In Congregation Beth El in Plainfield, NJ where I served as Hazzan while attending the Jewish Theological Seminary, one family I would stay over with, the Hollanders, who were very gracious, had an unusual sport they loved. Both Miriam Hollander and her mother would go to wrestling matches. You have to picture Miriam Hollander who was a slender, very quiet woman, and her aging mom, would sit in the audience and would love to yell and holler during the wrestling matches and they said that they had a marvelous time.
Some of us love a good fight, and perhaps that is part of the attraction to certain sports. In this weeks’ Parasha a fight occurs between Jacob and an Angel. We’re not sure who the Angel is. Some commentators suggest that since Jacob is about to cross a river, that this is an important moment in his life, as in ‘crossing the Rubicon.’ Yet, in ancient mythology, doing this at night might bring out a ‘demon’ who might prevent your getting across. We can have a moment in life when something seems to prevent us from moving forward, changing, and completing a task.
Others say that this is an ‘Angel of God’ who has come to test Jacob in a fitting matter. In literary terms there is the return of the life theme, a recapitulation to the theme of pre-birth in utero wrestling which occurred between Esau and Jacob, with Esau having succeeded in being the first born and Jacob, holding on to the heal. We know that Esau was the stronger, yet, Jacob would not let go.
I think that everyone is familiar with the feeling that someone can sit next to us in a classroom or at a playground and without thinking they assert themselves, their strength, so that we have to use our wits to deal with it – move away, stay and fight, use a trick to stop them, issue a threat.
Here we have Jacob who some say is wrestling with himself at a crucial point in his life. Shall he keep running from his brother whom he has tricked? Can he run away from God? Jacob has a transformative moment in the wrestling with himself and with an Angel, which could be his brothers’ Angel, refusing to give in, fighting through the night, being injured in the fight, until he fights to a draw and is blessed by the Angel.
Do people run from being blessed? It did not matter to Esau, at least not at first, since he sold that right for some food. Yet, nothing is more important to Jacob. It is a struggle for his life, his future, for reclaiming his reputation, for reconciling his family differences, and for living in peace. His struggle is nothing less that a formula for us on how to reconcile. He admits his wrong, he brings an offering of gifts to his brother who does not need it, yet Jacob insists as a sign of sincerity.
Jacob conquers his fear of his brother, and his past, finding a way to a new future through a struggle. You and I may experience such a struggle in our own lives. Jacob’s words in a previous Parasha that ‘God is on this place, and I did not know it’ are a compliment to his desire to be blessed and to be a blessing. One who wrestles with God, the meaning of Yisrael, is one who finds God on the journey, and who fights to keep his blessings, his honor, while being able to admit fault and to ask for forgiveness.
The brothers weep when they embrace after twenty years of hating and running. In a similar way may all of us be blessed with reconciliation on our journey as we wrestle with our difficulties, crossing the rivers of life, and prepare to embrace our brothers for the sake of peace and blessing.