Drash on Vayishlach 2024

Rabbi Dr Esther Jilovsky

Progressive Judaism Victoria

Last Friday morning, we awoke to the shocking news that the Adass Israel synagogue here in Melbourne had been firebombed. The images that flashed across our screens seemed like black and white footage that had eerily come to life in full colour. A burnt-out synagogue. Ashen-faced men tenderly carrying singed Torah scrolls, wrapped in tallitot, placing them in cars as carefully as pallbearers place a coffin in a hearse. But this was not Germany or Austria in 1938. This is Melbourne in 2024.

Like so many of you, I am grappling with what this means for our Jewish community, for the city that is my birthplace and home, and for the country that my grandparents, of blessed memory, emigrated to in 1948. Like so many other Holocaust survivors, my grandparents came to Australia because they wanted to get as far away from Europe as possible. For so many of us in Melbourne, Friday’s terrorist attack brings a sickening sense of déjà vu. How can the antisemitic violence that almost completely destroyed our families in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s have followed us here, to the country that became our sanctuary?

There are no easy answers. Yet Judaism offers guidance, wisdom and comfort. Guidance in our sacred texts that light the way for us, wisdom in the words of those who have come before us, and comfort in the experience of our ancestors, and how they faced challenges in their lives.

This week’s parasha, VaYishlach, opens with Jacob facing a crisis. Now a married father of eleven sons and one daughter, he has not seen his twin brother Esau for many years. They didn’t exactly part on good terms: their mother Rebekah sent Jacob away after helping him to deceive their father Isaac so that Jacob received his blessing, even though he was the second-born twin.[1] And now, after many years have passed, Jacob and Esau are to meet again.

The night before the big reunion, Jacob was likely feeling apprehensive, perhaps a little nervous, or even scared. He took his family across the River Jabbok, and then returned to the other side. The Torah continues:
וַיִּוָּתֵ֥ר יַעֲקֹ֖ב לְבַדּ֑וֹ וַיֵּאָבֵ֥ק אִישׁ֙ עִמּ֔וֹ עַ֖ד עֲל֥וֹת הַשָּֽׁחַר
‘Jacob was left alone. And a figure wrestled with him until the break of dawn.’ (Genesis 32:25)

Seemingly alone, Jacob engages in a struggle with a mysterious being. Literally an ish a ‘man,’ the Hebrew implies that it’s a divine being of some kind, perhaps an angel.[2] Rabbinic tradition gives multiple explanations for the identity of this ish. Rashi cites Spanish philologist Menachem ben Saruq, who connects וַיֵּאָבֵ֥ק vaye’avek ‘wrestled’ with אָבָק avak ‘dust’, because Jacob and the ish were ‘raising the dust with their feet through their movements.’[3] Rashi does not agree with this interpretation however, and instead favours the Aramaic meaning, which suggests a joining or intertwining of the ish with Jacob.[4] In Midrash, we find more possibilities. Perhaps the most powerful is Rabbi Chama bar Chanina’s interpretation that the ish was Esau’s guardian angel.[5] Given that this struggle occurred the night before Jacob’s reunion with Esau after many years of estrangement, it foreshadows what Jacob was worried about facing the next day.

The Torah continues:
וַיֹּ֗אמֶר לֹ֤א יַעֲקֹב֙ יֵאָמֵ֥ר עוֹד֙ שִׁמְךָ֔ כִּ֖י אִם־יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל כִּֽי־שָׂרִ֧יתָ עִם־אֱלֹהִ֛ים וְעִם־אֲנָשִׁ֖ים וַתּוּכָֽל׃

‘Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.”’ (Genesis 32:29)

Jacob becomes Israel, which literally means ‘struggle with God.’ Here, the verb is שָׂרִ֧יתָ sarita, struggled with, which contains the word שָׂר sar ‘guardian angel’ – and is also in the word Israel יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל. With this name change, Jacob’s rolling around in the dust has purpose and significance. It shapes not just his life going forward, but shifts the narrative in the Torah from the patriarchs and matriarchs to what will become b’nei Israel, the children of Israel. It is from this encounter that we, the Jewish people, get our biblical name, the people of Israel.

Jacob leaves this encounter a changed man. He has a limp, which he retains for the rest of his life.[6] He is forever marked by this struggle. As the people of Israel, named after Jacob’s struggle with God, it means that being Jewish isn’t always easy. It means that our path ahead isn’t always straightforward or clear. It means that we encounter roadblocks that test us. But it also reminds us that strength and direction can arise from unexpected places.

Reading VaYishlach in these challenging times shows us that even when life feels like nothing more than rolling around in the dust, struggle can lead to transformation and sow the seeds of change. For the Melbourne and wider Australian Jewish community, the last few days have brought shock, fear and anger. Yet there has also been a strong sense of unity, from both the Jewish and wider community. Like Jacob on that night by the River Jabbok, we are not alone.

[1] See Genesis 27:1-46, 28:1-5
[2] See Hosea 12:5-6.
[3] See Rashi on Genesis 32:25.
[4] See Rashi on Genesis 32:25.
[5] Breishit Rabbah 77:3.
[6] Genesis 32:32.