Vayishlach 5783 / 10 Dec 2022

This is the story of Jacob.

In the womb, he struggled with his hairy twin, Esau. In the end, he came out holding Esau’s heel, chasing him. And Jacob would chase things for the rest of his life.

He chased the sheep he herded. He chased his brother, the firstborn Esau’s, birthright. When his father, Isaac, was old, in ailing health and with dimming eyesight, he told Esau to hunt, make a favorite meal, and to bring it to him and then Esau would receive a blessing. Jacob chased that blessing too, changing himself into Esau for a night.  He covered himself with hide to make himself hairy like his brother, and took a dish his mother cooked to Isaac, and took Isaac’s blessing over Esau. 

Jacob chased the birthright, and then the blessing. 

And then, Esau chased him. Left with only a blessing to service of his brother, Esau chased Jacob out of their home, threatening murder, and Jacob fled to Haran. And that’s when Jacob started chasing God. 

First, there was the stairway, an escalator of angels going up and down,  a ladder to the heavens.  He made a deal with God: if you  protect me, give me food, and get me back to my father’s house, then you, Hashem, God, you will be my God. He’s daring God. Prove it, he says. 

Jacob continued on, to his uncle Laban’s home in Haran. There he chased Rachel, Laban’s daughter, and in exchange his uncle Laban chased him, using him for labor and tricking Jacob into taking Leah as wife first. Once married, he chased a son, badgering Rachel until she sent him her maid, Bilhah, to conceive on her behalf.  

After a time, he chased his freedom from Laban. 

And after that, he chased wealth.

Where we pick up this week, Jacob had just left his uncle Laban in Haran. He is on his way back to the land of Isaac and Rebekah, his parents. He’s chasing home. 

In the process, he learns he is in his brother’s vicinity, and springs into action, anxious that his brother may attack. We learn he is still afraid of Esau. Afraid of being chased. 

He arranges lavish gifts, hoping to overwhelm his brother into welcoming him. After he sent the gifts and his family ahead of him, Jacob slept, until a stranger came.

Jacob wrestled that stranger, strove against him all night, until Jacob’s hip was wrenched out of its socket. But still Jacob prevailed. The stranger, an angel, begged to be let go, and Jacob replied: not until you bless me. Jacob chased a blessing, yet again, and received the it, and a new name: Israel, one who struggles with —who chases—God.

In the biblical text, it is interesting —  Jacob is not seen in a totally positive light, but more complexly. And Esau is not seen totally negatively, either. But in the hands of the later rabbis, we see a change. Rashi in particular is very ungenerous in his read of Esau, 

looking at him as deceptive and cunning, a hunter, and when he threatens Jacob after Jacob stole his blessing, it is seen as a matter of course. 

What else would he do but threaten murder? He grew up, and made a life Isaac and Rebekah did not support by marrying Canaanite women. What else would such a little punk do? 

It’s interesting, though. Because what we see is Esau reacting to what is being done to him. His brother stealing his father’s promise, care, and affection, and already having the monopoly on his mother’s love. Esau reacts to Jacob’s deception, his chase after their parents’ love and blessings, and Isaac’s withholding of additional blessing, aggressively. Like he had been trapped. So he lashed out. 

When Jacob runs into him all these years later, which is where we pick up this week, Esau welcomes him openly, with warmth. He offers: “Let us start on our journey and I will proceed at your pace.” He’s changed.

But Jacob can’t help himself. He continues the chase. It seems the only way he knows how to be with Esau is by besting him. 

Where Esau has changed, Jacob has stayed the same.He’s wrestled with humans and angels, but hasn’t managed to wrestle with himself.

He sends Esau one way, saying he will follow. But he turns to go the other.  He can’t stand the possibility that they might move together as one. So much togetherness—is the possibility of that intimacy the same as being caught, for Jacob?

What, really, is Jacob chasing?

This parsha is often talked about as the reconciliation of Jacob and Esau. But I struggle to see any reconciliation.

When we think about tshuvah, return, another word for reconciliation, there is a process of acknowledgement and attempt to amend wrongs. There is a hint of that, I think, in Esau’s approach:  “Let us start on our journey and I will proceed at your pace.”

When we harm another, to address it, we let them lead. What do you need to move forward?

Esau doesn’t address what has been done to him, or what he has done. But he is generous about Jacob’s needs, and makes it clear that Jacob and his people are safe in his land. Jacob can’t handle it. And moves on. 

There is no reconciliation. There is no tshuvah. There is no pace set together. 

It makes me think about what it might have been like to be raised by Isaac, who had kids only after the incident we call the Akedah, when Abraham followed God into almost sacrificing Isaac.  To be raised by Isaac, the clearly favorite son of Abraham and Sarah, 

over his brother Ishmael?

What love did Jacob have modeled for him by a father who was chased by the demons of his own family? Favored son of a favored son. It is a fickle position, especially when only won by deception. 

Our ancestors are, like us, imperfect. Full of traumatized families and attempts to love that fall flat, at best. And harm, at worst. They chase things that they think will make them feel better, feel more secure, more themselves. And instead, they end up further from themselves. 

I wonder if what we have with Jacob and Esau is not a story of which son is the better model. But a story of two sons who did not learn how to love themselves or each other, trying the best they could to move through an imperfect world. And still, failing. 

Our tradition teaches that the yetzer hatov, the inclination towards taking care of others and the yetzer hara, the inclination towards taking care of the self, ought to be in balance. And that it is hard work to get those things in balance.

Especially when we have hurt someone. Especially when we have been hurt, or at risk of being hurt. 

So my ears pick up when I hear Esau here. When he says: “Let us start on our journey and I will proceed at your pace.” It is a nod, I think, to the yetzer hatov. A deliberate attempt to move at another’s pace. To take on Jacob’s burden, at least for a while. It is a risk, and an intimacy. 

It is sad, to me, that Jacob cannot receive it. Cannot let his guard down. Especially since he is the one who has harmed Esau again and again. 

I am struck, by how many times Jacob has chased a birthright, a blessing. It seems that he is insatiable. And it makes me wonder: what blessing is Jacob not receiving?

And if it is that he can’t receive it because it can’t come from someone else. Not even from an angel of God.

What blessing does Jacob need to bless himself with?

Isn’t that a beautiful part of what the inclination to the care of the self, the yetzer hara, is? The need to bless our selves? 

The legitimate needs of the yetzer hara are real, powerful, and holy, not evil. They show us the blessing we need, to be able to live, to thrive. To stand firm in ourselves, so that we can stand with others. And to move at their pace, not ours. 

So that we can stop the chase.