History Repeats Itself
INTRODUCTION TO PARASHAT HASHAVUA
PARASHAT
VAYISHLACH
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This weeks shiurim are dedicated by Carole S. Daman of Scarsdale
in memory of Tzvi Hersh ben David Arye zl Harlan Daman
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HISTORY
REPEATS ITSELF
By Rav
Alex Israel
Our parasha continues the epic saga of Jacob and his brother Esau. Jacob returns home after twenty years
in exile. He returns with a great
deal more than he left with. He left
Canaan as a fugitive, running for his life with only the clothes on his back. Now he has a large family; four
wives, twelve children and countless possessions: "With my staff alone I crossed
this Jordan River and now I have become two camps" (32:11).
Our parasha opens with an image of Jacob seized with tension and fear. He is terrified. We look on as he spends an entire
night planning, praying, and making last minute preparations. He has good reason to be concerned. Tomorrow is an auspicious day, a
fateful day. Tomorrow is his reunion
with Esau. His last contact with his
formidable older brother was on the day he cheated him of his father's blessing. It was then that Esau threatened to
kill Jacob. He hasn't been home
since. What has happened in the
interim? Jacob is restless and
agitated.
"The
messengers returned to Jacob saying, 'We came to your brother Esau; he himself
is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.'"(Genesis 32:7)
"WE CAME
TO YOUR BROTHER ESAU: You look at him in a brotherly way but he acts towards you
as the evil Esau. He still hates
you." (Rashi's comment on 32:7)
Is this impression just in Jacob's mind or is it a correct reading of the
situation? Have the past twenty
years caused Esau to forget his anger and insult; or have these been years of
festering hatred, of planning for revenge and justice? Is Esau coming with a brotherly hand
of peace and love? Are his four
hundred men a welcoming guard of honor, or is this going to be an ambush, a
massacre, a fulfillment of Esau's bloody promise?
What will tomorrow bring?
Jacob has good reason to be worried.
PREPARATIONS
"He
prepared himself in the ways: diplomacy, prayer and battle plans. The diplomacy refers to the gifts
that Jacob sent Esau (v. 22); the prayer to the God of his father Abraham (v.
10); and the plans for war: 'If Esau attacks this camp, then the other camp will
be able to escape' (v.9)." (Rashi on 32:9)
Jacob prepares in every way he can.
He appeals to Esau with gifts, showing his brotherly relations. He appeals to God in prayer, and he
also makes plans for the worst case scenario - if the camp comes under attack.
The tension rises steadily as we progress through the parasha. We watch Jacob pray and we pray
together with him. We see him
sending off wave after wave of gifts to Esau and we hope that they will be
received in good spirits. We follow
Jacob's struggle with a strange man in the darkness of night and we feel Jacob's
pain as his hip is dislocated and knocked out of place. We are on the edge of our seat until
the actual meeting takes place. A
nervous Jacob approaches Esau, bowing seven times. We all breathe a sigh of relief as we
see Esau gives Jacob a big brotherly bear hug (33:3-4). It becomes apparent that this is a
meeting of brothers, not of enemies.
Esau has missed the presence of his brother Jacob and he is happy to see him
now.
HISTORICAL LESSONS
This is the storyline as we see it in the narrative of the Torah itself. But hidden between and underneath the
lines of the text, there is a subtext.
Whereas the text is a story about a family and the individuals that
create that family, the subtext is about the entire nation of Israel. The biblical narrative describes a
specific historical event, in a particular historical period, at a definite time
and place. The subtext reads this
story as a prediction of ALL the future events of Jewish History, as a pattern
which can define future events at any time and in any place. This is not one event; it is the
pattern of all future events.
Let us explain. In the
rabbinic literature, stretching from the Talmud and the Midrash, all the way to
the great scholars of the Medieval period, a certain rule has been applied to
the lives of the forefathers. This
principle states that future events will mirror past events and conversely, that
the occurrences of the forefathers will recur to their children after them. In the words of the midrash: "ma'aseh
avot siman le-banim." A simple
translation of that phrase is: "the actions of the fathers are a sign for the
children."
In our specific story, we will see how the meeting between Esau and Jacob
- fraught with the threat of Jacob's imminent demise, colored by feelings of
dread, prayer, hope - is read as a paradigm of all future encounters between the
Jewish nation and non-Jewish oppressors.
The image of helpless Jacob; weighed down by his wives and children,
innocently going on his own journey; confronted by an aggressor who threatens
him with death is taken as a model for future events of this sort.
