Ani v’Atah: Parashat Vayishlach

Drash on Parashat Vayishlach at Kedem Synagogue, Melbourne Australia, on December 6, 2025.

Shabbat shalom!
It’s wonderful to see so many smiling faces here today. Hasn’t this week been a lovely start to summer! Hot weather, cold weather, rainy weather - we’re right on track for perfect Melbourne weather!

Someone very dear to me likes to say, “I’ll do it when it warmer.” And when it’s warmer she says, I’ll do it when it’s cooler.” Summer is a very interesting time for her!
I’m not innocent of that kind of thinking. Every now and then, I think, ohh, I’d like to sleep in… maybe not today. Perhaps we all feel like that sometimes? This week, though, I met someone who took the ‘maybe not today’ out of me.

Let me introduce you to my friend Natan. Natan lives in a remote community in East Africa. He is only in his 20s, and is a keen Jewish leader of his local community.

Actually, I think his words introduce him better than I ever could. With his permission, I’d like to share some of his recent correspondence with me - and I think I’ll read it verbatim for its richness and authenticity.

“I was living quite far from the synagogue, I used to foot for about 3 kilometres on Shabbat to lead services. The COVID outbreak affected us a lot, no movement, no worship, but we could gather as Jewish neighbours and practice Judaism secretly in the house room. That's when I started leading up a small group of my colleagues who live far away from the synagogue. At the end of the year, we gathered and brought the idea of starting another Jewish community as families that are far away from the synagogue instead of footing long-distance to go for services. Many of them bought the idea and started contributing to the congregation by gathering under a tree shade for services on Shabbat and teachings. They entrusted me as their leader. Right now we are constructing a synagogue of 70 iron sheets.”

Identity is an interesting thing. From Melbourne to East Africa, to today’s Parashah, we all discover who we are in different ways. Early on in the challenge, we might imagine that identity is the clothes we wear, the school we went to, the spouse we married. But some things run deeper and show us that our jobs, our families, even our actions, do not define us - in some ways they can liberate us.

In Parashat Vayishlach, Jacob is on a journey of becoming. His measures of identity start in the womb - one of a twin pregnancy, he wrestles with his brother Esav, he is delivered second but holding the heel of his brother. From stealing his brother’s birthright to fleeing for life, his identity seems defined by conflict. He inadvertently marries the wrong woman - haven’t we all been there - he cross breeds animals for personal gain, deceiving his uncle. He finally gets to marry the woman he adores, and loses her with carelessly chosen words.

What Jacob brings to his days, are echoes of survival choices, not relational choices. He is not coming to understand himself or others any better because he is not bringing himself with integrity to his relationships.

And just as happens to the best of us, existential threat makes Jacob confront who he really is. Because while we can surround ourselves with wealth and status, spouses and children, no one can walk the dark night of the soul with us. When we look inward, dive into the unconscious, either willingly or dragged under by circumstance, we must do it alone.

We discover who we are alone. And that internal conflict changes Jacob. Threatened with losing all he has - what he imagines is his identity - the wrestle for identity is defined.

Israel - one who wrestles with the divine and humans, and prevails.

So the search for identity is not alone - it is relational. Jacob wrestles with family, wrestles with choices, wrestles with his conscience, and finally, wrestles with the sacred.

Early in our lives, if we are lucky, we develop a spiritual toolkit - something we can turn to when the going gets tough. We know Jacob has this as he recognises the divine, “God was in this place and I, I did not know it.” There is a glimpse of humility as he realises conflict brings us closer to God.

Who knows Arik Einstein’s song “ Ani ve’atah?”
(Sing first line: Ani ve'ata neshaneh et ha'olam) “You and I , we’ll change the world.”

Ani v’atah is Jacob with the divine being —with the angel, with the Mystery. He held on to that relationship and cried out: “I will not let go. I will not release You.”
That’s identity.
“Bless me!”

I have run away. I have searched. And I have found it. Ani v’atah. I feel the connection with the Divine. It has been a long journey since leaving my father’s house, crossing the river, descending into deeper consciousness. Years of wrestling, challenges placed before me, stripping away everything I thought was me, and everything I thought was not me. And when I let go of the identities that held me —what did I discover through teshuvah, through repair and renewal of what was broken? I found Ani v’atah. You and I. Me and you.

Ani v’atah — and that is all it takes, my friends.
Ani v’atah, because what else is there, truly, other than you and me? Me and you.

This is what we are constantly searching for, constantly holding onto. This is where divine encounter occurs.
I encounter God through you, and you encounter God through me.

That is why it is Ani v’atah. There is nothing more than this: the sacred space between two people who refuse to let go, even as the dawn approaches.

For Ani v’atah is where relationship with God takes place.
Not above us.
Not beyond us.
But between us.

Shabbat shalom.