by D. G. Myers 

Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed. After an all-night wrestling match, Jacob gets a new name. What does this mean? What is the significance of this change for us who are bnei Israel, the heirs to the name?

The image of Jacob the wrestler has penetrated deeply into folklore about the Jews. One recent writer, for instance, an admirer of American Jewish literature, derives an account of being Jewish from it.

Henryk Tarlo and Ida Kaminska as Jacob and Rachel in Zygmunt Turkow's 1924 Yiddish film Tkies Kaf.

Being Jewish, he says, is to wrestle with the world; it is "actively, engagingly [to] question the status quo." In other words, to be Jewish is to be politically liberal. Although there is some sociological truth to this—American Jews do tend to be politically liberal, marching in the front ranks of any movement to challenge the status quo—this is not a particularly compelling interpretation of Jacob’s wrestling match. On this showing, Jacob wrestles with civil society and what prevails are his liberal views on, say, war, race relations, capital punishment, abortion. But could this really be what God had in mind when he called Israel "a holy nation" [Exod 19.6]?

Oddly enough, the interpretation offered by our classical commentators is just about as political as this. Who is the "man" with whom Jacob wrestles all night? According to Rashi, "Our sages explained that he was the prince of Esau." In the dream four chapters earlier in which he sees angels going up and down the ladder, what Jacob really sees are the princes of nations, whose rise and fall are symbolically represented. And so the night before he is to meet Esau again after twenty years—perhaps on the field of battle—Jacob symbolically skirmishes with Esau, battling the spirit of the nation. Thus Nahmanides concludes that

Nachmanides identifies Esau (that is, Edom) with Rome, pointing out that Jacob’s attempts to appease Esau by sending him gifts and calling him "lord" prefigure Israel’s political actions toward Rome:

The story of Jacob and Esau thus becomes a political parable, a prophetic warning against appeasement, which Neville Chamberlain apparently forgot in going to Munich in 1938 to hand Czechoslovakia over to Hitler. The rabbinical precept is He who acts like a lamb—the wolves devour him. Although Israel ultimately prevails over Esau—even in our prayers earlier today we have described the State of Israel as the "dawn of our redemption"—he is permanently crippled by the historical and political struggle. The rabbis interpret Jacob’s hip beingwrenched out of its socket as a symbolic representation of Jewish exile.

This is such a neat interpretation, and it is backed by solid rabbinical authority; why does it bother me so much? True, the interpretive principle behind it is unmodern, unfamiliar, perhaps even uncomfortable. The rabbis read the Torah on the principle that "the deeds of the patriarchs are a sign to their descendants." And what they usually mean by this is that the conduct of a patriarch like Jacob is taken to set the archetypal pattern of Israel’s future role among the nations; the history of the patriarchs serves as the archetype of what future generations might expect. But it is not this principle which bothers me. Indeed, I am going to suggest that we continue to read the Torah on the principle that it is a sign to us.

No, what disturbs me is that the classical rabbinical interpretation misses the tone of the whole encounter between Jacob and Esau. When Esau sees Jacob again, for the first time in twenty years, he embraces Jacob and begins to weep. Jacob responds in kind: "To see your face," he tells Esau, "is like seeing the face of God." This does not feel to me like a political and historical encounter between two nations, prefiguring the domination of one by the other; it feels like an emotional encounter between two persons. And the tone is not one of demand and appeasement, but forgiveness and reconciliation.

If we (the children of Israel, the descendants of Jacob) are going to read today’s parashah as a sign to us, I would like to suggest that we read it, not as a historical and political omen, but as a model of ethics, a description of how good persons treat each other. And I am convinced that the order of incidents in our parashah contains the clue to its meaning.

So let’s start at the beginning. After twenty years, Jacob is about to encounter Esau again—Esau who swore to kill Jacob for cheating him out of his birthright and blessing. The classical commentators are hit hard by the fact that "Jacob was greatly frightened." He divides his camp. He sends a message ahead, calling Esau his "lord" and himself Esau’s "servant." He prepares a lavish gift. Now we can join the rabbis in describing Jacob’s actions as an attempt to placate Esau, but this is to prejudge them. Without prematurely deciding whether he is right to do so, what we can say is simply that Jacob makes himself vulnerable to Esau.

In his first message to Esau, Jacob refers to his holdings of "cattle, asses, sheep, and male and female slaves" (32.6). Then—after hearing that Esau is on his way—Jacob sends a gift of many animals from these holdings (32.15-16). Now the question is: if this is an act of appeasement, why does Jacob first make reference to his worldly success? Jacob clearly offers this success as the basis, the motive and occasion, for his gift. "I have this abundance," he is saying, "and out of it I want you to have these gifts." Why?

Do you remember the blessing that his father Isaac gave to Jacob?—the blessing that Jacob stole from Esau, the blessing that was originally intended for Esau. Here it is: "Out of the dew of heaven and the fat of the earth may God give you abundance of new grain and wine" (27.28). Is it possible that Jacob tells Esau of his worldly success as a sign their father’s blessing has come true? The animals that he offers to Esau as a gift could be evidence that Jacob enjoys "the fat of the earth," just as Isaac promised. And yet he does not offer the gift to Esau as a boast or warning. Instead, he seems to be saying: "My father promised me this abundance; it was originally intended for you; now I want to share it with you." In other words, Jacob is offering to make amends for an ancient wrong. He is offering to make peace.

