Shabbat Shalom, December 4, 2009

Struggle is a common theme in life. There are moments that we struggle with adversities of all sorts, times we struggle with others and those experiences of internal struggle. Sometimes it is a condition or travail that causes anguish, and other times a relationship or interaction with another person that creates difficulty. In short, life is not easy, and nobody promised that it would be.

In this week’s parashah, Vayishlach, our patriarch Jacob returns home to Canaan after a 20-year exile at the home of his father, Laban, where he married, raised a family, and acquired wealth. Now he returns to his birthplace and to his brother Esau’s neighborhood. When they left off twenty years earlier, Jacob had just received the blessing of the firstborn from his father, infuriating Esau, who in fact, was the firstborn. Now, Jacob wonders whether he will encounter a brother who welcomes him with open arms or one who greets him with closed fists.

During the night prior to their meeting, Jacob famously struggles with “a man” all night long, and when dawn breaks and neither one has prevailed, Jacob asks his opponent for a blessing. He is blessed with a new name, Israel, because he is one who has struggled with beings human and divine (it makes sense in Hebrew – it’s a word play). Who is this man? Is he actually a human assailant – Esau, perhaps? Or is it a manifestation of God – the name change suggests that he struggled with a divine being? Or something else?

The commentators of our tradition are of mixed opinion. Some suggest he struggled with his brother Esau, others think it is God, or an angel of God. A “compromise” answer yields Esau’s guardian angel. Yet a different interpretation offers that Jacob did not struggle with anyone else but himself. In the lonely darkness, he confronted the realities of his life: he acquired his father’s blessing deceitfully; he fled his home; he manipulated his father-in-law’s flocks in order to boost his own wealth. And now he has returned home and he struggles with his identity: will he perpetuate the traits that have become characteristic of his personality, or will he make a change? By morning, the choice is clear: Jacob takes on a new identity, symbolized by his name change. He will no longer be known as the deceiver (perhaps a word play on his name, Ya-akov), but he will be Yisrael – the one who struggles and engages with God. Perhaps these struggles will lead him to a positive, meaningful and important future.

And so may it be for all of us, as well. The struggles will always be there. Hopefully we will grow and benefit from them.

Shabbat shalom.