Vayishlakh

5757

This weeks Torah portion begins with our father Jacob coming near to the Promised Land, where his brother Esau still lived. Jacob has spent some two decades in the household of Laban, where he acquired two wives and two concubines, eleven sons and much sheep and wealth. You would think that with this success came self assuredness — but that is not so. The opening verses of the portion read, "Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom, instructing them, "Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have lived with Laban as an alien, and stayed until now; and I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male and female slaves; and I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.’" The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, "We came to your brother Esau, and he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him." Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two companies, thinking, "If Esau comes to the one company and destroys it, then the company that is left will escape." And Jacob said, "O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan; and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children." [Gen 32;4-13] The sages tell us that Jacob was, possibly, over-wrought with fear. After all, he did have the promise of God that he shall be blessed and protected, and yet he behaves in a servile manner, sending word to his ‘unworthy’ brother, who sold him the birthright, who did not receives the first blessing of Yitzkhak — he should have been more assertive.

We like to think and tell others that it is Christianity that teaches to ‘turn the other cheek’ — as, indeed, it does. It is also in Christianity that we read, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." (Mat. 5:5) However, this concept is not original with Christianity. We read in the thirty seventh Psalm, beginning in verse 11, "But the meek shall inherit the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity. The wicked plot against the righteous, and gnash their teeth at them; the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that their day is coming. wicked draw the sword and bend their bows to bring down the poor and needy, to kill those who walk uprightly; their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken. Better is a little that the righteous person has than the abundance of many wicked. For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the Lord upholds the righteous. Lord knows the days of the blameless, and their heritage will abide forever; they are not put to shame in evil times, in the days of famine they have abundance. But the wicked perish, and the enemies of the Lord are like the glory of the pastures; they vanish—like smoke they vanish away. The wicked borrow, and do not pay back, but the righteous are generous and keep giving; for those blessed by the Lord shall inherit the land, but those cursed by him shall be cut off." And the prophet Isaiah had the same idea in mind when he spoke to the people of Israel saying, [29:19] "The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord, and the neediest people shall exult in the Holy One of Israel. For the tyrant shall be no more, and the scoffer shall cease to be; all those alert to do evil shall be cut off— those who cause a person to lose a lawsuit, who set a trap for the arbiter in the gate, and without grounds deny justice to the one in the right. Therefore thus says the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob: No longer shall Jacob be ashamed, no longer shall his face grow pale." So, maybe a little humility and meekness is desirable. However, the sages tell us that Jacob actually over-did his pleading before Esau. We read further in the text about how Jacob sent helter skelter, anything he could grab, (the text says ‘min haba b’yado’ which means "whatever came into his hand") and sent waves of gift bearers with the following instructions, "When Esau my brother meets you, and asks you, ‘To whom do you belong? Where are you going? And whose are these ahead of you?’ then you shall say, ‘They belong to your servant Jacob; they are a present sent to my lord Esau; and moreover he is behind us.’" He likewise instructed the second and the third and all who followed the droves, "You shall say the same thing to Esau when you meet him, and you shall say, ‘Moreover your servant Jacob is behind us.’" For he thought, "I may appease him with the present that goes ahead of me, and afterwards I shall see his face; perhaps he will accept me." [Gen 34:18-22] Having sent these massagers, Jacob spent a restless night at the river crossing. In the dark of night he sent the camp across the river while he remained behind and fought ‘with an angel’ — maybe his conscience, or maybe his weak ego that wished to remain in relative safety and complete obscurity in Aram. The ambition of the grandson of Abraham won the battle of the river-crossing, and in the morning there emerged a new personage on the scene: Yisrael, the man who fought with the angel and persevered. Not won, mind you, for there were to be other encounters yet before him. But he lived through the night, lived down his fears and was ready to face his brother at last.