LESSONS OF THE PAST
"A saying
of Rabbi Jonathan: Whoever wishes to placate a king or a government and knows
not their policy nor can he predict their attitudes; let him place this chapter
(of Jacob and Esau) before him and learn from it the art of appeasement and
diplomacy." (Midrash Lekach Tov)
Our parasha has implications which go beyond the written narrative. Nachmanides (the RaMBaN -
abbreviation for Rabbi Moses Ben Nachman) emerges as the champion of this
meta-historical philosophical reading of the biblical text and it is in our
parasha where this type of analysis is given special prominence. His introduction to our parasha
explains his multi-layered reading of the biblical text.
"This
parasha is written to tell us ... that everything which befell our father
(Jacob) with his brother Esau will occur to us repeatedly in our relations with
the children of Esau. [Rome and the
entire Christian world are seen as heirs to the title "Edom" and thus Esau's
children.] We should teach ourselves
to be prepared to act according to the three-pronged strategy that Jacob
adopted: Prayer, diplomacy and saving ourselves from war
- by
fleeing and escape."
Nachmanides will read every detail of the story as an allusion to a later
historical reality. Let us read a
selection of these interpretations.
TAUNTING THE DOG
Our parasha begins with Jacob's approach to Esau. Jacob is returning to Canaan and he
sees fit to inform Esau of his arrival.
The messengers return with the news that Esau and a whole army of men are
already on their way to meet Jacob and his family.
"Jacob
sent messengers ahead to his brother Esau in the land of Se'ir, to the country
of Edom, and instructed them as follows, 'Thus shall you say, 'To my Lord Esau,
thus says your servant Jacob: I stayed with Laban and remained until now ... I
send this message to my lord, in the hope of gaining your favor.'" (32:4-6)
The midrash comments:
"Rav Huna
said, 'Someone who meddles with a problem which is not his is like a person who
grabs a dog by the ears.' God said
to Jacob: 'Esau was busy with his own business.
Why did you
dispatch a delegation to him?'"
The midrash sees Jacob's message as an act of stupidity and foolishness. Esau would never have known of
Jacob's arrival had he not been informed by Jacob's messengers. He is inviting the evil upon himself,
taunting the dog by pulling its ears!
Why go and draw Esau to you?
You should have let him carry on his own life!
The Ramban sees the wider historical context of this critique:
"In my
opinion, this detail alludes to the fact that WE WERE THE CAUSE OF OUR OWN
DOWNFALL by the hands of the Rome.
In the Second Temple period, the Hasmonean kings made a treaty with Rome and
some of their representatives even went to Rome and in the end, this was the
first step of our falling into their hands."
We have already noted the rabbinic identification of Rome with Esau. The Ramban is referring to a deal
made between King Agrippas and Rome, to assist him in ridding Israel of Greek
power. The alliance with Rome opened
the door to a greater evil. It was
the Romans who destroyed our Temple and exiled us from our land. We invited them through the door. Jacob invites evil upon himself and
so do his descendants. History repeats itself.
TWO CAMPS
Jacob "divided the people with him ... into two camps. He said 'If Esau comes to the one
camp and attacks it, the other camp may yet escape.'" (32:7-8)
The Ramban comments:
"This too
is an allusion: Esau may make plans and decrees which aim at destroying our name
completely but he will succeed in harming only a section of our people in
certain lands. A ruler in one land
will make laws and edicts against Jewish property and Jewish lives and a leader
in another land will have compassion in his country and will save the remnant
... See that this detail also alludes to future events."
Indeed the Ramban knew this very well from personal experience. In the shadow of Christian influence,
the Ramban himself was expelled from Spain by the King's decree. He found refuge in Jerusalem and
proceeded (in his seventies!) to work on rebuilding the Jewish community in the
Holy City. In our century, where we
have witnessed the destruction of a third of world Jewry - the entire fabric of
Jewish life in Central and Eastern Europe - we have seen a revival of intense
Jewish life and learning in the Jewish centers of Israel and America. History repeats itself!!
A MAN WRESTLED WITH HIM
Another story seen in a meta-historical light is Jacob's struggle with
the strange man.
"Jacob
was left alone. And a man wrestled
with him until the break of dawn.
When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob's hip at
the socket ... He said: Let me go for dawn is breaking. - Jacob answered: I will
not let you go unless you bless me. - And he said: What is your name? - Jacob
answered: Jacob - Whereupon the other said: Your name shall no longer be Jacob,
but Israel, for you have wrestled with God and man and have prevailed ... Jacob
named the site Peniel: For I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been
preserved" (32:25-32).
One of the puzzling features about the story is the identity of the
mysterious attacker. He is first
described as a man but then Jacob talks about seeing God! Who is he? The commentators talk about Jacob
wrestling with an angel. But what is
the purpose of this angel?
