Vayishlach 1992

In the Torah portion Vayishlach we learn about the confrontation between Yaacov and Esau.  We learn, too, how Yaacov's name was changed to Yisroel, how the night before he encountered his brother and made up his brother that he wrestled all night with an angel and Jacob said to the angel, "I will not let you go unless you will bless me," and the angel said to Jacob, "What's your name?" He said Jacob, and the angel said, "Jacob shall no longer be your name but Israel because you have wrestled with man and with G-d and you have overcome." We see that Jacob's name now became Yisroel, Israel, but it seems very strange that later G-d has to confirm this name.  After Jacob goes to Schem and there his daughter is raped and the people of the town harbor the rapist and the rapist decides he wants to marry Dena, Jacob's daughter.  Dena's brothers, Shimon and Levi, plot a revenge and they tell the members of that town that they have to be circumcized and then when they are weak from the circumcision they come in and slaughter the town and take the booty.  Jacob does not like this one bit and he condemns them.  Then it says after that Incident that G-d said to Jacob, "Get up and go to Beis El and dwell there and make there an altar to G-d who appeared to you when you escaped before Esau, your brother." What does it mean "G-d who appeared to you when you escaped before Esau, your brother"? After all, isn't G-d speaking to him and saying, "Appear before Me"? Why does it say "G-d who appeared to you when you escaped before Esau, your brother"?
Then afterwards we learn how G-d appeared to Jacob another time and He confirmed his name change, and G-d said to him, "Your name Is Jacob," and from this we learn that both names are to be used, both Jacob and Israel, "And it shall not be called your name anymore Yaacov but Israel shall be your name, and He called his name Israel." Also, in this same paragraph we note that the Torah is not divided Into chapters and verses.  That was an invention of an English monk in the Middle Ages.  The Torah is divided Into paragraphs.  In this same paragraph without any interruption we learn how Rachel dies, how she dies in childbirth, and when she dies in childbirth she Her son who was killing her, in effect, Benonee, the son of my affliction, but Jacob

called him Binyamin, Benjamin.  Now the word Benonee can be Aramaic and then it means the son of my affliction, the son of my sorrow.  In Hebrew Benonee means both the son of my sorrow and the son of my strength, so Jacob chose to call his son Binyamin, the son of his strength.  Now it seems strange that this is put in exactly the same paragraph as when G-d confirms that Jacob's name shall now be Israel.  He confirms with the angel He had done previously.  Why should this be in the same paragraph?
Now we can understand why Jacob did not want to call his son Benonee, the son of my affliction, the son of my sorrow, because that means that Benjamin would have to bear a great deal of guilt, that he would always be reminded just by his name that it was he who killed his mother, so Jacob did a right thing by naming his son Binyamin.  But there is another reason, too, and that is that Jacob wanted to stress the positive things about the Jewish religion, that he wanted to stress the fact that the Jewish religion helps us overcome our adversities and our troubles, and he called him the son of my right hand.
If we look carefully in the text we will see that when Jacob left his brother Esau after they had made up that Esau goes to Saer and Jacob goes first to Succos and then to Schem.  It says, "And there he erected an altar and he called it the G-d, the G-d of Israel." In other words, Jacob thought that all his problems were now over.  Why was it that he had to be renamed? Because when he fought with the angel and he overcame the angel and the angel said, "You have wrestled with G-d and man and you have overcome," he thought his problems were all over, that that was it, he was through, but that was not the case.  Jacob's name was also to be Jacob and Yisroel because you cannot wrestle with all your problems and overcome them.  You can overcome them momentarily but your problems come back.  The problems are always there, that you have to constantly every day struggle with them and overcome them, that man has to struggle constantly with himself to do the right thing.  We cannot rest on our previous laurels and, of course, vis a vis our children we have to make

sure that we constantly give them a good example because children follow what we
do not what we say.  It is so easy to slip back and to say, "Well, I have won a victory
and that is all I have to do." That is not true.  We have to constantly to work
on ourselves to make sure that we are constantly doing the right thing, the compassionate
thing, and the good thing.  One of the reasons, too, why he was called Yisroel, Israel,
is because you have to constantly wrestle with man and G-d to find out what is the
correct thing to do in every situation.  We believe that the Halacha does not change,
but circumstances do change and that many times what is right in one circumstance
is wrong in another circumstance.  For every given circumstance there is one right
way of doing it.  We believe in absolutes but there is not an absolute for every
given situation.  Therefore, we have to struggle.  We have to learn.  That is what
the Talmud is all about.  The Talmud is basically case law.  For example, someone
came to me a few years ago and said, "Is it permissible to stick a baby with pins?"
I looked at him and said, "What do you mean? Are you a sadist? Do you know the
trauma you are going to give the baby? You know the trauma you are going to give
your own soul? Get out of here!" The man said, "Wait a minute.  I am a doctor.
I want to know if I can give a baby a shot." "Oh, give a baby a shot!  Well, that
is different.  Of course you can give a baby a shot." What are you doing, though,
when you give a baby a shot? You are sticking a baby with a pin but you are saving
the baby from diphtheria and mumps and measles.  Definitely it is all right to give
a baby a shot, but if you have ever been around babies who have got a shot they scream
and they howl.  They do have a trauma but that is a good trauma because that is going
to save them from all sorts of sickness.
Jacob thought that his problems were over, but our problems are not over because with the greatest task that we have in this world is to shape ourselves.  When we face new situations, new temptations we have to face them knowing full well that it is difficult to overcome them.  Here we see that when Jacob comes to Schem he