Esau arrives to encounter his brother with four hundred men. Jacob, wanting to impress his brother, splits his ‘camp’ in two — first the concubines and their children, with some of the servants and sheep; next his two wives, their children, and himself, Yisrael, limping from the wound sustained in battle at the river crossing. Not much of a threat to prosperous Esau, who was overcome with compassion — and the meek was allowed to survive, to live on. Why? It is hard to say. Possibly Esau despised his birthright yet again -- when he saw that the recompense of the blessing of Yitzkhak was neither abundant nor prestigious. He, Esau, was master of the land; he had remained with the tents of his father while his brother spent the best years of his life working in vain for ‘uncle Laban’ — being cheated again and again before he cut loose. Esau never heard Isaiah, not read the Psalms, and he did not know the message of Zachariah [4:6] "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the LORD of hosts." So, bemused by his brother’s servile behavior, confident in his own success, Esau waves aside his ‘gifts’ with the words, "I have enough, my brother, let that which you have be yours." But Yisrael insists, and Esau takes the gifts. The brothers then part company, and Jacob continues his travels by himself, free of fear and threat for the moment.

Did Jacob do the right thing? Should one bend his back and act meekly to survive. How far can one bend before one loses one’s shape, before one breaks in two? These are very significant questions that came up and were discussed again and again. At times, our sages advocated resistance. More often than not, they advocated compliance, speaking of the wisdom of our third patriarch. Jacob planted the seeds of future nationhood — giving birth to twelve sons. In time to come a great multitude would come out of this seed, to overflow into camps and armies, to conquer the land and make of it Eretz Yisrael — the land of Yisrael, the inheritance of Jacob the meek, who shall persevere and prosper.

It is obvious that Jacob knew the wisdom of Ecclesiastes, [3:1] "For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;" The mark of a true leader is knowing which time is at hand. Jacob knew, and God blessed him in all he did. May we learn to discern the times and the seasons, and may God continue to bless us, as well. Amen

5758

This week we read in the Torah the portion of Va’yishlakh -- which means ‘and he sent.’ The reading begins with our father Jacob coming near to the Promised Land, where his brother Esau still lives. Jacob has spent some two decades in Aram of the two rivers, where he acquired two wives and two concubines, eleven sons, an unknown number of daughters and servants, and much sheep and wealth. One might assume that with this coming of age and success both in his personal affairs and business dealings, Ya’akov became assertive and self-confident — but that is not the case. The opening verses of the portion read, "Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom, instructing them, "Thus you shall say to my lord Essau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have lived with Laban as an alien, and stayed until now; and I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male and female slaves; and I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.’" [Gen 32:4-6]

Our father Ya’akov is so full of fear that he splits his camp in two, in the hope that if Esau will attack and annihilate ‘Jacob’s camp,’ the other half will survive. He prays, "O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan; and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children." [Gen. 32:10-14]

The sages tell us that Jacob was, possibly, overwrought with fear. After all, he did have Yitzkhak’s blessing and promise that he shall be "Lord over your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!" [Gen. 27:29] Furthermore, God promised him at Beit-El that he shall be blessed and protected, and yet he behaves in a servile manner, sending word to his ‘unworthy’ brother, who sold him the birthright, who did not receives the first blessing of Yitzkhak — he should have been more assertive.

After his experience of struggling with the angel, and his name change to Yisrael; after his ‘success’ in confronting Esau, coming to terms with him, and receiving from him a ‘charter’ to live on in the land, Jacob makes another poor choice, delaying his arrival at Beit-El to fulfill his commitment to God, which he swore while escaping the wrath of Esau: "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God's house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one tenth to you." [Gen 28:20-22] Instead, he arrives in the center of the Land of Canaan: "Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, on his way from Paddan-aram; and he camped before the city. And from the sons of Hamor, Shechem's father, he bought for one hundred pieces of money the plot of land on which he had pitched his tent. There he erected an altar and called it El-Elohe-Israel." [Gen 33:18-20]

His grandfather, Abraham, had arrived there, too, on the same route, from the same land, and we read, "Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there he moved on to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the LORD and invoked the name of the Lord." [Gen 12:6-8] The commentators tell us that he removed himself from Shechem to avoid contact with the wicked Canaanites. Jacob stays -- and becomes a victim of the people of Shechem: they abduct his daughter, rape her and insist that she become wedded to her tormentor!