Rashi quoting the midrash, identifies this protagonist as the "Officer of
Esau." He is the patron angel of
Edom. According to Rashi then, Jacob
is fighting the national angel of Esau.
This is not a fight between humans, this is a battle of national
destinies. This is a struggle in
which both fighters are locked in mortal combat an entire night. Equal forces face each other, neither
one being able to overpower the other.
Who will prevail over whom?
The Ramban once again, sees this episode as yet another allusion to
future events:
"The
whole episode represents future history.
That there would come a time when the descendants of Esau would overcome
Jacob almost to the point of total destruction.
This happened during the days of the Mishna in the generation of Judah
ben Baba and his colleagues. At that
time R. Chiya bar Abba pronounced 'If a man will say to
me, give your life for
the name of God,' I will give it; but on condition that he will put me to death
immediately. A time of torture and
forced conversion I could not bear.'
What did they do in such times (of forced conversions)? They would bring white hot iron
balls and place them under the armpits and drive their
souls from them.
There
were other generations who did such things and worse than this but we endured
all and it passed us by, as is intimated by the text: 'And Jacob came to Shalem'
(33:18) (Shalem means whole or perfect) - Jacob emerged intact."
So this story too, represents the night times, the dark times, when we
are locked in game of life and death, and even though we get hurt and we limp,
we emerge intact having prevailed against Esau.
VIEWING HISTORY
Many have noted this tendency of the Ramban to connect different events
in history. The American Jewish
academic Yosef Chayim Yerushalmi in his book "Zakhor" notes that the Ramban was
typical of many medieval Jewish scholars:
"There is
a pronounced tendency to subsume even major new events to familiar archetypes,
for even the most terrible events are somehow less terrifying when viewed within
the old patterns rather than in their bewildering specificity. Thus, the latest oppressor is Haman
and the court Jew who tries to avoid disaster is Mordechai. Christendom is 'Esau' or 'Edom,' and
Islam is 'Yishmael' ... The essential contours of the relations between Jews and
gentiles have been delineated long ago in rabbinic aggada..."
How do we relate to these ideas?
Are they simply not seeing reality, or maybe something more? Can we really draw such precise
historical parallels from our biblical stories to current events? Can we really read the Bible in this
way?
In his commentary to Lekh Lekha, the Ramban introduces the principle of
"ma'aseh avot" and makes a rather radical statement.
"I will
tell you a rule to be applied throughout the parshiot of Avraham, Yitzchak and
Yaakov. The Rabbis stated this rule
as "everything that happened to the fathers is a sign for the children." The Torah tells stories, at length,
about journeying or well digging and the like.
You might think that these are meaningless detail but in reality they all
tell us something about the future.
WHEN AN EVENT OCCURS TO ONE OF THE PROPHETS WHO ARE OUR FOREFATHERS, HE WILL
KNOW THAT IT WILL BE DECREED TO HIS DESCENDANTS IN SOME FORM ... AND THE EVENT
WILL TAKE PLACE NO MATTER WHAT."
The Ramban seems to be indicating that the lives of the avot - the
patriarchs - somehow DEFINE the future.
"He will know that it will be decreed to his descendants ... and the
event will take place no matter what!"
How do we choose which events find later expression and which do not? Why should the patriarchs have this
effect?
The Ramban was strongly attracted to the kabbalistic mystical traditions. We can suggest that in the same way
as the patriarchs are referred to in their fatherly status, the Ramban sees the
avot literally as fathers to the children of Israel. They are the genetic blueprint of the
Jewish nation. They are the DNA
which will form the People of Israel!
If they do something, it has ramifications far greater than their
individual lives. An act by the avot
has an effect all through Jewish history.
It's as if the avot are the prime elements of the Jewish people and now
we live in the tracks that they have trodden.
The truth is that even this interpretation is somewhat unsatisfactory. Children do not always look like
their parents and the same events which befall a parent are not necessarily
visited upon the sons. Nonetheless,
the Ramban's tendency to unite Jewish history into cyclic recurring patterns is
a very popular idea that finds its expression in many ways. In exactly this way, we incorporate
many hundreds of years of pogroms and persecution into the fast day of the Ninth
of Av. On that day we "unify" the
burning of the Temple with other tragedies.
On Passover we can celebrate freedom not solely as a historical event but
as a living reality.
And when we in a couple of weeks' time say the blessing for the Chanuka
candles and we praise God, "Who made miracles for our fathers in those days of
old and IN OUR TIMES" we are expressing a profound belief that Jewish destiny is
linked not just between Jews - horizontally - but also vertically, throughout
the generations. Our collective
Jewish history is seen not as a series of chance happenings but rather as a
process, a meaningful journey. In
that sense we do not simply move blindly into the future. Our past and our future are
intertwined, each one enlightening the other.