It is significant, then, to consider what else Isaac promised Jacob on the occasion of his blessing many years before: "Be master over your brothers," Isaac had said, "and let your mother’s sons bow to you" (27.29). Jacob’s words to Esau, which struck the classic commentators as appeasement, suddenly make a lot more sense. By calling Esau his lord, by describing himself as Esau’s servant, Jacob is saying: "My father’s blessing has come true; God has given me an abundance from the fat of the earth. And so you might expect me to come to claim the next part of the blessing—to demand that you bow to me. Not so. I am your servant. I bow to you." After all, this is what Isaac originally intended, for he believed that he was addressing Esau when he promised that his brothers would bow to him. And what Jacob is doing, then, is restoring things to their original condition, before the swindle. His words and gifts are an act of reconciliation and atonement. They are a plea for forgiveness, but they are not mere words, because they are an act of tikkun olam, of rebuilding the world.

Now if instead Jacob were trying to appease Esau, if he were prefiguring Neville Chamberlain’s journey to Munich in 1938, then we would expect a certain specific reaction. Hitler reacted very differently to Chamberlain than Esau reacts to Jacob. Although Hitler had every reason to consider Chamberlain’s appeasement a personal and political triumph—twenty years after the First World War he was dictating terms to the victorious powers—he was "more irritated than elated by his triumph. The morning after the Munich agreement was signed, when Chamberlain called on [him] in his Munich flat, . . . Hitler [w]as moody and preoccupied. The news that Chamberlain had been given an ovation as he drove through the streets of Munich . . . further annoyed him. When Hitler returned to Berlin he exclaimed angrily to his ss entourage: ‘That fellow Chamberlain has spoiled my entry into Prague’" (Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny [New York: Harper, 1962], pp. 470-71). And this reaction makes perfect sense, for Chamberlain offered him Czechoslovakia as a gift when what Hitler wanted was all of Europe; he was not appeased.

By contrast, Esau weeps with joy at the sight of Jacob. He receives Jacob favorably. He marvels at the size of Jacob’s family. At first he is reluctant, but when urged he accepts Jacob’s gift; for to accept a great gift is also an act of generosity. And he offers to accompany Jacob, proceeding at Jacob’s pace.

In this context the name Israel—"you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed"—suddenly takes on a new meaning. First Jacob seeks forgiveness from the brother whom he has wronged; then he is reconciled with him. In between the offer of forgiveness and its acceptance, Jacob is renamed Israel, which is clearly intended as a tribute to his actions. It is in his willingness to seek forgiveness, to abase himself before someone he had wronged, that Jacob prevails over "beings divine and human." The Torah reveals this by means of a textual echo: first Jacob names the wrestling place Peniel, saying, "I have seen a divine being face to face. . . ." And then upon glimpsing Esau for the first time in years, he says, "[T]o see your face is like seeing the face of God." In other words, wrestling with the angel is not essentially different from reconciling with a longtime enemy. Jacob prevails because he wrestles with his natural inclination not to admit wrong nor to accept responsibility, and he prevails in asking forgiveness, in seeking reconciliation. His new name is a tribute to his willingness to set things right, to make peace.

We do not have a good term for this moral action of asking forgiveness and seeking reconciliation. The word repentance comes closest, but we do not usually think of repentance in these terms.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

We like to think of repentance as something that we do before God. In Hebrew we call it teshuvah, returning to him. Repentance is the theme of Yom Kippur, which is the intense climax of an entire month of self-examination and penitential prayers. Yet Abraham Joshua Heschel makes clear the similarity between repentance and seeking reconciliation when he says:

And something like this is what happens in our parashah. Jacob is transformed and re-created as Israel by his willingness to ask forgiveness, to seek reconciliation. Forgiveness and reconciliation happen between men too and not only between man and God, and so as the transformed and re-created Israel says, "[T]o see your face," my onetime enemy, "is like seeing the face of God."

It is a truth universally recognized that intimacy between persons is more easily destroyed than created. But if intimacy can be destroyed, it can also be re-created. Such is the sign which today’s parashah gives to us as bnei Israel, descendants of Jacob renamed Israel. To seek forgiveness and reconciliation with those whom we have wronged is never easy—it is like wrestling with God himself, and it will leave us permanently altered, perhaps even lamed—but it is required if we are to undertake our holy obligation of tikkun olam, rebuilding the world. Everyone knows the second half of Leviticus 19.18: "Love your neighbor as yourself." But few of us know the first half: "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen." On the view of the Torah, forgiveness and reconciliation take precedence even over love. For love is not possible without them.

On Shabbat we do not say Tachanun, the daily prayers in which we ask God’s forgiveness, and the philosopher Franz Rosenzweig speculates that the reason we do not is that we do not need them—we do not need to confess our sins in order to feel God’s nearness on this day. By the same logic, then, to ask forgiveness from someone we have wronged, to seek reconciliation with someone we once loved, but from whom we have become estranged—this is to come near to God; it is like seeing his face. It is the Sabbath of our daily moral lives. Doubtless the rabbis are right that He who acts like a lamb—the wolves devour him. But after reading our parashah today, we might also say He who acts like a lamb—he gets to see the face of God.

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