(י) וַיֹּאמֶר֮ יַעֲקֹב֒ אֱלֹהֵי֙ אָבִ֣י אַבְרָהָ֔ם וֵאלֹהֵ֖י אָבִ֣י יִצְחָ֑ק יְהוָ֞ה הָאֹמֵ֣ר אֵלַ֗י שׁ֧וּב לְאַרְצְךָ֛ וּלְמוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖ וְאֵיטִ֥יבָה עִמָּֽךְ׃ (יא) קָטֹ֜נְתִּי מִכֹּ֤ל הַחֲסָדִים֙ וּמִכָּל־הָ֣אֱמֶ֔ת אֲשֶׁ֥ר עָשִׂ֖יתָ אֶת־עַבְדֶּ֑ךָ כִּ֣י בְמַקְלִ֗י עָבַ֙רְתִּי֙ אֶת־הַיַּרְדֵּ֣ן הַזֶּ֔ה וְעַתָּ֥ה הָיִ֖יתִי לִשְׁנֵ֥י מַחֲנֽוֹת׃ (יב) הַצִּילֵ֥נִי נָ֛א מִיַּ֥ד אָחִ֖י מִיַּ֣ד עֵשָׂ֑ו כִּֽי־יָרֵ֤א אָנֹכִי֙ אֹת֔וֹ פֶּן־יָב֣וֹא וְהִכַּ֔נִי אֵ֖ם עַל־בָּנִֽים׃ (יג) וְאַתָּ֣ה אָמַ֔רְתָּ הֵיטֵ֥ב אֵיטִ֖יב עִמָּ֑ךְ וְשַׂמְתִּ֤י אֶֽת־זַרְעֲךָ֙ כְּח֣וֹל הַיָּ֔ם אֲשֶׁ֥ר לֹא־יִסָּפֵ֖ר מֵרֹֽב׃ (יד) וַיָּ֥לֶן שָׁ֖ם בַּלַּ֣יְלָה הַה֑וּא וַיִּקַּ֞ח מִן־הַבָּ֧א בְיָד֛וֹ מִנְחָ֖ה לְעֵשָׂ֥ו אָחִֽיו׃
(10) Then Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, ‘Return to your native land and I will deal bountifully with you’! (11) I am unworthy of all the kindness that You have so steadfastly shown Your servant: with my staff alone I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. (12) Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; else, I fear, he may come and strike me down, mothers and children alike. (13) Yet You have said, ‘I will deal bountifully with you and make your offspring as the sands of the sea, which are too numerous to count.’” (14) After spending the night there, he selected from what was at hand these presents for his brother Esau:
(1) אלוקי אבי אברהם, Yaakov first listed the praises of the Lord, acknowledging His deeds of loving kindness, before coming to the point of pleading for His help in his hour of need. When the sages of the Great Assembly formulated our daily prayers they followed the example set by Yaakov here in devoting the first three benedictions to praising the Lord and acknowledging both His power and His Holiness, before launching into listing our requests from Him.
(א) קטנתי מכל החסדים. נִתְמַעֲטוּ זְכֻיּוֹתַי עַל יְדֵי הַחֲסָדִים וְהָאֱמֶת שֶׁעָשִׂיתָ עִמִּי, לְכָךְ אֲנִי יָרֵא, שֶׁמָּא מִשֶּׁהִבְטַחְתַּנִי נִתְקַלְקַלְתִּי בְחֵטְא וְיִגְרֹם לִי לְהִמָּסֵר בְּיַד עֵשָׂו (שבת ל"ב):
(1) קטנתי מכל החסדים I AM TOO UNWORTHY OF ALL THE MERCIES (This may be rendered “I am small — unworthy — because of all the kindnesses) — My merits are diminished in consequence of all the kindness and truth which You have already shown me. For this reason I am afraid: perhaps, since You made these promises to me, I have become depraved (נתקלקלתי) by sin (another version of Rashi has נתלכלכתי, I have become defiled by sin) and this may cause me to be delivered unto Esau’s power (Shabbat 32a).