The sages asked, ‘why did this terrible thing befall Dina, the daughter of Leah and Jacob. They answered, because Jacob ingratiated himself with the wicked Canaanites of Shechem, and they took his grace for fear. Thus they had no respect for him, and they felt free to abduct his daughter and force her into illicit and unnatural sex -- and they had the audacity to ask Jacob to make this impure relationship permanent by allowing the rapist to marry his victim! What is even more disturbing than this proposition is the fact that Jacob may have considered allowing such a thing to happen! However, Dina’s brothers took matters into their hands. We read, "The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, because he had defiled their sister Dinah." [Gen 34:13] They said that they could not consider their womenfolk marrying men who were not circumcised. All the men of Shechem then proceeded to have this ‘operation’ -- to be ready to marry these ‘newly available’ women.

The text continues, "On the third day, when they were still in pain, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and came against the city unawares, and killed all the males. They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went away. And the other sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and plundered the city, because their sister had been defiled. They took their flocks and their herds, their donkeys, and whatever was in the city and in the field. All their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses, they captured and made their prey. Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "You have brought trouble on me by making me odious to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites; my numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household." [Gen 34:23-29]

However, the text tells us that this was a turning point for Jacob -- he had to assert and define himself, and he issued orders, "Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your clothes; then come, let us go up to Bethel, that I may make an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone." [Gen.35:2,3] Jacob comes into his own, the honor of Israel and its strength is established, and "As they journeyed, a terror from God fell upon the cities all around them, so that no one pursued them." [Gen.35:5]

Friends, things have not changed much since the days of our fathers. Shechem is still not a good place for Jews to live in, and the ‘inhabitants of the land’ still want to either assimilate or annihilate us. If we try to compromise, and if we act indecisively, we shall surely be defeated. We must remain vigil and strong, and we must not let down our guard for event one moment, until the Canaanites become civilized and accepting of us and of our sovereignty in the land that God promised us and that we then earned by the sweat of our labor and the blood of our finest men and women -- and even children. As Tziporah, Moshe Rabeinu’s wife declared, "Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!" We are wedded to the land, not by circumcision, but by the commitment of the heart, the soul, and our life’s blood. We have married the land, we are it’s "bridegroom of blood." Jacob and his seed shall persevere and prosper. Amen

5759

This week we read in the Torah in the book of Genesis, from 32:4 to 36:43. The portion is called Va’yishlakh -- which means ‘and he sent.’ The reading begins with our father Jacob coming near to the Promised Land, where his brother Esau still lives. Jacob has spent some twenty two years in Aram of the two rivers, where he "acquired" two wives and two concubines, eleven sons, an unknown number of daughters and servants, and much sheep and wealth. Our portion deals with the dramatic and fateful reunion of the two brothers, Jacob and Esau.

You would think that with this great success of Jacob’s, both in his personal affairs and business dealings, he would have become assertive and self-confident — but that is not the case. The opening verses of the portion read, "Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom, instructing them, "Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have lived with Laban as an alien, and stayed until now; and I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male and female slaves; and I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.’" [Gen 32:4-6] Our father Jacob addresses his brother as "my lord," and speaks of himself as "your servant."

The messengers return and inform Jacob, "We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you, and four hundred men are with him." [Gen 32:7] We don’t know if Esau received his brother’s messengers and spoke to them, or if they just saw him ‘on the move’ -- at any rate, Jacob reaches the conclusion that Esau is getting ready for battle.

Our father Ya’akov prepares for conflict, splitting his camp in two, in the hope that if Esau will attack and annihilate ‘Jacob’s camp,’ the other half will survive. He prays, "O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan; and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children." [Gen. 32:10-14]

Still, Jacob tries to avoid conflict, and he sends another delegation to appease Esau, "he selected a gift for his brother Esau: two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls, and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys. He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, "Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds." He instructed the one in the lead: "When my brother Esau meets you and asks, 'To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front of you?' Then you are to say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob. They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.'" He also instructed the second, the third and all the others who followed the herds: "You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him. And be sure to say, 'Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.'" [Gen. 32:15-21]

Finally the long awaited (and, for Jacob, agonized over) meeting takes place. The text tells us of a typical meeting between brothers who have not seen one another in a very long time. Esau runs, alone, towards his sibling, his arms open to embrace him warmly. Jacob anxiety evaporates as the brothers kiss and hug warmly. Esau does not mention old rivalries, long buried transgressions, or once implied threats. He does not speak of forgiveness -- because he does not mentions any reasons for such a pardon. He calls Jacob ‘akhi -- my brother,’ while Jacob maintains the "proper" attitude to his ‘older’ brother by calling him ‘adoni -- master!’

