Vayishlach 1989

In the Torah portion Vayishlach we learn how Jacob returns to the land of Israel only to find that his brother, Esau, is coming to greet him with 400 men.  He immediately hits upon a plan to thwart his brother's designs against him.  He sends him a present, he prays to G-d, and he prepares for war.  We learn that he transferred his belongings across the river and divided his camp into two so if his brother would attack one camp the other camp would be able to flee.  He was left all alone on the other side of the river and was attacked by an unknown assailant.  The rabbis explain that this was Esau's guardian angel.  Other rabbis say that he wrestled with himself whether or not he should flee or stay and confront his brother.  As a result of this struggle, he comes out limping, and he asks that the assailant with whom he wrestled should bless him.  He blesses him by changing his name and calling him Yisroel, which means that you have struggled with man and with G-d and you have been victorious.  Because he came out of this encounter limping, we, to this very day, do not eat the sciatic nerve.  The sciatic nerve was touched and he no longer could walk correctly.
The question can be asked, why is it that because of this encounter (after
all, there were other struggles the patriarchs had in their lives) that
we do not eat to this very day the sciatic nerve?  If we do eat the hindquarters
the sciatic nerve has to be purged.  In America you cannot get a sirloin
steak because it is too expensive and labor intensive to remove the sciatic
nerve.  In Israel, though, you can obtain a sirloin steak because they do
purge the sciatic nerve and remove it because there is a big market for
this product and, therefore, in Israel you can get it.  In America they
do not want to bother with it and just sent the hindquarter to the treif
tray.
We then learn afterwards that Jacob confronts his brother and they make peace.  Esau accepts his present, they have friendly conversation, and then

we learn that Esau goes his way to Saeera and Jacob goes his way to Succos. After that we learn that Jacob spent some time in Succos and then came whole to the city of Schem, which is in the land of Canaan, and there, unfortunately, tragedy befell him.  His daughter, Dena, was raped and then her brothers, two of Jacob's sons, Levi and Shimon, took a terrible revenge against the city and they wiped it out after they tricked the people into circumcising themselves so that they would be weak when they attacked.  Jacob does not like this at all, and he is determined that from now on he will train his children a different way.  Perhaps he thought that he, himself, was too weak and his children had to have a different type of education, but he realized now that he had to go to his father, Yitzchak.  He had to visit him, and on the way he stopped at Beth El and removed all the signs of their living in Schem, all those idols that his sons had accumulated, and he buried them and then built an altar to G-d at Beth El, and G-d once again confirms his name as Yisroel.  "And his name will no longer be Jacob, but his name will be Yisroel."  Then after that we learn how he goes on to visit his father.
The question can be asked, why is it that his name had to be changed twice? Once should have been sufficient.  When the unknown assailant blessed him and many of the rabbis say this was the guardian angel of Israel, this should have been sufficient that his name would be Israel.  Why did his name have to be stated to be Israel once again?  Why was it that it had to be done twice?
It seems to me that the answer to this question is found in the sentence which speaks about what happened to Jacob and Esau after they had their encounter.  It says that Esau went to Sayair and Jacob went to Succos. In Hebrew the word Sayair also means "a storm".  The trouble with Esau was

not that he was not a good man because he loved his parents and respected them and was generous and was a man who had many good traits, however, he was constantly in the head of the storm.  He had tension that he had to release.  Jacob, on the other hand, traveled to Succos.  Succos in Hebrew can mean "silence".  Jacob knew how to handle tension and Esau did not know how to handle tension.  That's what made Esau the kind of man that he was.
In life there is always tension.  There is always struggle in life.  The very act of breathing, the first breath that we take, is a struggle, and those who cannot take the first breath are slapped on the toosh so they will take the first breath.  Life is a constant struggle.  There is constant tension in life.  People try to say that our age has more tension than any other age.  This is not true.  In previous ages there was even more tension than there is today.  After all, in the ancient days we were only a hair's breath away from famine, both the rich and the poor.  There was no adequate transportation system, just like today there is famine in Africa today. There is famine in Africa not because there is not enough food but there is no way to distribute that food.  The transportation system is not developed. There is no way to store the food.  Rats eat 30% of the food in Africa. There is enough food in the world to feed the people.  It just has to be distributed equitably and has to be distributed timely, but unfortunately the transportation is not developed in all parts of Africa and other parts of the world.  In the ancient days people lived on the edge of famine. Besides that, there were the terrible ravages of sickness.  Plagues were very frequent.  A third of the population of Europe were killed in a very few short years in the 1300's.  They did not have adequate medicine.  Besides that, there were the terrible ravages of war.  We, of course, have known about the terrible ravages of war in this century, but war was a constant threat in those days.  There was tension, terrible tension, tension which