- How do you respond to the idea a person's merit being diminished. Is there a limit to the amount of loving-kindness a person can receive from the Divine. How does this contract with the concept of "grace" in Christianity?
(1) I am unworthy of all the kindnesses and of all the truth: ... But rather "katonti," is to say that he is small (deficient) from being worthy of all of the kindnesses that He did for him. And likewise, "How will Jacob survive, as he is so small" (Amos 7:2) - from being able to withstand all that is decreed upon him. And likewise did they say in Genesis Rabbah 76:8, "'Katonti': Rabbi Abba said, 'I am not worthy.'" And "the kindnesses" are the goodnesses that He did for him without a [promise], whereas "the truth" is the good that He promised him and [then] fulfilled His promise. [About this, Ya'akov] said that he was not worthy that He should have promised him and done those goodnesses for him, nor of the many other goodnesses that He did for him... And that which is correct in my eyes is that lasting kindnesses are called emet (truth), since it is from the root, "amana" - like the meaning of, "Your house and your kingship shall ever be neemanah (steadfast) before you" (II Samuel 7:16); and the sense of "with his food supplied and his drink neemanim (assured)" (Isaiah 33:16); and as it states, "you have been to me like a spring that fails, like waters that cannot be neemanu (relied on)" (Jeremiah 15:18).
Like the sands of the sea. In favorable times the Israelites are likened to the stars and in bad times they are trampled like the dust. But in intermediate times they are like the sand of the shore, which the waves continually threaten to overwhelm, but upon which they are broken instead. -Kli Yakar
(23) That same night he arose, and taking his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children, he crossed the ford of the Jabbok. (24) After taking them across the stream, he sent across all his possessions.
(1) ואת אחד עשר ילדיו AND HIS ELEVEN CHILDREN — But where was Dinah? He placed her in a chest and locked her in so that Esau should not set his fancy upon her (desire to marry her). On this account Jacob was punished — because he had kept her away from his brother for she might have led him back to the right path; she therefore fell into the power of Shechem (Genesis Rabbah 76:9).
(25) Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. (26) When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him. (27) Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.”
(1) ויותר יעקב AND JACOB WAS LEFT ALONE — He had forgotten some small jars and he returned for them (Chullin 91a).
ויאבק איש עמו, “a man began to wrestle with him.” The “man,” was an angel who had assumed the form of a human being. The angel, Esau’s protective power, had come to prevent Yaakov from escaping from Esau. He realised soon that G-d’s assurances to Yaakov were strong enough to protect him against being harmed by Esau. (Rash’bam) -Chizkuni
(1) לא יכול לו, seeing that most of Yaakov’s striving was oriented toward G’d and heavenly concerns. Both his thinking and his conversation had G’d and His will as its focus.
(2) ויגע he informed him that in the future, i.e. כף ירכו, many of his offspring would become guilty of sins against G’d. While this troubled Yaakov he momentarily digressed from his concentration on G’d so that the angel could inflict an injury upon him during his lapse of concentration.
(א) כי עלה השחר. וְצָרִיךְ אֲנִי לוֹמַר שִׁירָה בַּיּוֹם (חולין צ"א):
(ב) ברכתני. הוֹדֵה לִי עַל הַבְּרָכוֹת שֶׁבֵּרְכַנִי אָבִי, שֶׁעֵשָׂו מְעַרְעֵר עֲלֵיהֶן:
(1) כי עלה השחר FOR THE DAY BREAKETH, and I have to sing God’s praise at day (Chullin 91b; Genesis Rabbah 78:1).
(2) ברכתני [EXCEPT] THOU BLESS ME — admit my right to the blessings which my father gave me and to which Esau lays claim.
The Gemara returns to the verses that describe Jacob wrestling with the angel. “And he said: Let me go, for the dawn has risen. And he said: I will not let you go until you bless me” (Genesis 32:27). Jacob said to the angel: Are you a thief, or are you a gambler [kuveyustus], who is afraid of dawn? The angel said to him: I am an angel, and from the day I was created my time to recite a song before God has not arrived, until now. Now I must ascend so that I can sing songs of praise to God.
