Boulder Aish Kodesh

One of the threads in the rich tapestry of this week’s parsha is concerned with time. We find several examples of Ya’akov’s increasing realization of the time it takes for processes to unfold.

Ya’akov’s call to Eisav is criticized to some degree by the rabbis. Midrash Rabba features several examples of the Rabbis saying, essentially, that Ya’akov, by demanding an encounter with Eisav, is asking for trouble. He is compared to one who grabs a sleeping dog by the ears.

But it is understandable that Ya’akov would want to have the encounter now – for his sanity it has to happen eventually, and he might as well get it over with. And, after all, he is coming off of the momentum of a forceful and liberating encounter with Lavan.

Eisav seems to be one who would like to do what he needs to do now. Ya’akov is able to manipulate, to a degree, Eisav’s perception of the imminent encounter. He sends flocks one at a time with space in between. This would certainly pique the curiosity of the receiver. And when he finally sees Eisav, he once again staggers the encounter, placing Bilhah and Zilpaha and their children first, then Leah and her children, then Yosef and Rachel. The he himself bows down to Eisav seven times. By the time they actually have contact, Eisav is probably too puzzled to be violent. “What is all this?” is his question.

Ya’akov’s wrestling with the man/angel is marked by a sense of open time that allows the matter to unfold. Rather than need to win, Ya’akov understands the inherent victory in holding a stalemate. The stalemate allows the deeper issue to emerge – according to Gemarra and Midrash, Ya’akov did not even know until dawn that the man was in fact an angel. Because he was able to hold the encounter in place, without either winning or losing, the truth was revealed and the blessing resulted. The blessing, if it can be called one, comes in the form of the angel telling Ya’akov he will be called Yisrael. We will discuss the significance of this momentarily.

The encounter between Ya’akov and Eisav is famous for its subtext of historic ramifications. Eisav pushes Ya’akov: let us go on together. Ya’akov tells Eisav that he has a different perception of time, necessitated by his lifestyle – he moves at the pace of the children and the livestock. And children move slowly, exploring peripheral details, following different impulses. Ya’akov tells Eisav that he must move at that pace, and he will catch up with him in Se’ir. The Rabbis note that we never find Ya’akov going to a place called Se’ir, so it must be about the end of Days, when “The saviors will ascend to Mt. Zion and judge the mountain of Eisav, and Hashem will have Sovereignty.” Ya’akov does not need to rush history. He seems to understand how time works, understanding that each moment is essential and irreplaceable, even under the weight of a two-thousand-year exile under Edom-Rome, which is Eisav.

Ya’akov, after his encounter with Eisav spends a year and a half in the city of Sukkot. This is a curious move, considering that he has a pending vow to return to Beit E-l, and he has not seen his father in 22 years. This might be seen as fear in Ya’akov – or it might be seen as a very real sense of time through which he understands that neither his return to Beit E-l, nor his reunion with his father, can be rushed. He will wait for the call. And he gets the call – only after the Dinah’s rape.

With the horrific story of Dinah, we see again Ya’akov’s patience – this time in a more disturbing, but perhaps equally necessary, way. When he hears word of Dinah’s rape, he does nothing until her brothers come in from the field. The verse says specifically that he waited to respond – and allowed another drama to play out, which would have its own ramifications in the future. Even in the face of terrible pain, Ya’akov seems to understand the necessity of waiting in order to allow for the proper response to emerge. This alludes to the power that Ya’akov has attained that we mentioned in the last parsha – the power to find a center in one’s self that allows one to choose a response, rather than be compelled to respond in a certain way.

After the destruction of the city of Shechem, Ya’akov gets the call he has been waiting for – to return to Beit E-l. He knew it would come at the right time. And it is hard to understand the benefit thereof – the time that he stalled was the time in which Dinah was raped. But perhaps part of Ya’akov’s gifted understanding of time is an understanding that all is good in the end, even when it seems bad. As is written in the Gemarra Brachot on the verse “And on that day, G-d will be one and G-d’s name will be one.” The Gemarra explains: now, when something good happens, we bless G-d as the One who “is good and does good”, and when something bad happens, we bless G-d as “The True Judge.” But in the end of Days, we will bless G-d as the One who “is good and does good” for everything that happens in our lives.

It is interesting that Ya’akov waits until he gets the call to return to Beit E-l to warn his camp to be rid of all idols. Even this shows an amazing sense of timing – to allow for the easy and voluntary relinquishing of idols by putting the request in context of ascension in purpose and geography toward Beit E-l. “And I will make there an altar to G-d who answered me in my day of distress and was with me on the path I have walked.”

It is significant that Rachel died “on the way”. Ya’akov has become an eternal traveler, allowing for the process of exile to play itself out. Rachel is the assurance that the exile will end, standing “on the way” as the mother figure who consoles the Jews as they begin their exile in Bavel, assuring them that they will return.

The parsha ends with the genealogy of Eisav, featuring “the kings who ruled in Edom before any king ruled in Israel.” Once again, Ya’akov does not need to be first. He has certainly come along way from his emergence into the world; with a hand grasping Eisav’s heal, desperate to be first. Where he once was Ya’akov, defined by grabbing on to the heal, he has truly become Yisrael, one who is able to struggle, and stay in struggle, with G-d and man.

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