There is a midrash, an interpretation of the text, which says that "anyone who wishes to show proper etiquette towards a king or a ruler and does not how -- should study closely this portion’s text, and learn from it a lesson in methods of peace making and conflict avoidance."

The sages tell us that Jacob was, possibly, overwrought with fear. After all, he did have Yitzkhak’s blessing and promise that he shall be "Lord over your brothers, and may your mother's sons bow down to you. Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you!" [Gen. 27:29] Furthermore, God promised him at Beit-El that he shall be blessed and protected, and yet he behaves in a servile manner, sending word to his ‘unworthy’ brother, who sold him the birthright, who did not receives the first blessing of Yitzkhak — he should have been more assertive. Yet, the sages also praise the third patriarch for making a good choice, acting as a righteous ruler, diplomatically sending "mal’akhim," which are messengers, or ambassadors, not lowly servants, to personally greet and suggest to Esau that his brother is coming in peace and with a desire to ‘share his success’ with Esau. Jacob behaves in this manner to negate the source of Esau’s anger. Father Yitzkhak blessed Jacob with the words, "your brothers shall bow before you." Now Esau comes towards ‘the blessed one’ -- and he, Jacob, bows down and blesses him! This makes Esau conclude that he lost nothing by not getting his father’s blessing, since it did not come true.

After Jacob’s experience of struggling with the angel, and his name change to Yisrael, our third patriarch shows sensitivity and maturity in dealing with his pugnacious brother, allowing him to feel superior, and avoiding a confrontation. The two brothers are comfortable enough with one another that Esau suggests to his sibling that they travel on together -- and here again Jacob shows maturity and tact in avoiding being swallowed into the camp of Esau. "My lord knows that the children are tender and that I must care for the ewes and cows that are nursing their young. If they are driven hard just one day, all the animals will die. So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the droves before me and that of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir." [Gen. 33:13-14] Jacob, renamed Yisrael, is ready to be master of his faith, with his brother no longer a threat, with their relationship established on his terms by his doings. The grandson of Avraham, the son of Yitzkhak is finally his own man, in his own land. The future will unfold!