The Gemara comments: This supports the opinion of Rav Ḥananel when he related what Rav said. As Rav Ḥananel said that Rav said: Three groups of ministering angels recite a song every day from the verse “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord”; one says: “Holy,” and another one says: “Holy,” and another one says: “Holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:3).
The confrontation between Jacob and a “man” was one of the cosmic events in Jewish history. The Rabbis explained that this man was the guardian angel of Esau (Rashi), in the guise of a man. The Sages teach that every nation has a heavenly power, an angel that guides its destiny on earth, and acts as an “intermediary,” between the nation and God. Two nations, however, are unique: Israel and Esau. Israel needs no go-between; it is God’s own people. And Jacob, because his image is engraved upon God’s Throne of Glory, symbolizes man’s highest potential. Esau’s guardian angel is different from all the others, for just as Esau epitomizes evil, so his angel is the prime spiritual force of evil – Satan himself.
“Satan descends and seduces man (to sin), then he ascends to incite (God, by prosecuting man for his sinfulness), and then he receives permission to take man’s life ... Satan, the Evil Inclination, and the Angel of Death are one and the same” (Bava Basra 16A). The angel of Esau had to attack Jacob, because, as the last and greatest of the Patriarchs, Jacob symbolized man’s struggle to raise himself and the rest of the world with him – and Satan exists to cripple that effort. Thus the battle between Jacob and the “man” was the eternal struggle between good and evil, between man’s capacity to perfect himself and Satan’s determination to destroy him spiritually. –Artscroll
- Why did the Rabbis to develop this interpretation?
Who was the Angel?
Interpretation #1: The Angel is to Scare Jacob Away. The first interpreters of this strange story were the ancient rabbis. Some of them believed that the man was an angel who appeared in the form of a robber. His intention was to frighten Jacob, but Jacob was strong and unafraid. You cannot scare me, he told the angel-robber. And, because he was brave and refused to run away from his attacker, Jacob was victorious and blessed with a new name - Israel.
Interpretation #2: The Angel is A Metaphor for Esau who is a Personification of Rome. As we have already noted in our discussion of this Torah portion, the rabbis often portrayed Jacob and Esau as much more than competing brothers. They also thought of them as two competing national forces-as Israel and other nations, or as Israel and Rome. For some interpreters, the wrestling match between Jacob and the angel was a match between Jacob and Esau. Esau was the angel, and the battle between them symbolized the biter war for survival between the Jewish people and those nations that sought to destroy them. Jacob’s night battler, they taught, was a preview of the future. Jacob-Israel would be attached by Esau-Rome. They would fight throughout a long night of terror in which Israel would suffer. But, at the end of the night, Israel would emerge secure, strong and victorious against all its enemies.
Interpretation #3: The Angel is Esau’s Angel. By Winning Jacob Can Force Esau to Forgive Him. The commentator Rashi suggests a different approach. He argues that the man with whom Jacob wrestled was Esau’s angel. Rashi points out that Jacob was worried because Esau was coming with four hundred men to kill him and to destroy his community, still bearing a grudge against him for stealing his blessing from their father, Isaac. Rashi explains that, when Jacob discovered that he was wrestling with Esau’s angel, he realized that he might be able to force Esau into forgiving him for taking the blessing. If he succeeded, Jacob thought, then his community would be saved. So Jacob fought on, refusing to give up until Esau’s angel cried out, “Let me go.”
Interpretation #4: The Angel is Two Parts of Jacob Who are Warring Within Him. The modern writer Elie Wiesel enlarges this view. Wiesel writes that “at Peniel…two Jacobs came together.
There was the Jacob who had doubts about himself, fears about his future, and regrets about how he had stolen the blessing from his brother. This side of him said “I deserve nothing, I am less than nothing, I am unworthy of celestial blessing unworthy of my ancestors as much as of my descendants, unworthy to transmit God’s message.”