was greater than even what we have today.  The people in the olden days knew how to handle their tension better than we do today because they had a religious view of the world, a view which said that there was harmony, that we were working toward harmony, that there was meaning and purpose to the tensions that they were under.  Unfortunately, today the religious view has been mainly discarded, and you can see that in the arts and in music.  In music there has always been dissonance.  In the music of Beethoven and Mozart and Bach there is dissonance, but the dissonance is followed by harmony.  Harmony and dissonance alternate and the dissonances make even greater harmonies.  Unfortunately, most modern music and modern art, too, have dissonance but the dissonance is never resolved into harmony.
Jacob had struggles in his life.  Jacob has many struggles in his life, but he was able to balance his struggles with periods of harmony.  Eventually he came to terms with Laban.  He came to terms in this Torah portion with Esau, and though he was wounded and lost much of his material possessions and was physically hurt and lost much of his intellectual acumen, yet the rabbis say that later after he spent some time in Succos, when he went to Schem he was whole again.  He was whole in his money.  He had regained his wealth.  He was whole in his health, and he was whole once again in his Torah learning.  Esau, though, never stopped.  Esau kept going from one crisis to another.  Esau had no endpoint to his struggle.  He was constantly in the head of the storm, and his tension was never relieved and, therefore, he was driven to violence and to drugs in order to handle his tension.
That is the beauty of Shabbos.  The beauty of Shabbos is that in life, sure we have to struggle because life is difficult.  To earn a living is difficult in America.  I was shocked to learn that in just 10 years, since 1979, 46% of the Fortune 500 companies no longer exist.  That is an astounding figure.

Almost half of the leading companies in America ten years ago do not exist! They have either gone bankrupt or have been absorbed by other companies or have been chopped up, but they no longer exist.  It is a terrible struggle in life, and we need respite every once in a while from the struggle.  That is what Shabbos does for us.  Someone came to me who had just started keeping Shabbos about a year ago.  They told me Shabbos was wonderful because it is an endpoint to their struggles during the week.  It is a time when they can stop and rest and recuperate.  Before they were going and going and going, and the more they went the more tense they felt and the more drugs they had to take or the more they had to drink, but now there is an endpoint. They can stop and refresh themselves.  In life there is a constant battle, and we must constantly alternate struggle with harmony, struggle with peace, as good music has always done.
Jacob, after this encounter with Esau, went to Succos.  He went to silence, and Succos also has the word Sichud, which means "hope", "expectation". He had a vision of the ultimate harmony.  Esau, on the other hand, went to storm, to horrors.  His tension mounted, and he went from one tense situation to another tense situation.  He had to vent his anger and violence against other people.  Jacob went whole to Schem.  Unfortunately, he had to struggle again.  His daughter, Dena, was raped; two of his sons had an inadequate response to this situation; he had to leave Schem and make his way to where his father was living in Chevron, and once again his name was changed, because Yaacov had to struggle again.  He had to go back into life.  Yaacov is a struggler, but G-d assured him that he will be Yisroel again.  He will overcome all these problems.  Life is not static.  You win victories but you go on, but the victories you win, though, are worthwhile.  It is much better to have the problems of abundance rather than the problems of famine.  It is much better to have the problems of cholesterol and fat and overweight than

the problems of starvation.  Yes, there will be other problems and other struggles, but make sure that you have also periods in harmony.  Make sure you have a religious vision of the future.  Make sure that you believe in the joy and the optimistic that things eventually Yeeyah Tov, things will be good.  We in the Jewish religion have always been optimistic.  In spite of the fact that we have been the most persecuted of all the peoples, we have always had within us an optimistic view that eventually harmony and peace will reign, that eventually all the struggles that we have had will be worthwhile, and that we can overcome them one struggle at a time.  We need respite every once in a while from our struggles, and we have that in the beauty of our religion, in our holidays, in our Shabbos, and in the comfort of our family.  That is the beauty of Judaism, that it alternates struggle with harmony so it gives us the necessary strength to heal from the struggle and to go on with the struggle so eventually there will be harmony and peace throughout the world.  Our tensions can be dealt with. We have a mechanism for dealing with them.  Our tensions alternate with harmony as great music does so that we can have a beautiful, optimistic perspective on the future.
I am reminded of the story they tell about a man who went to a psychiatrist. He was complaining that 4 times a day and 4 times a night all he thought about were talking dogs, talking ducks, talking crickets, talking mice. It was driving him crazy.  He could not stand it.  The psychiatrist told him, "Don't worry, it's nothing."  The man said, "What do you mean it's nothing?  Talking dogs, talking mice, talking crickets, talking ducks. What do you mean it is nothing?"  The doctor said, "Listen, you are just suffering from Disney spells.  You'll be okay."  In Judaism we, too, have a vision of the future, a vision of harmony, a vision of joy, a vision of beauty.  When we struggle in life we must take out time every once in a

while (that is what Shabbos and the holidays are for) to remove this vision, to, in effect, lift this vision on a minor scale.  When we do this, we become refreshed and become healed and are able to go back to the struggles of life with renewed energy and confidence that eventually there will be peace and harmony throughout the world.  May that day soon come.