Parshat Toldot

When the words of her oldest son Esau were reported to Rebecca, she sent her youngest son Jacob and said to him: Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. Now my son, listen to me. Flee at once to Haran, to my brother Laban.

(Genesis, 27:42-43)

 

...Were reported to her... The Holy Spirit reported what Esau was planning in his heart.

...Consoling himself... was consoled by the brotherhood between them. Otherwise he would have been totally estranged and killed him. And in Midrash and Agaddah: You are already dead in his eyes and he drank a cup of consolation over you. And literally: The language of consolation is one of consoling him with the blessings when he kills you (Rashi, ibid). And, if you say that even in the Midrash this is the language of consolation, then it is not the language of calculated thinking, then we interpret it as being consoled by the blessings and not as a cup of consolation.

(Siftei Chachamim, IBID))

 

Consoled - From console, comfort. The reason is his consolation could kill.

(Ibn Ezra, Ibid)

 

Consoling himself - It is known that when the grammatical form "hitpael" is used that it can signify an imagined action, that is not true, like "One man pretends to be rich," (Mishlei). Pretends to be rich and is not, and so also with pretends to be poor, blessed, estranged and others, and here too, consoled. He pretends to be consoled, content and affable with you, as if he holds no grudge about the blessings, but inwardly, he is plotting to kill you and only to save himself from you, he is hiding his animosity. And this is proof that Rebecca knew this from the Holy Spirit, as Esau presented himself as beloved and certainly would not reveal his true intentions to anyone.

(Reggio, Ibid)

 

Two Nations

Binyamin Salant

The story of Jacob is one of the oldest in the Bible. Continuing over seven parshiyot and 27 chapters, his life's path is complete with encounters and departures. In the Book of Genesis, there is a repeated phenomenon of departures. So it is between Abraham and Lot, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau. The first words of departure before their birth are when Rebecca and her sons go to seek God (Gen 25:22-23), and she is answered with the prophetic response, "And God said to her," and on this it is already said by Baal Ohr HaHaim: "This text has many interpretations," and so it has:

Rashi: by way of a messenger. Rashbam: by way of a prophet. Raba: by way of a prophet or Abraham. Radak: The prophet is Abraham. Rambam: by the way of an angel.¹

 

A Mysterious Happening

The answer - prophecy is styled as poetic and it has in it parables and mystery.

Two nations are in your womb

One nation shall be Mightier than the other

And two nations will separate from Your flesh

and the older will serve younger

It is not clear; which nation will be stronger and when? Who is the older and who is the younger? Who will serve whom? There are those that interpret this as an omen for the future. So says the Rashbam: "All the future was told to her" and so says the Radak: "This is the difference... God gave her a sign of what the future holds which is in the Midrash Aggadah²". He replies to Rebecca with a detailed description which ends with the tidings: "And Shem son of Noah answered in the name of God My daughter, know that I am about to reveal to you something mysterious, and you, my daughter, must be careful that no one knows of what I speak to you about: Two nations are in your womb. And how shall you carry them? The nations of the world cannot carry their weight, to have them sit together in peace - how can your womb support them?"

...Will be separated from your body... to two worlds, each to a world of his own making. One will pride himself on his world and the other will be proud of his world of the Torah, and the other boasting of his transgressions. One appoints Solomon to build the temple and the other appoints his enemy, who conflicts with him and destroys him.

And one nation shall be stronger than the other - Seventy nations minus two were created in the world and now two more emerge from you that complete the seventy nations of the world, but two are not equal. When one is up, the other is down. In the time that Esau establishes a lineage of kings, Jacob establishes a lineage of prophets. One boasts of his words and the other boasts of his kingdom. And both of them, Israel and Rome will despise outsiders, as all the nations despise Esau, the Red, being the Romans, and all the nations despise Israel...and both of them rule the whole world. However, first the descendents of Esau will rule by force, and in the end, in the world to come, the descendents of Jacob will rule the world.

The elder shall rule the younger - When? When Israel does the will of God, but when Israel does not do God's will, the older will rule the younger.

