Vayishlach 1988

In the Torah portion Vayislach we learn how Yaacov is about to encounter his brother, Esau, for the first time in 22 years.  He is afraid and distressed.  The rabbis say he is afraid because he may be killed, and he is distressed because he may have to kill his brother.  He does what Jews have done throughout the ages when they are confronted with terrible problems like this.  He prepares for war.  He divides his camp.  He sues for peace.  He sends a gift, and he prays to G-d.  The night before the encounter he takes his camps and passes them over the river, but he, himself, is left alone.  There is struggles with an unknown assailant until dawn.  Maimonides says that this unknown assailant actually was a dream he had.  He was wrestling with himself.  He was facing a terrible quandary.  His whole soul was wracked with terrible ambivalence.  He did not know how to respond to the situation in front of him.  He knew he had to return to Israel in order to save his soul from the grasp of Laban, and even maybe his life.  He had to flee from Laban and once again return to his ancestral home.  Here he was having to confront his brother. He was going to have to betray those ideals that he held dear.  He knew that he had not acted right to his brother, and now his brother was coming toward him with 400 men.  He was going to have to fight, to kill or be killed.  How could he reconcile what he was going to have to do with his ideals?
We, too, today are wracked with what we see a Jew has to do in the world in order to survive.  Many of you perhaps saw the television series, "War and Remembrance".  They tell me, those who have been in concentration camps and labor camps, who have been in Auschwitz and Teraizenstock, that the portrayal of the scenes of Auschwitz and Teraizenstock and the labor camps are the most true to life of any that have ever been depicted

on television.  Jews had to do terrible things to survive, and most Jews did not survive.  We Jews were treated worse than any animal.  We were exterminated worse than any pests.  We need to do certain things in order to stay alive.  Today, thank G-d, we have a state of Israel, which can defend the Jewish people, but we, in order to protect this state, must do things which appall us.  We have to shoot tear gas and rubber bullets and plastic bullets and real bullets at children who are throwing stones and Molotav cocktails at us.  It hurts the Jewish soul to see such a thing.  In fact, even in the Hagaddah we always depict the good son as the scholar and the evil son as the soldier holding weapons, but we know that unless are willing to defend ourselves we will end up as the Jews did in Auschwitz and Treblinka and Teraizenstock.  Of course, in the world today we have to use means in order to defend ourselves because of the terrible evil which man is capable of.  Of course, it is not true, though, that those Jews who still keep to the old ways, who still wear the black hats and black coats and pour over the books, are responsible for their own deaths.  Many people have said that if these people would only have fought then the Nazis would not have been able to exterminate them.  This is a complete lie.  The only reason Israel was spared during the Holocaust was not because of the fighting kibbutzniks, because of those who joined the Jewish division in the British army.  They were saved because Rommel lost the Battle of El Alamein.  If Rommel would have won that battle, then all the Jews in Egypt and Israel would have been scooped up and sent on trains to Treblinka and Auschwitz and would have gone up the chimneys, too.  It is a complete lie to say that those people who concentrate on study and who look the way ancient Jews looked, that, therefore, they invite attack because they look like victims, and, therefore, they will be treated as victims.  After all, the Jews of western

Europe did not look like victims, yet they wound up in the smokestacks of Auschwitz, too.  Unfortunately, many people, instead of blaming the world and blaming the Nazis for what happened, turn and blame themselves the same way that many times a rape victim is accused of being too pretty, of inviting the rape.  We know, though, that in the modern world we have to defend ourselves, but it hurts us, it wracks our soul to see what we have to do to maintain the state, our state.  But what can we do? What other choice do we have?  It is difficult in life.  Life has such terrible problems, and we have to face the problems.  It is terrible to see Jews wading into crowds with truncheons in their hands.  This is not a Jewish activity, but, yet, if we want to maintain one corner of the world free where every Jew can flee if he has to flee because of persecution, these are things we have to do.
Jacob, too, was wrestling with the problem.  How could he, a scholar,
even think he may have to kill his brother?  How could these things be?
In life we are forced to make, many times, terrible, wrenching decisions
which hurt us because we do not want to have to really make these decisions,
but many times we have no choice.  Sometimes terrible sickness strikes
and we have to make terrible decisions, whether we have to put people
in nursing homes, whether we have to put them in institutions, whether
we have to have them undergo certain operations.  These are terrible
decisions.  Many times parents come to me complaining and asking my advice
about children who are hooked on drugs.  They may even be dealing in
drugs.  They ask what they should do.  Should they keep giving them money?
I tell them no, not to do it.  You have to adopt a tough decision, but
it hurts them, but your child will never be cured unless the child reaches
the depths and wants to change himself.  The same is true of alcoholics.
If they will not go to AA there is not much you can do for them.  There

