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PARASHA VAYISHLACH
GENESIS 32:04-36:43
RABBI ARTHUR L. SEGAL
HILTON HEAD ISLAND, SC
"Strummin' on Her Ol' Banjo"
SYNOPTIC ABSTRACT:
Esau and Jacob meet after 34 years of separation. Jacob wrestles with the
Angel and is renamed "Israel." Jacob and his 11 sons, one daughter and
four wives arrive in Shechem. Dinah, his daughter, is raped. The brothers
trick the men of Shechem into thinking that Dinah can be the wife of the
prince of Shechem, and that all of Shechem may join the Children of
Israel, if all the male Shechemites circumcise themselves. They agree to
this. On the third day, while the men of Shechem are in pain from this
surgery, the brothers slaughter them. Rachel gives birth to her second
son, Benjamin, but dies in childbirth. Reuben sleeps with one of his
father's wives. Jacob sees his father, Isaac, after many years of
absence. Isaac dies and is buried by both Jacob and Esau. The generations
of Esau are listed before the parasha ends. To learn some more, please
read on.
Most of the commentary on this portion is deeply shaded by the times in
which they were written. Talmudically, these were times under Roman
conquest. The period of Rashi's time, circa 1060 C.E., was under church
domination and relentless persecution. Even up to the twentieth century,
commentaries are overshadowed by the Shoah and anti-Semitism. In all of
the these, Esau is painted as being evil. Esau is called Edom (blood
red). The Torah states that one of the many descendants of Esau is Amelek
(Gen. 36:11). The Talmud records that Esau's descendants are the product
of incest and adultery.
The Talmudic rabbis say that Esau is the father
of the Romans. They say he stuck a stick into the Mediterranean Sea and
that sand began to collect around it. Within time, the Italian peninsula
was formed. The Church replaced the Roman Empire, and therefore,
indirectly, as one reads between the lines of the rabbinic writings of
the Middle Ages, Esau is embodied in the anti-Semitic practices of the
Church. But let us peel back 2000 years of layers, as we have done so
many times in this series, and see what the Torah is really teaching.
We first need to remember that it was Jacob who steals from Esau. Jacob
finds that Esau is coming toward him with 400 men. Jacob is frightened.
He does not know Esau's intentions, but he assumes they are bad. So Jacob
prepares militarily. Jacob strategically divides his camp and prepares a
tribute for Esau. When Jacob sees Esau, he walks towards him bowing seven
times. Esau, on the other hand, runs toward Jacob,"embraced him, fell
upon his neck, and kissed him, and they wept" (Gen. 33:04). Jacob's
emotion is fear. Esau's emotions are love and joy. Jacob has to beg Esau
to accept his gifts. Esau says that he already has "plenty."
Esau wants to help Jacob by assigning him some of his people. Esau wants to ride
along with Jacob so that they can become brothers once again. But Jacob
lies to Esau and says that he has a slow caravan, and that Esau should go
on ahead and that Jacob's group will catch up with Esau's group at Seir.
Esau agrees. Jacob however, takes a different direction and ends up in
Succoth, and eventually in Shechem.
The Torah is clear that Esau harbors no bitterness toward Jacob. Yet
Jacob projects his belief system unto Esau. In Jacob's world, if you
cheat someone, there will be "payback." Laban cheated Jacob with the
wife-swapping episode. Jacob retaliates by tricking Laban with a bit of
genetic animal husbandry. Jacob assumes Laban will be upset, so he sneaks
way from Laban, never allowing Laban's four daughters and grandchildren
to say goodbye. Laban comes after Jacob. Jacob is "afraid" (Gen. 31:31)
then also.
The rabbis of the Roman Diaspora parse the words of this portion to make
sure that Esau is 100% bad. They place dots over the words for "kiss" to
tell us that the kiss was insincere. They say that Esau, when he fell on
Jacob's neck, was really planning on biting Jacob's jugular vein and kill
him. The rabbis write that when Esau says he has "plenty," he was
boasting. Jacob says that he has "everything"(Gen. 33:11). The rabbis
posit that a righteous man always has everything, as he trusts in God,
but an evil man has plenty because he continually counts his possessions.
They say that because the Torah does not say that Jacob and Esau kissed
when Esau left before Jacob did, the implication is that Esau's
intentions were evil. The Midrash says that Jacob gave Esau annual
tribute to appease Esau. The Talmud says that when he refused Jacob's
gifts, Esau was being insincere.
The Midrash records that before the Rabbis would negotiate with the
Romans, they would read this parasha first. They said it taught them to
pray to God for strength and guidance, to act obsequiously, to give
tribute, to keep apart from the Romans, and be secretive. The rabbis used
this same technique for two millennia after. The Talmud records how rabbi
Yannai went to negotiate with the Romans and forgot to read this portion
before he went. His trip was a dismal failure.
The Midrash blames Jacob for the eventual Diaspora. The rabbis write that Jacob should have taken
the long way around Edom and avoided Esau, because no good ever comes
from meeting and negotiations with non-Jews. They cite how when two
Hasmonean brothers were having a power struggle over the control of the
Second Temple, the weaker brother invited the Romans to help him. This is
how the Romans gained a foothold in Israel, which eventually lead to the
Diaspora. The rabbis of the middle ages say the same rules apply to the
"new Romans"-- the Church. Even discourse with Christians on any matter
of substance was disallowed. The church-demanded debates between their
clerics and the Jews' rabbis almost always ended in tragedy for the Jews.