Amen

 5760

5761

5762

This week's reading in the Torah begins with our father Jacob (who lived in Aram of the Two Rivers for twenty-two years) coming near the Promised Land, where his brother Esau still lived. Jacob had spent those two decades in the household of Laban the Aramean, where he acquired two wives and two concubines, eleven sons (and who knows how many daughters - at least one) and much sheep, servants and wealth. You would think that with this success came a great sense of self assuredness — but then we read the opening verses of this week's portion and we say "maybe not." Listen to the text, "Va'yishlakh Ya'akov mal'akhim lefanav - Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom, instructing them, "Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have lived with Laban as an alien, and stayed until now; and I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male and female slaves; and I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.'" Jacob was being very correct, and very diplomatic, trying to avoid a conflict with his brother - and yet, we know that he was capable of going into battle. We read last week about how he fought with the angel of God the whole night, insisting that he be given a blessing. Think how much more forcefully and with determination he would fight if his and his family's survival was in the balance.
So the name of the portion is "Va'yishlakh" which means "and he (Jacob) sent" - and we ask ourslves, "what kind of a message did Jacob send at the hands of the messengers?" His use of the terms, "my lord Esau" and "your servant Jacob" suggest a humble and self effacing message. This is not necessarily a bad message - depending on how far it is carried. Did Jacob mean to humble himself out of existence? Did he really believe Esau was his lord? Or is this all an attempt to size up his brother and see just what he will have to do to take his "proper place" as head of the house of Abraham and Yitzkhak.
Today is the last day of the month of November in the Roman calendar - and the last two days were both milestone dates in the resent history of our people and of the world. November 28, 1938, is the date of Britain's Prime Minister, Nevile Chamberlin, appeasement of Hitler at Munich, for "peace in our times..." His wrongly conceived message of peace and international cooperation sealed the fate of Europe and its Jews to the worst calamity in the annals of world history. More than twenty million people were killed, many more millions were uprooted from their homes, entire cities were destroyed and devastated - all because of the overwhelming foolishness of a well meaning gentle man who wished, of all things, to avoid conflict... November 29, nine years after Munich - not even a decade, but for so many an eon and more than a lifetime after the first date - the United Nations' General Assembly voted on a report by UNSCOP (United Nations Special Commission On Palestine) that called for the partition of the British mandate of Palestine-Eretz-Yisrael into an Arab and a Jewish state. Again, the message was NOT what the perception was. People to this day state, "the U.N. voted to create a Jewish state." That is not so. The General Assembly of the U.N. had no power to "create" anything. All it did was recommend - and the Security Council was suppose to implement. However, the partition plan was not popular, and it was thought to be a great danger to the Jews. Six Arab nations, members of the U.N., pledged to prevent a Jewish state from coming into being - and promised a "blood bath" to take place in the Holy Land that would pale the Mongol invasion. The Security Council debated the pros and cons of the issue to the time when a messanger came into their chamber and informed them that David Ben-Gurion had declared a Jewish state upon the termination of British rule in the Mandate territory, a few hours ahead of the scheduled May 15th British departure.
Nevile Chamberlin, like Jacob, crossed a body of water, and came to see his competitor for hegemony. He, like Father Jacob, was solicitous and diplomatic - but he failed to size up his opponent. He believed Hitler's pledge that he had "no further territorial ambitions"after the Sudetenland. Hitler had no intentions of stopping his expansion eastward, even as he prepared to expand westward as well.
While David Ben-Gurion had an historic connection to the Land of Israel and the sovereignty of the People Israel in their land, he had no real mandate to establish the government in the land vacated by the British. However, he sent messengers far and wide, to Washington D.C. and to Moscow - and he informed the governments of the two super-powers of his intentions - and asked for their blessing. Nature abhors a vacuum, either in physics or in politics. Thus, Ben-Gurion's messengers played their role right, played a game of "who will be the first to recognize the newly established state" - a miracle of rebirth and even resurrection! And in their haste to best one another, neither Russia nor the U.S. asked the pivotal question, "but who said you can declare a state?" Ben-Gurion took his risk, crossed his "Rubicon," and achieved his purpose.
The moral of the story is that success belongs to the the brave, the smart - and the steadfast. Success comes to those who have vision, daring, and a good grasp of what is possible to achieve. Diplomacy has its time and its place - but appeasement and cowardice lead to tragedy, tears and trouble. Let us learn well the lesson of sending messengers to prevent or avert conflict - and realize and recognize that those who want peace must be ready to go to war to earn that peace.

Amen

5763

This Shabbat we read in the Torah in the book of Genesis, from chapter 32, verse 4 to chapter 36, verse 43. The portion is called Va'yishlakh – which means ‘and he sent.' The reading begins with our father Jacob coming near to the Promised Land, where his swarthy and hot-tempered brother Esau lived.
Jacob had spent some twenty two years in Aram of the two rivers, where he went, the Torah tells us, to "find a wife" – but we know it was to avoid being killed by his older brother. During his sojourn with his mother's family he "acquired" two wives and two concubines, eleven sons, an unknown number of daughters and servants, and much sheep and wealth. Esau, the brother deprived of Yitzkhak's blessing, was master of the land; he had remained with the tents of his father while his brother spent the best years of his youth working in vain for ‘uncle Laban' — being cheated again and again before he cut loose. Now Jacob returns, sending messengers before him bearing gifts and homage to the brother he once (and still) feared.
When the long awaited meeting finally takes place, everything turns out well. Esau runs, alone, towards his sibling, his arms open to embrace him warmly. Jacob anxiety evaporates as the brothers kiss and hug warmly. Esau does not mention old rivalries, long buried transgressions, nor once implied threats. True, he does not try to make amends nor mentions forgiveness – maybe because he does not harbor any reasons for such a pardon. He calls Jacob ‘akhi -- my brother,' while Jacob maintains the "proper" attitude to his ‘older' brother by calling him ‘adoni – master!'
And then the brothers part and Jacob settles near Shekhem in the center of the land. Now the text tells us one of the most unlikely stories concerning the relations between Jacob's camp and the people of the town. Dinah, Jacob's daughter, was accosted by the son of the king. He caused her grief and did not wish to release her. His father came to Jacob asking to have the daughter to be wed with his son. The sons of Jacob, particularly Simeon and Levi, her maternal kin, suggest that if every make in the town will be circumcised, there could be an accommodation. "Then will we give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters for us, and we will live with you, and we will become one people." [Gen. 34:16]
The men of the city accept the offer, and perform the medical procedure. Simeon and Levi do not keep their word, though. Instead they attack the men while they are weak and in pain, killing all the men, looting the city and taking the women and children for themselves. Jacob is scandalized, reproaching his sons, "You have brought trouble on me to make me odious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and I being few in number, they shall gather together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house." [ibid. 34:30] The opposite actually happens – the "fear of God" falls upon the people of the land, and no one attacks Jacob or any of his camp.
Jacob was never quite reconciled to what Simeon and Levi did, and he brought the matter up – and cursed them – in his parting words to his children. "Simeon and Levi are brothers; instruments of cruelty are their swords. O my soul, do not come into their council; to their assembly, let my honor not be united; for in their anger they slew a man, and in their wanton will they lamed an ox. Cursed be their anger, for it was fierce; and their wrath, for it was cruel; I will divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel." [ibid. 49:5-7] Our sages also found it hard to explain or find the rational for this massive act of violence.
Two years ago, speaking on Shabbat Vayishlakh, shortly after the lynching of two young Israeli men, I said the following words:

In Israel the situation is quite different. There we see how precarious life can be when Esau holds sway. The government of Israel is at an impasse. There is an insistence on carrying on the negotiations (which are called "peace" though events contradict the term), even while admitting that
they do not have a mandate to rule, as evident from the resignation of the prime minister. Still, the
emissaries of our leader do not follow the example of father Jacob. There is no humility, and there is no attempt at making peace within the camp. The nation of Israel is torn asunder by the smashed
dream of peace with our neighbors, a dream devastated by the events of the past two months. How
can one believe in the sincerity of adversary in his claim to want peace when one sees the blood thirsty multitude in the lynch mob in Ramallah? How can one accept the peaceful intention of a leader who praises the killers and the murderers and the children who are used as shields and cannon fodder in a callous maneuver to dislodge us from our hard fought and hard labored land which we have turned from desert to blooming garden.
Let us send emissaries far and wide, like father Jacob, like all decent and God loving people do. Let the emissaries speak of peace – peace with honor, peace with honesty, peace between equals. Let us speak peace in the marketplace, not behind closed doors. Let peace flow from street to avenue to city square. Let none threaten it or try to put it down. Let none speak of revenge or redress or reported wrongs of yesteryear. Let us take the time to heal and hallow life above pride and prejudice. Let the messengers return, as the dove did to Noah's ark, carrying the olive branch that symbolizes the end of evil and of strife. Let there be true and complete peace. In America, in Israel, and throughout God's great creation.
Studying for this week's presentation, I came upon an interpretation of the events at Shekhem that gave me a new perspective on the Torah story - and the present conflict.
One sage says, "Then will we give our daughters to you, and we will take your daughters for us, and we will live with you, and we will become one people." [Gen. 34:16] For a father to avenge the honor of his daughter by killing all the men in the city is an unpardonable act of violence. However, the verse speaks not of a family but of a nation - "and we will become one people." A nation is defined by its leaders (which may or may not be good news to ponder in our day and age...) – and Shekhem and Khamor are the leaders of their town. For men such as these, who kidnap and rape a young girl and then wish to condemn her to continued rape and humiliation under the pretext of ‘marriage' is completely unthinkable. It is precisely the danger of becoming such a nation that drove Simeon and Levi to attack and destroy the "source" of the evil - the men of the city. The women and children of the city, many of whom were undoubtedly also forced into their relation with the men, were liberated from the evil influence that had darkened their days.
This lesson is carried on to our times and the conflict in Israel and the war our nation is involved in. We do not hate a nation of Palestinians, Arabs, or Moslems. We have no quarrel with families or individuals. We have a war to the bitter end against a philosophy that trains people to kill and maim and devastate as a means to achieve the goal of removing our society - from a land, any land, and in the end – from the land of the living. It is leaders who hold such beliefs and train their citizens to act upon them, who cause the grief of both the victims and the perpetrators. Call his Bin Laden, Saadam Hussien, Yassir Arafat or sheikh Yassin – like Pharaoh, Haman, Torquemada or Hitler before them, they are evil doers who despoil their followers. Neither Israel not the United States can be faulted for fighting against them and what they stand for. May they be defeated soon, and may the world learn the lesson of their demise.