Until the fulfillment of the message, in the end of days, the nation will have a series of setbacks and failures, "And all the nations will despise Israel" (see above) "And when one falls the other rises". (Megila 6:1)

Two nations - Rashi: "Not nations but kingdoms". And RSR Hirsch defines the two nations: "Ethics and power will be posed against each other's paths (continuing from there) "nation from nation - The entire history is none other than this one struggle: Who will have the upper hand, the hand with the book or the hand with the sword, the way of Jerusalem or the way of the Caesars. (Megila, ibid)

When Jacob summarizes his path in life when he meets Pharaoh: "My days have been short and hard..." This sentence may explain the obstacles that Jacob overcame when he fled from Esau and is exiled to Laban in Haran. And from there he flees again. Jacob's way is characterized by hard and tortuous struggles, from attaining his birthright, the blessing, to attaining a wife, attaining his possessions, the struggle with the man-angel, which maybe is the deciding struggle for his image and the image of Israel. And this is how Hosea describes Jacob's way..."The Lord once indicted Judah, and punished Jacob for his conduct, requited him for his deeds." (Hosea 12:3) With all this, Jacob's way is accompanied by encounters with angels, from the beginning with the dream of the ladder, he received two promises, the promise of the land to him and his seed (28:14) which is the promise of Abraham in his blessing to his father Isaac (28:4) and the promise of watching over him:"I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go" (28:15). Rashi comments "because he feared from Esau and Laban" .

And we are amazed, is this a dream or reality before us? On this the Rambam replies:³ "Jacob's dream is a prophetic parable of which every word in the parable has meaning." The Rambam continues⁴ "The witnessing of the angels is just the witnessing of the prophecy," and still, according to the Radak "There are many opinions about the interpretation of this dream" Rasag: "As if it were a ladder" Raba: "A ladder is always a symbol..."Radak: In the name of the Midrash (B'R 68:18) "God showed him the giving of the Torah at Sinai," (Sinai and sulam=130 in gematria). The Radak continues that here there was a revelation: "How awesome is this place, because God revealed himself."(28:16) These are just some of the opinions that try to interpret the dream...

 

The Struggle - The Revelation

Jacob is granted a special relationship with the angels who escorted him and when it is said, "Jacob went on his way, and angels of God encountered him," (32:1) The Rashbam explains: "They encountered him to protect him." After the promise of protection comes a unique puzzling encounter: "Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him..." (32:35) and on this subject there are many commentaries who were stumped by this incident. The Rambam (ibid, part 2, p 281-2), after he mentions Abraham's meeting with 'three people' as the 'revelation and secret of secrets', (he continues) I also say about the encounter with Jacob "The man wrestled with him" that that was in the image of revelation..." The Ramban (32:26): "The whole incident is an allusion to the future generations..."

 

The Conflict Between Israel and the Nation in the Future

Rabbi Soloveitchik,⁵ with a shrewd outlook on the past and present, states, "That in this book there are many historical things that happen in the past and will happen again in the future..." and he continues: "The central subject of this parasha is the struggle between Israel and the nations. There are hints of things to come, the future destiny of the nation." He continues about the encounter of Jacob and "the man," who he calls "The man wrapped in mystery" and continues, "The mystery that hovers over this story, the refusal to identify himself; these are the clear signs of the historical struggle that will be between Israel and the nations in every generation..."

And in the continuation, regarding the bidding farewell of the angels from Jacob: "A farewell of this nature, in reality means: We will meet again. The struggle will continue in the coming future."⁶ Soloveitchik, in another place, (Chapters in the Rav's Thought, page 169) adds: "Jacob emerged as the winner in this glorious formidable encounter" and he continues by asking "If this is the case, is this not just the story of an individual? Is not the story of all of Israel enfolded here, an entity that has an "absurd" struggle for existence and life over thousands of years?"

 

The Man Cloaked in Mystery

From the general we will move to the particular, and to the questions: Who is the man? What is the meaning of the struggle? In light of the many explanations that deal with the identity of the "man" we can say that there is no absolute decision...

In the Gamara (Hulin 92:1) "Rabbi Shmuel Bar Nahmani says he resembled a stranger..."

Rabbi Shmuel Bar Aha...."He looked like a scholar." And in the Midrash (B"R 77:2) R. Hiah Bar Hunia says: "He look to him like a shepherd." R. Hiah Bar Hanina says:" an officer of Esau." (Ibid, 73:3)

And in The Legends of the Jews⁷ "this shepherd was the angel Michael, the most important angel." In light of this, it seems to us that Louis Ginsberg's comment, is, that, in fact, we really don't know who the man is.

 

Jacob on his Own

Possibly it means that the word alone means that the struggle was within Jacob's soul. And that is how the Rambam's (see above) explanation can be understood, that the encounter was in the image of the prophecy, that is to say, in the dream. This is also the way of Radak and Ralbag. Radak explains, "This event...is only imagination. He thought there was a man and there wasn't...," and also the Ralbag "and he imagined in the prophecy the angel of God, as if there was a man, and we agree there was wrestling in his sleep..."To this commentary (Rambam, Radak, Ralbag) that the struggle was a dream in his sleep...we should add that from here it can be understood how in this sentence there is only one word that separates between "alone" and "the man."