And there was the other Jacob who was the “heroic dreamer”, the brave, experienced, and future looking Jacob. That voice reminded him of how he had worked to create his family and his fortune ad how he had stood up to Laban and his sons when they had plotted against him. That voice reminded him that he was the son of Isaac and that through him the Jewish people was to survive.
That night, the two sides of Jacob fought with each other. He wrestled with the most serious questions of his life. Who was he? What was really important to him? What were his responsibilities to himself and those he loved? As dawn broke, he knew that he would never be the same. He was a changed person. He would limp away from his night battle with himself, but he would have a new name. He would no longer be Ya’akov, “the one who holds on to his brother’s heel” or “the one who steels his brother’s blessing.” Now would be Yisrael, “the one who had wrestled with. –Fields, A Torah Commentary for Our Times
The commentaries offer s series of interpretations of the identity of the “man.” These can be summarized as follows:
- Sarna. An Angel. Sarna compares this text to other texts in the Torah. He says that man can be an angel. This begs the question:
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- Why does God send an angle at this time?
- Fields. The Physical and Spiritual Enemies of the Jewish People. The commentators in Torah Gems suggest that the angel is either the enemy who tries to physical destroy to Jewish people or enemies who threaten the spiritual life of our people. Fields, based on classical commentaries, says the enemy can be Rome.
- Who are the modern physical enemies of our people? How do we confront them?
- Who or what are our spiritual enemies and how do we respond to them?
- Fields: Classical Commentators: A Robber – A Test of Faith. Fields points to classical commentators who say the “man” was a robber. God sent the man to see if Jacob had the courage to confront an enemy or if he would run away like he did when he was young. Since he demonstrated a sincere desire to return home and carry on his father’s legacy he was rewarded.
- Fields/ Rashi: Esau’s Angel an Initial Battle to Build Confidence. Fields quotes Rashi who says the “man” is Esau’s angel. When Jacob realizes that he can defeat Esau’s angel, he feels confident to confront Esau.
- Fields/ Wiesel: Esau Personality as a Child and as an Adult. Part of Jacob is a hero and part of Jacob is a coward. Elie Wiesel believes that the two aspects of Jacobs’s personality war and the hero becomes victorious.
- How do we overcome our cowardly side to become heroes?
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Wrestling with Angels
Lilith The Rebel Comments: How tempting it is to pass over, with a sigh of relief and a swift backward glance, the episode of Jacob wrestling with the angel! After all, what business do we women have doing hand-to-hand combat with supernatural beings? Could anything be more ridiculous than to imagine Leah or Rachel going to the mat with God? But the truth is that they do! They tussle with the Angel of Death over each child they bear. In the end, Rachel gives up her life in the struggle, but her newborn son emerges with a new name. And like their husband, Jacob’s wives come out of their sacred travails wounded where the angel wrenched the hollow of their thighs.
Miriam The Prophet Interjects: And what of all of us who have never given birth, who cradle a hollow within ourselves all our lives? Who will change our name from Barren One to Mother? And if we choose not to bear children, to whom shall we bequeath our names? –Frankel
(28) Said the other, “What is your name?” He replied, “Jacob.” (29) Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.” (30) Jacob asked, “Pray tell me your name.” But he said, “You must not ask my name!” And he took leave of him there.
(1) ?ויאמר ..מה שמך?, this question is only an opener for the dialogue that follows. We have several such examples, as in Genesis 3,9 where G’d asks Adam איכה?, “where are you?,” though He was perfectly aware of Adam’s whereabouts. Similarly, in Exodus 4,2 G’d asks Moses “what is this in your hand?,” knowing full well that Moses was holding a staff in his hand. Here too, Yaakov was well aware who the angel was seeing he had been sent to him specifically.
