. Ya’akov understands that something important has happened though he doesn’t yet know what. He names the place Peniel or the Face of God meaning as he puts it ,“I have seen God face to face and my life has been preserved.”

As Ya’akov limps off into the sunrise, on his damaged hip, we see something in him that we’ve never seen before… humility. He then meets his brother Eisav. Before this wrestling match, Ya’akov probably would’ve avoided Eisav somehow. But now Ya’akov bows to the ground seven times at Eisav’s feet. Eisav falls on his neck to kiss him and the two brothers weep. Then Ya’akov tells Eisav, “To see your face is to see the face of God.”

Who is this mysterious stranger who wrestled with Ya’akov? The Torah goes out of its way not to tell us, of course. The most common explanation is an angel. I personally find that hard to believe because a few chapters back, Ya’akov met a whole slew of ‘angels’ climbing up and down a ladder and the text wasn’t afraid to tell it straight. Another possibility is that this wrestling match is a metaphor for Ya’akov wrestling with his own conscience. It’s an intriguing idea but the story is a bit too physical for that. Can any of you remember the last time your conscience dislocated your hip?

This brings me to who this mysterious man really is. I think it’s Eisav. This is a physical re-enactment of Ya’akov’s first moments, when, as the text tells us, Ya’akov and Eisav wrestled each other in their mother’s womb. Now Eisav has this opportunity to finish that first wrestling match knowing all that Ya’akov has done to wrong him since then, but also knowing how time and life can change what matters most to us. Eisav comes by night so Ya’akov won’t recognise him, but Ya’akov does know who this man is. He names the place Peniel because he has seen God face-to-face. When he meets Eisav, he tells him that “to see your face is like seeing the face of God”. Ya’akov knows at this moment that the way we see God on earth is by facing the people we’ve wronged by looking into their faces and knowing that we can change.