Malbim's approach is interesting⁸ because it testifies to the complexity that appears in the other commentaries. Do we have here a prophecy, a dream or a physical, sensual struggle? And he writes, "And Jacob had a battle with his officer that is with his evil inclination (Yetzer Hara) within his body..." Nonetheless, he writes, "And the angel was dress in a worldly way (because it was a tangible prophecy) (this is in the original, probably the compilers comment), Because the angel presents himself as a person...as opposed to what the Malbim continues:" His soul remains alone and isolated with the spiritual illumination...and then he summarizes his commentary with the dual meaning: "Our matter at hand is that he has no essence and does not exist, he puts on an image and takes off an image."

 

As a Man Embraces his Friend

Because the verb 'and he wrestled' is a personal verb, it has two interpretations in the Gamara (Hulin, 81:71) and both by R Yehoshua Ben Levi: "We should read: When he wrestled with him" (32:25)," as a man embraces his friend." In the continuation, the Gamara brings the second version of R. Yehoshua Ben Levi: "Wrestled with him, teaches that they kicked up dust from their feet up to the throne of honor."

Onkelos translates "And wrestled" as rare word in Aramaic ואישתדל (from trying) and Ramban already testified that Onkelos also translated like this in Exodus 22:5, "If a man seduces.." Rashi explains here that in Aramaic, trying is like seducing in Hebrew. Ramban does not agree with Rashi and thinks that Onkelos' intention was from the language of "tricking" which is in A.Z. Melamed's book.⁹ In the introduction to Avigdor Shinan's book¹⁰, according to Shinan, caress-catch, while Even Shoshan, in his dictionary, defines caress - embrace.¹¹

It is interesting to note that many artists (Dore, Delacroix and others) depict in their drawings a struggle between Jacob and the angel, while Rembrandt¹² in his paintings depicts a meeting of embracing without a struggle.

Parity?

We know that the man-angel did succeed in his struggle, as it says, "And he saw that he could not overcome him." (32:36) Rabbi Berhia said: We don't know who won, the angel or Jacob. (B"R 7:3) And when the angel says, "You have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed, (32:29), Soloveitchik has this to say, (see above, p.11), "Jacob emerges as the winner in this glorious formidable encounter" and continues, the struggle is for all of Israel, "a struggle for existence and life over thousands of years."

1. In guide to the Perplexed, Schwartz Edition, Part 2, 41, in the continuation the Rambam explains that a prophet is alos called an angel, see p.404

2. The Legends of the Jews. Louis Ginsberg, part 6, Isaac and Jacob,page 65

3. In the introduction to Guide to the Perplexed,see also part 1,15

4. Ibid,part 2. Chaperter 6,p281-282

5. Divrei Hashkafa, from a pamphlet of the Education and Cultural Department of Toarah Education in the Diaspora, in the chapter ‘Jacob and Esau', Parshat Vayishlach, p 21-25

6. Ibid. On page 24 he gives a reason for anti-Semitism as a result of the relationship between Israel and the nations: "There is no logical basis."

7. Ibid,, page 125,also page 248, the legend is based on another legend where it is also said, "Michael was appointed to be an officer of Israel" and on page 249,Ginzberg writes that there is no final decision on who the angel was.

8. Hamlbim, Pardes Yerushalaim, 1956 , p.116-117

9. Mifrashei Hamikra, Darchaihem veshitatam, Jerusalem:Magnes, 5734,part 2, p.981,798.

10. Mikra Achad, vetirgumim harbeh, TA: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1993. Page 47

11. The verb "gafaf" caress appears several times in Sanhedrin. See Mishna Sanhedrin page 60:2. Also Steinsaltz defines caress as embrace.

12. Rembrandt lived in a Jewish area of Amsterdam in his later days and probably heard of this idea from his Jewish friends.

Binyamin Salantm, Member of Kibbutz Saad

 

The Third Temple Will Be Built Only Through Peace

They did not fight over the third well, because the third Temple will be built by the Messiah of whom it is said, In token of abundant authority and of peace without limit (Isaiah 9:6), for there shall only be peace and truth in his day, that is why it was called Rehovot, for then God will expand (yirhav) their borders. When conflict is afoot or two sides combat each other, even if they be in a city as large as Antioch it will not offer enough room for them to live together. Even the most spacious location will be too small for them and will not be able to bear them, as is, in our iniquity, our custom to this day. The opposite will be true when there is peace upon Israel. Even though we will be fruitful in the land and many will be its inhabitants, in any case the Land shall be spacious for them and no one will trouble them... for in a time of peace, we shall increase in the land, for they will have no cause to leave it.

(Kli Yakar 26: 22)

 

 

 

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