are so many difficult decisions we have to make in life.  Sometimes we have to leave family and friends in order to further our career.  Sometimes we have to give up certain promotions because we know it will hurt our family.  We are involved always in very difficult decisions.  This is what Yaacov had to wrestle with.  Life is not easy.  Life many times causes us to choose between a rock and a hard place and it is difficult.
The rabbis ask, why didn't Jacob vanquish his foe when he had him in his grasp?  After all, he could have killed him.  According to the text, the man was powerless.  Another question the rabbis ask is, how could it ever happen that an angel could be powerless?  Couldn't an angel have destroyed Jacob? What's going on here?  The rabbis say that this was actually a test of Jacob.  This was a test to see what kind of a human being he was.  We Jews have never wanted to kill anybody or destroy anybody. All we want is the other person's blessing.  The angel said, "Send me because the dawn has arisen."  Jacob said, "I will not send you unless you will bless me."  Jacob did not want to kill him.  He did not want to wipe him out.  All he wanted was his blessing.  The same is true today. We Jews do not want to wipe out the Arabs.  We just want their blessing. Let us live and you live, too.  We do not want to wipe you out.  Please, let us live, too.  This has to be, too, the attitude that is taken in all arguments.  You do not want to wipe out your foe.  You want to live with your foe in peace.
Why was it, then, that the angel did not vanquish Jacob?  The rabbis say the reason he did not vanquish Jacob was because he wanted to see how Jacob would respond by being alone.  The rabbis tell us that the reason why we were from then on forbidden to eat the sciatic nerve was because the sons of Israel, Jacob's children, his family, did the wrong thing by leaving him alone.  They saw that Jacob was troubled but, yet,

they let him be alone.  The angel wanted to see how Jacob would respond to this terrible struggle alone with his problem.  How would he respond? There are many responses a person can choose when he is struggling with a problem alone.  One is that he can go to drugs and alcohol.  He could try to pretend his problem does not exist and drown it in chemicals. The second thing is to run away, to roam free, to say you do not need any attachment whatsoever, that you can do whatever you want whenever you want.  This, unfortunately, is an American response.  This you will find is one of the themes of American literature:  to flee from all your problems.  Jacob had a track record like this.  He fled from his brother, Esau, initially and he fled from Laban.  One of the ways to handle your problems is just to run away, like many husbands do, leaving their wives with little children to raise.  The third response is to flee into mysticism, to pretend problems do not exist at all.  A fourth response is to get involved in cruelty, in sex and sadism, is to be mean and vicious and use trickery to try to get out of your problems.  This is not a Jewish response either.  The Jewish response is to go back to your family, to be surrounded by family and friends, to be tied down because only in this way can you overcome your problems.  Each of us needs support to overcome the terrible problems of life.  That is why when a death occurs we have shiva.  For a whole week we do not leave a person alone, where people are constantly coming to someone's house.  We know, too, that life has many difficult problems, and, therefore, Judaism is a firm advocate of marriage because only in marriage do you have someone you can share your problems with and, therefore, these problems can be overcome.  That is why the rabbis believe that if tragedy strikes and a person becomes a widow or widower or other tragedies strike, that a person should remarry, that a person should not stay alone, that a person, in order to overcome

his problems has to be tied to others, that if he is tied to others, if he sees the perspective of others and has the advice of others, and he attaches himself to G-d and others he will be able to overcome his problems.  G-d never promised us in life that if we are religious we will not have problems.  He only promised us that He will give us the strength to overcome our problems if we are religious, if we believe in family, if we attach ourselves to friends, if we attach ourselves to Him.
That, of course, is what Jacob did.  He returned to his family.  He became tied.  He even limped.  That is, of course, why we are forbidden to eat the sciatic nerve, because the sciatic nerve stands for the stance that a Jew must have in this world.  He must be tied to family and friends because it is only through the help of family and friends that he will be able to come to the decisions that are necessary in order to solve the hard problems that face him.  Sometimes we may not agree with his or her decision but the decision will be based upon taking the advice and help and moral backing and encouragement of those around him who he loves and cares for.  This, of course, is the way we are to handle problems.  Loneliness can only beget terrible solutions to problems which will be wrong solutions.  Drugs and alcohol, sex and sadism, even mysticism not tied to other people Judaism frowns on.  Roaming free, running away from problems does not solve problems.  It just casts them on others and makes it harder for others to solve.  Jacob here was being taught how he should solve his problems.  He learned that the only way he could solve his problems was by returning to his family, by discussing them with them, by seeking their moral support, and, as we know, his brother was reconciled to him.  He could not solve his problems by trickery. He had tried that earlier and it did not work.  It only led to disaster.

He could only solve his problems by honestly confronting his problems in the company of his family and friends and seeking also G-d's help. Let us all hope and pray that all of us will remember this, that the way we solve these hard, wrenching problems is by consulting with our family and friends and trying to come to the best decision we can.  Some problems are horrendous.  Some problems wrack our soul, but eventually, with G-d's help, they can be overcome.
I am reminded of the story they tell about a train that went through a pasture in which a farmer kept a prize cow.  One day the cow disappeared and the farmer sued the railroad.  The railroad turned this case over to a young, hotshot lawyer.  He came to the farmer and he whittled the claim down to less than half of what the farmer had asked for.  After they signed all the papers and the lawyer handed over the check, the lawyer turned to the farmer and said, "You know, you had me worried. I had no witnesses.  The engineer and brakeman had fallen asleep."  The farmer replied, "You know, you had me worried, too, because my cow came home this morning."  It is not through trickery that we are going to solve problems.  It is through discussing them with family and friends and trusting in G-d.  May all our problems soon be solved.