פרשת וישלח תשכ"ט - מאבק יעקב ו"האיש"

"And Jacob asked him, and said: 'Tell me, I pray thee, thy name.' And he said: 'Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?'"

Why then do you ask. He said to him, "There is no benefit in knowing my name, because only Hashem has the power to answer your prayers. If you call me [by my name], I will not answer you, nor will I save you from your distress. But now I will bless you as I have been commanded."

"And the sun rose upon him as he passed over Peniel, and he limped upon his thigh."

ויזרח לו השמש AND THE SUN SHONE UPON HIM— This is the expression that people use: “When we reached such-and-such a place the dawn broke upon us”. This is its simple understanding. But the Midrash says that לו means, “for his needs” — to heal his lameness. Thus, too, you read in Scripture a similar metaphor (Malachi 3:20) “the sun of righteousness with healing in its wings”. The hours that it had set before its time for his sake when he left Beer-Sheba (cp. Genesis 18:11) it now rose before its time for his sake (Sanhedrin 75b).

"Therefore the children of Israel eat not the sinew of the thigh-vein which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day; because he touched the hollow of Jacob’s thigh, even in the sinew of the thigh-vein."

It is to be a commemoration for them that their forefather fought with the angel, and [the latter] could not subdue him. And so [the angel] pressed him on the hollow of his thigh, in the place where there is the sciatic nerve. And it is a commemoration of glory and greatness.

It is from the roots of this commandment [that it is to serve as] a hint to Israel that though they will suffer many troubles in the exile by the hand of the nations and by the hand of the [descendants] of Esav (i.e. the Christians), [the Jews] should trust that they will not perish, but rather that their descendants and name will stand firm forever, and that their redeemer will come and redeem them from their oppressor. And in continually remembering this idea through the commandment that serves as a reminder, they will stand firm in their faith and righteousness forever. And this hint [stems from the fact that] the angel who fought with Yaakov, our forefather – who according to tradition (Bereshit Rabbah 78) was the guardian angel of Esav – wished to eliminate Yaakov from the world, he and his descendants; but he could not [get the better] of him, (Genesis 32:26) but anguished him in injuring his thigh. Likewise, Esav's seed anguishes the seed of Yaakov; but in the end, [the latter] will be saved from them. As we find (Genesis 32:32) with respect to [our] forefather that the sun shone to heal him and he was saved from pain, so will the sun of the messiah shine and he will heal us from our pain and redeem us speedily in our days, amen!

על כן לא יאכלו, “therefore it is appropriate that the Israelites do not eat, etc.;” this construction is parallel to Isaiah 10,7: והוא לא כן ידמה, “but it does not seem like this to him;” in other words: it would be right and proper to punish the Israelites not to eat that particular sinew as they should not have allowed their founding father to be exposed to hostile forces at night. Yaakov’s sons were physically strong, and they should have been at hand to assist their father if the need arose to do so. Seeing that they failed to do this, the blame for the injury sustained by their father was theirs. From now on they would have learned their lesson and would practice the commandment to accompany their father, or for that matter, any older and wiser person, especially at night. Yaakov himself set an example when he accompanied his son Joseph part of the way on a mission which he had sent him on, and which was potentially dangerous. (Genesis 37,14)

(R. Ephraim Luntshitz) We find in [statements of] the Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, that deep things, the comprehension of which are difficult, are compared to tendons; as Rashi explained in Parshat Yitro (Exodus 19:3), s.v., and tell the Children of Israel (he explained, "[Tell] to the males, matters as difficult as tendons"). And comprehension is called eating; as we find that about the four that entered the 'orchard,' it cites the verse, 'eat your fill of honey' – about investigation that is hidden from 'the eye of all the living.' And this commandment is a hint for the [future] generations to prevent Israel from hidden (mystical) investigations; as [Ben Sira] said, "You have no businesses in hidden things." For one should be concerned [about this], lest their minds be destroyed and they come to heresy. As the many will not have the wisdom to understand the secrets properly, because their minds travel through the muddied valley. [This is] because the vanities of this world and its pleasures confuse the mind of man. And the hint in the prevention from eating the sciatic tendon for the generations is to be a commemoration that God prevented them from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, such that they not feed their minds things as difficult as tendons – as it [injured] the hollow of Jacob's thigh. And if this setback temporarily occurred to the perfect Jacob when he veered a little from the even path, what will the 'hyssop of the wall' (average people) – whose primary occupation is with the vanities of this world and its pleasures – do? Therefore they should not be occupied with hidden things, except for the special few, like R. Shimon Bar Yochai and his like – who become repulsed by, and renounced, the vanities of this world.