(1) לא יעקב [THY NAME SHALL] NO MORE BE CALLED JACOB [BUT ISRAEL] (literally, “not Jacob — supplanting — shall any more be said to thee”) — It shall no longer be said that the blessings came to you through supplanting and subtlety but through noble conduct (שררה) and in an open manner. Because later on the Holy One, blessed be He, will reveal Himself to you at Bethel and will change your name. There He will bless you, and I shall be there and admit your right to them (the blessings).
It is to this that the passage refers (Hosea 12:5), “And he strove with an angel and prevailed; he wept and made supplication unto him” — it means the angel wept and made supplication unto him (Jacob). What was the subject of his supplication? This is stated in the next verse: “At Bethel He will meet us and there He will speak with us — implying the request. “Wait until he will speak with us there, and then I will admit your right to the blessings.” Jacob, however, would not agree to this, and against his own wish he had to admit his right to the blessings. That is what is meant when it states (v. 30) “And he declared him blessed there”, that he begged him to wait and he did not agree to do so (cp. Genesis Rabbah 78:2).
(1) לא יעקב יאמר עוד שמך, a reference to the end of days when Israel will have survived the destruction of the gentile nations When that time comes no one ever will again use the name Yaakov for the Jewish people [and the stigma that used to be associated with that name. Ed.]
The very word יעקב already contained within this message that the bearer of this name will triumph at the end. Once he has triumphed there is no more point in having a name which alludes to something which will be realised only in the future. The future will then have arrived!
(2) ועם אנשים AND WITH MEN —Esau and Laban.
(3) ותוכל AND HAST PREVAILED over them.
(1) למה זה תשאל WHEREFORE IS IT THAT THOU DOST ASK [AFTER MY NAME]? — We have no fixed names; our names change, all depending upon the service we are commanded to carry out as the errand with which we are charged (Genesis Rabbah 78:4).
פנים אל פנים, face to face. Jacob's amazement was not due to the fact that he had had an encounter with an angel; he had previously encountered angels. What amazed him was that he had been in a confrontation with an angel. The word פנים אל פנים is a term used in warfare as we know from Kings II 14,8. -Chizkuni
Two idioms are combined here, both inherently ambiguous. To “see the face” many describe an experience of either cordiality or hostility. “Face to Face” used only of divine-human encounters, may be an adversary confrontation or an experience of extraordinary intimacy. The deliberate ambiguity simultaneously portray the perilous and the auspicious nature of the furious struggle. –Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary
(31) So Jacob named the place Peniel, meaning, “I have seen a divine being face to face, yet my life has been preserved.” (32) The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip. (33) That is why the children of Israel to this day do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the socket of the hip, since Jacob’s hip socket was wrenched at the thigh muscle.
Yet my life has been preserved. The idea behind this statement forms a recurring theme in the biblical narratives. At the burning bush Moses hides his face, “for he was afraid to look at God.’ Gideon and Manoah both fear death after experiencing God’s self-manifestation. God explicitly tells Moses, “man may not see Me and live!” this is the biblical way of expressing the intensity of the experience of the individual encounter with the Divine Presence-the utterly overwhelming nature of the mysterious contact with the awesome majesty of the transcendent yet immanent God. –Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary
(1) 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 literal sense. 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).
the thigh muscle Venerable Jewish tradition identifies this unique and cryptic term gid ha-nasheh with the sciatic nerve (nervus ischiadicus). –Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary
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The prohibition of eating the tendon of an animal’s thigh. Two primary tissues are forbidden in the hindquarter: The inner sinew – the sciatic nerve – which branches out from the rear of the spinal column and runs down the inner side of the animal’s leg, is forbidden by Torah law. The outer sinew – the common peroneal nerve – which runs across the thigh on the outer side of the animal’s leg, is forbidden by the Sages (Chullin 91a). Every last trace of these nerves must be removed, and the fat covering the sciatic nerve is removed, as well (ibid. 92b). Additionally, the six nerves which look like strings and certain other veins are removed. The pertinent halachos regarding this prohibition are found in Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 65. –Artscroll