Vayishlach
Genesis 32:4-36:43
[Hosea 11.7-12:12]
Ovadia 1:1-21
This week’s Torah portion, Parashat Vayishlach, brings us a rich and complex tale of reconciliation. Somehow, it had become clear that it was time to end the years of rivalry, deception, murderous rage and exile: It was time for Jacob (Ya’akov) to come home and face his brother.
The story that follows tells us a great deal about what it takes to make reconciliation possible.
The trouble is, although Jacob has come of age in Paddan Aram, he is in many ways the same person that he had been. An aggressive trickster from birth, Jacob is a master of strategy, manipulation, and bargaining, skills that he honed still further as he raised his own family in Lavan’s household.
We know nothing of how Esau may have changed; Jacob has reason to believe that the brother he will find will be just an older version of the bullish, impulsive and volatile young man he had left behind. Yet Jacob is now an adult, an accomplished herdsman and head of a large family. It is time to come home.
The greatness of this story of reconciliation lies precisely in how real it is — how filled with ambiguity, growth and regression, mixed motives, truthfulness and disingenuousness. This is no fairy tale of brothers falling into one another’s arms, murderous rage turned to loving appreciation. This is the real stuff of human conflict and imperfection.
In this story we definitely see Jacob playing his old games of manipulation. For example, most of his preparation for his meeting with Esau involves a large bribe that he sends ahead, hoping to mollify Esau’s anger with wealth.
Later in the story, when Esau suggests that they walk together back home, Jacob offers a thinly veiled excuse, arranging to have Esau walk ahead, so Jacob can assure his own safety. This may be sheer realism; it is not story- book reconciliation.
To the extent that this humanly ambiguous story includes a moment of transformation, it is the struggle with the nameless man in the night. This night is preceded by Jacob’s elaborate preparations for the possibility that Esau will attack his family. At the same time, Jacob prays, in what is clearly a moment of raw terror. This may or may not be real contrition. But it is real fear, a real dark night of the soul, the kind of night in which transformation is possible.
With all the preparations complete, Jacob is left alone in the night. Centuries of interpreters have pondered the identity of Jacob’s opponent: Is this a stranger? Esau? Satan? A part of himself that Jacob must subdue?
Whatever happened during this struggle, Jacob is changed — perhaps even transformed — by the time the struggle is over. He has a new name, Yisrael, one who has struggled with God, and his body is forever changed by this struggle. Jacob, who could once manipulate any circumstance to his own advantage, seems to know that this time the victory was a gift from God, not the work of his own hands or mind. He is quieter now, hushed, vulnerable, more faithful than before.
And this is the man, Jacob who is becoming Yisrael, who can say to his brother, “To see your face is like seeing the face of God” (33:10). After the long night when he clearly saw the face of God, Jacob/Yisrael can now see God’s face everywhere — even in the face of his estranged, wrathful brother. Perhaps especially in the face of his long-lost, rageful and victimized brother. And though these brothers will never become friends, a kind of reconciliation has happened.
What allowed this reconciliation to evolve? The process included many years of no contact, deep pain, new life experiences that gave birth to the stirrings of desire for return, a dark night of the soul, open conflict and wounding, and much fear. And then, openness, moving beyond fear and suspicion.
Ideally, the brothers would offer an honest acknowledgment of their responsibility and contrition for hurting one another. These characters, unable to offer this last gift to themselves and to one another, must make do with partial peace. But it is far, far better than what had come before.
May this story of reconciliation guide us to the places in our lives in need of peacemaking.