From the Cyber Torah Archives

I am not always the most courageous person. We lived in Los Angeles during the riots in 1993 and I fled to the hills as quickly as I could. When Carol and I were first dating, I had a tendency to walk away from her when I became angry or when we were fighting (a tendency I fortunately overcame). If I'm having a bad day, I quickly jump to fantasies about changing professions. Like many of us, when the going gets tough I at least initially want to get going. Why hide when you can run?

This is the precise emotion that characterizes Jacob. He is someone who runs from his troubles. He tricks his father, Isaac, and steals the blessing intended for Esau. Esau falls into a rage and threatens to kill Jacob, and so Jacob flees to his cousin Laban who lives in an entirely different country. Years later, the relationship with Laban collapses as well and once again Jacob flees, this time back home. Now, decades later, he must once again confront Esau.

As he returns home, Jacob reverts to past behavior. First, he devises a way to trick Esau. He divides his group into separate camps and commands his herders to bring his flocks before Esau as gifts. He hopes that Esau's anger will be assuaged by the gifts. If not, at least some of the camps will survive. Jacob attempts through his own brilliance to outsmart his enemy.

The night before the encounter, Jacob goes off by himself. Rashbam, a French Bible commentator who reads the text for its plain clear meaning, explains that "Jacob remained by himself so that he could follow the others and flee by a different path if such became necessary." Jacob reverts to past behavior. He has sunk to a new low by abandoning his wife and children on the theory that at least he will escape.

Alone, still unable to confront his fears, he "Wrestles with a man until daybreak He [apparently the man] saw he was unable to defeat him [apparently Jacob] and damaged his thigh.(Gen 32:25)" Rashbam explains the appearance of the man as being an angel who has come to prevent Jacob from fleeing and force him to confront Esau.

Who is this man who appears out of nowhere? Rashbam follows most of the traditional commentaries in referring to him as an angel of God even though the text only calls him an "Ish," a man. Further, why is neither able to defeat the other? Is Jacob the physical equal of an angel? Perhaps the mysterious Ish is a physical manifestation of that part of Jacob that wants to flee. The Bible makes literal the confrontation with his fears. He realizes they cannot defeat him unless he lets them. He struggles with that part of himself and becomes a changed man. As a result, the man or angel says to him, "Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel because you struggled with God and with people." No more do you run away: now you stand and fight and so you are a different person. Then the man blesses him. His old self stands aside and sends Jacob, now Israel, to fulfill his destiny.

Yet we can never fully change. There is always a mark left on our souls by who we are even when we cast aside destructive behavior, as Jacob did. Again this manifests physically on Jacob: he becomes lame in one leg as a result of this fight.

Jacob is able to overcome his fear because he realizes the God is with him and has always been with him. This is the same Jacob who, upon fleeing from home, has a vision of God and says, "God was in this place, and I, I knew it not." This is a Jacob who has a hard time with faith and wants to be able to do it all on his own. The encounter with the man, as Rashbam explains, teaches Jacob that he can rely upon God. Not only was God in that place, but God had been with him all along.

May be it so for us in all of our struggles and insecurities.