Shabbat Blast

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From Fred Cohen
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Friday, November 19, 2021

Dear CBO family,

Parsha Vayishlach continues the almost “R” rated, soap opera-ish, narrative of our patriarchs and matriarchs. Jacob returns to the Holy Land after a 20 year absence and has to face his brother Esau. Jacob fears Esau is still angry over Jacob’s deceit in gaining their father’s birthright. Jacob then must wrestle with an angel (Esau’s spirit?), but Jacob’s actual meeting with Esau ends with an embrace, and they part.

Jacob, now named Israel after his successful encounter with the angel, purchases a plot of land near Shechem whose crown prince then abducts and rapes Jacob’s daughter Dinah. Dinah’s brothers, in response, first convince the male inhabitants of Shechem to circumcise themselves and then overpower and kill them in their weakened state.

As Jacob continues his journey, Rachel dies after giving birth to Benjamin and is buried in a roadside grave. At the end of the parsha, Jacob returns to Hebron, Isaac dies, and we are given a detailed account of Esau, his wives, and their descendants.
What are we to make of this history of our forebears? Most of us have heard of Hillel’s response to a challenge to summarize the entire Torah while standing on one foot. Hillel famously offered a two sentence reply, “Do not do unto to others that which is hateful to you.  The rest of the Torah is commentary.” Do we merely consider this parsha commentary, or can we extract from Vayishlach examples of Hillel’s moral premise?

Indeed, I feel we can. Jacob’s 20 year journey was begun to escape Esau because Jacob deceived Esau into giving up Isaac’s birthright. Although Jacob was the more learned and God-fearing brother, Jacob’s deceit was clearly “hateful” in Hillel’s sense, and, therefore, there must be some moral recompense for Jacob’s deceit. Having to face Esau 20 years later, and fear Esau’s army of 400 armed men, is the beginning of that recompense. And then Jacob had to wrestle with an angel who embodied Esau’s spirit to complete that moral sense of restitution.

Similarly, the rape of Dinah and the brutal revenge her brothers exacted on the men of Shechem represent a rather severe embodiment of Hillel’s declaration which is often misstated as a positive assertion (the golden rule): “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” But Hillel’s actual statement does come with some foreboding.  When you do act in a way which you know is hateful (morally wrong), there may be consequences. 

Vayishlach, to me, is a tale of those consequences. Jacob is left with a dislocated hip as a result of his encounter with the angel. The male inhabitants of Shechem face a more brutal retribution for their crowned prince’s misdeed. It is, I fear, not the only parsha we read that reminds us that our patriarchs and matriarchs lived in an age far more primitive and more vengeful than our own.
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May we learn from Vayishlach but encounter only gentle angels in our personal journey.  

Shabbat shalom,
Fred Cohen

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