Jacob and his family settled in Shechem. Dinah,"the daughter of
Leah...went out to look over the daughters of the land" (Gen. 34:01). The
Talmud says we are reminded that she was the daughter of Leah because
Leah also "went out." In Genesis 30:16 Leah is described as going out to
meet Jacob to tell him that it was her turn to have sex with him that
night. The Talmudic rabbis say that this behavior is appalling and call
Leah "she who is fond of going out." They say, regarding Dinah, "like
mother like daughter," and blame the rape on Dinah's behavior. We still
see this thinking in some courtrooms today. Some Arab tribes today will kill
family members who are raped, as it brings shame to the family.
The men of Shechem want to leave in peace with Jacob's family. They offer
Jacob land to live among them and to trade and intermarry. The brothers
say that the Shechemites must become circumcised. This is the Hebrew
method of conversion. The Shechemites are not converting for sincere
reasons. They think it will be good for trade, as well as for a source of
wives for them, and husbands for their daughters.
The sons of Jacob deceitfully accept them into the covenant of Abraham and then kill them
three days later. The rabbis say that this is allowed, as the men of
Shechem were not going to be sincere Jews and accept Torah values. Are
they reading the same Torah we are today? What values did Jacob and his
sons possess? Jacob is a master of deceit. He learned this well from his
mother and his uncle Laban. Even two of his wives, Leah and Rachel, were
in cahoots with Laban, because how else would Leah have tricked Jacob
into thinking she was Rachel on the wedding night?
The Talmud says that Rachel was under the bed, talking to Jacob, while he was having sex with
Leah, so that he thought he was with Rachel. The rabbis say that Jacob's
sons were justified in killing all of the men of Shechem, as rape is one
of the seven prohibited Noahide laws. But 400 years later, we learn in
the Torah that if a man rapes a virgin, he has the option of marrying her
or paying her father a fine. There is no death penalty for rape of a
virgin. If you rape another man's wife, it is adultery and therefore
punishable by death.
We also learn in the Torah that before a war is
fought, your enemy must be given a sincere chance to make peace. Further,
when a Jewish army attacks, it must leave open an avenue of escape for
the enemy. When is it a Torah value to condemn an entire nation for the
sin of one man? Jacob's only concern about this annihilation is not
based on Torah morality. It is based only on his fears. He is only
concerned that friends of the Shechemites will "band together and attack"
him (Gen. 34:30).
What is the Torah trying to teach us? Are we being taught that xenophobia
and deceit are admirable traits? Are we being taught that wholesale
slaughter is good? Of course not. If anything, we learn in a few portions
later that this behavior against neighbors will eventually turn brother
against brother. In the Sephardic Haftorah, Obadiah says "as you did, so
will be done to you" (Ob.1:15). Obadiah prophesied during the reign of
King Ahab and his Queen Jezebel.
In the Askenazic Haftorah, the 8th-century BCE Hosea says that Jacob's sons "lie," "deceit," and are
"wayward toward God" (Hos. 12:01). Hosea accuses Jacob of stealing from
Esau while they were still "in the womb" by taking "his brother by the
heel" (Hos. 12:04). The prophets deplore this behavior and agree that
the ends do not justify the means.
We are taught in this parasha that Jacob wrestles until dawn with "a man"
(Gen. 32:25). When dawn broke and the fight was over, Jacob asked this
man for a blessing, and Jacob was given the new name of "Israel."
"Israel" means "prevailed or struggled with God." The Talmud says that
this "man" was really the guardian angel of Esau and was Satan himself.
They see Israel as the champion of good, and Esau as the leader of bad.
Remember, the rabbis of this time assign evil to Rome, and to the Church that
follows Rome, as a direct descendant of Esau. Later in the Torah portion,
in Genesis 35:10, we read that God also renames Jacob to Israel . But the
Torah says that this will not be a permanent name change. The rabbis
posit that when Jacob is involved with mundane things, the Torah calls
him Jacob. When Jacob is involved in spiritual affairs, he is called
Israel.
When Abram received the new name of Abraham (father of nations),
he is never referred to again as "Abram." Abraham's new name is
permanent. But Jacob does not get a permanent name change. This is
because Jacob did not wrestle with the guardian angel of Esau, or with
Satan. Jacob wrestled with himself. Jacob wrestled with the spark of God
that is inside each of us. All of us have the potential to be "heels"
and therefore deceitful (as the name "Jacob" means in Hebrew). Yet all of
us have the power to be Godlike as well. We have to continually struggle
and wrestle to be truly "Israel."
What we learn from this Torah portion is not how to behave like our
Talmudic rabbis thought, but how not to behave. The fight is never over.
It is never over internally nor externally. Someone will always try to be
"in the kitchen with Dinah, strummin' on her ol' banjo." We cannot
control others' behaviors. We cannot control outside forces. But we can
control our attitudes and responses to events over which we have no
control. It is up to us to find ways of dealing with life's tragedies in
ways that do not pull us spiritually down, along with the physical or
emotional pain we experience. This is our eternal struggle. Jewish Spiritual Renewal helps with this spiritual process. This is why
we are the Children of Israel.
Shabbat Shalom,
RABBI ARTHUR SEGAL
(Written while with the Bene Israel Community
of Mumbia, India )
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