is not just Yisroel who has conquered all his problems.  Look what happened with
all his children.  Dena goes out and gets raped and then when his children, Shimon
and Levi, attack the city and wipe out all the males and take the booty Jacob does
not like it at all and he says, "You have troubled me to cause me to be libel among
the inhabitants of the land." What did Shimon and Levi say?  Shimon and Levi said,
"Listen, we only did what was the law of the land.  According to the laws of this
land rapists should be killed and anybody who harbors a rapist should be killed,
so, therefore, we are just obeying their laws." Jacob said that was not the Jewish
law.  Rapists are not killed in Jewish law.  Certainly people who harbor rapists
are not killed.  He said, "You are giving a bad impression of what we stand for here.
What do we stand for? Do we stand for these type of things?" Many times especially
when we hit new cultures we Jews have to make sure that we constantly check what
we are doing against the Torah to make sure that the eternal verities of our Torah
are being heeded.  Sometimes we go way overboard with different types of directions.
That is why G-d appeared to him.  He said, "Get up and go to Beis El and make there
an altar to the G-d Who appeared to you when you escape from Esau, your brother."
This is the same G-d Who is talking but there Jacob realized that he did not win
the battle, that he was confronted still with the fear and the guilt of what he had
done before, that G-d asks us to please continue to realize that we constantly have
to struggle.  The struggle is not won.  That is why later on his name was changed
to Yisroel but G-d also said his name was still going to be Yaacov.  There are many
Jews today who try to base the whole of Jewish existence on fear and guilt and they,
of course, have some basis for this.  They say that you cannot give Hitler a posthumous
victory, that we Jews have to continue to prove that we are right, to prove that
we can still exist, that we can outlive our enemies, but that is not a reason for
people to still stay Jewish.  It is a secondary or terciary reason.  The reason why
people stay Jewish is because Judaism gives them the strength to overcome their problems.
Judaism allows them to live kind and compassionate and sane lives in the face of

all sorts of troubles that come upon us, that challenge us continuously.  That, of course, is why we learn about the death of Rachel right in the same paragraph where Jacob's name was changed, where G-d confirms that change because here Jacob had finally come to the land of Israel.  He had met his brother and left in peace.  Everything seemed to be all right.  All of a sudden not only did the trouble of Dena come upon him but now after G-d had confirmed the change of his name to Israel, what happens? His wife dies.  It is almost like a slap in the face.  Here based upon this terrible event he is still supposed to lead a life based on compassion, love, and care.  Here he is so hurt.  The reason why I admire Holocaust survivors so much is, by and large, they are not interested in revenge.  They were interested when they came out of the camp in sane lives.  They were interested to live lives of love and compassion. Judaism gives you a way of looking at life which allows you to overcome your problems, to live a sane and a decent life in which you are at harmony with yourself and with G-d, not always in harmony with the peoples around you.
That is what was so important that we should all realize, that we have to struggle
to maintain this harmony.  We have to struggle to maintain this compassionate life.
It is not easy.  We do not win a one time victory.  We have to struggle all throughout
life.  Yes, we Jews have formed many organizations out of fear, the Anti Defamation
League and the American Jewish Committee and the American Jewish Congress, to fight
the people who would harm us, and, yes, it is true that it should never be again.
We should show that we are here and Hitler is dead and Hitler should not win a posthumous
victory over us, but that is not enough.  We also have to feel in our heart of hearts
that Judaism is a way of life which gives us great joy and happiness, which allows
us to live a sane and a wonderful family life, that allows us to overcome our problems.
Yes, we are continually going to have problems.  Life is not going to be easy.
In fact, we learn here, too, when Jacob goes to Beis El how Devorah, Rebecca's nurse, died and she was buried at Beis El under an oak tree.  It is interesting that this

Devorah is never mentioned any other place in the Torah, that this Devorah was the nursemaid of Rebecca and Rebecca brought her with her when she married Yitzchak and she sent this Devorah with Yaacov when he went back to Laban and then she was with Yaacov and all his children and wives when they lived in Mesopotamia.  She died right now because she was the one who gave Rifka the courage and the strength to persist in views of righteousness and love and harmony and compassion even though she was raised in a home which did not believe in these things.  She was the one who told Yaacov not to give up.  She was the one who had a great influence on the children. She realized that life was a constant struggle and that you never win.  You never win completely, that you win one battle but there are other battles ahead, and most of the battles have to do with shaping yourself, with disciplining yourself to make sure you do not slip, to make sure you do the righteous and the good and the right things.  Yes, Judaism says that in spite of the blows that we take, in spite of the hardships that sometimes we have to endure, yet we still can lead good and beautiful lives in which we are in harmony with ourselves and in harmony with G-d.  Let us all hope that we will live such a life so that the Mashiach will come quickly in our day.  Amen.
I am reminded of the story they tell about a man who was dressed up like Napoleon.
He came to a psychiatrist and the psychiatrist said, "What can I do for you, Napoleon?"
The man said, "Well, you can't do anything for me, but you can do something for my
wife, Josephine." The psychiatrist looked at the man and said, "Napoleon, tell me,
what can I do for your wife?" The man said, "Well, you see, my wife, Josephine,
thinks she is Mrs. Goldberg." Unfortunately, there are many Jews who do not know
Jewish values so they act as Shimon and Levi.  They say, "But this is according to
the rules of these people," but they do not realize that you have to struggle constantly
to maintain Jewish values no matter where you live and how you live, but that we
can overcome all obstacles, all problems and live sane and compassionate loving lives

if we will constantly check them according to the laws of the Torah.  May we all do so.  Amen.