Amen

5764

This week we read in the Torah the portion is Va'yishlakh -- which means ‘and he sent,' and is found in Genesis, from 32:4 to 36:43. The portion begins with our father Jacob returning to the Promised Land and the dramatic and fateful reunion of the two brothers, Jacob and Esau.
The portion opens with verses that read, "Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom, instructing them, "Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have lived with Laban as an alien, and stayed until now; and I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male and female slaves; and I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.'" [Gen 32:4-6] Our father Jacob addresses his brother as "my lord," and speaks of himself as "your servant." You would almost think that Yitzkhak had actually blessed Esau with the blessing he spoke over Ya'akov by trickery... Remember? "Let people serve you, and nations bow down to you; be lord over your brothers, and let your mother's sons bow down to you; cursed be every one who curses you, and blessed be he who blesses you." [Ibid 27:29]
Next week we shall celebrate the first night of the Festival of Lights, Khanukkah. We shall kindle the first light and sing "Al Hanisim" – thanking got for all the miracles that he wrought for our fathers in days long gone (but not forgotten) and this time of the year... Today, in a sober and somber mood, let us recall humbly what happened before God worked His miracles. I applaud the historical editor that chose to "close" our Tanakh, our "holy Scriptures," before the time of the Maccabees. This way we do not have to read in our holy books of the horrible treason of some of our brothers against the main body of the Jewish People.
Let us look briefly at the historical facts leading to Khanukkah: the Jewish people came under the control of Greece in Alexander the Great's conquest of the Middle East. They were treated most kindly and fairly by Alexander and his administration – and were thereby seduced to the Greek culture and life-style. Back in those days, "it's Greek to me" did not mean what it does today. Back then it was "the IN thing to do," "Greek is slick," and philosophy was much more exciting than theology. So Jews were assimilating, Hellenizing, as it was called, and they looked with displeasure and contempt at their brethren who refused to follow their lead.
Admiring Greek culture, they bought into the Greek language, and despised the tongue of their fathers. Hebrew became foreign to them, and they wished to remove its use from the land. Maybe with the spread of the language of Hellenism, its ways would become more palatable to the People of the book, which they now called "Biblos" – Bible.
Let us remember the folly of the age: on the one hand we had the Hellenists, on the other hand the zealots - Khassidim. It was our brothers, the assimilationists, who went to the king, Antiochus, and asked him to issue the infamous edict forbidding the study of Torah and the celebration of Shabbat! It was they who suggested turning the Temple in Jerusalem to a place of "new and modern worship" of the Gods of the Hour – the parthenon of Greek idols. Deprived of their Temple, they reasoned, their fellow-Jews will fall in line behind them.
Let us also recall our dear martyred brothers and sisters, children, adults and elderly, who kept the faith and paid for it with their lives. They refused apostasy, and they did not raise a hand to defend themselves. They lived by their faith – and they died for it. Their faith and their way condemned them to extinction until the Hasmonean priests, of the village of Modin, in Judea, raised the banner of revolt. Matthaias Hasmonean slew the Hellenist Jew who was willing to make a sacrifice to Zeus in the village square, calling out to the villagers, "Mi Ladona'y Ela'y – who so ever is for God, let him follow me!" His brave sons killed the Greek soldiers, and they all took off for the hills, setting the pattern for countless freedom fighters who would follow their example.
The Maccabees were the first anti-heroes. They hated war, and only engaged in it as a last resort, realizing that the death of the faithful is not martyrdom if none will be left alive to affirm the sacrifice and continue the ways for which life was given who generously. In the final analysis, it was the Hasmoneans who were first to realize that there is a "threefold cord [that] is not quickly broken" [Ecclesiastes 4:12] – and it is the land, the language and the people. If the people would be gone, the language will disappear and the land will become desolate. Thus, the Maccabees called for self-defence. If the language is lost, the people will lose their identity – and so the connection of the Hebrew people to the tongue of the prophets throughout the ages has been a great and heroic achievement of Jewish survival. As for the land – the Maccabees fought for it and won their war; the zealots in the revolt against Rome fought a valiant battle and lost; two thousand years of exiled Jews kept faith with it in their heart and in their lives everywhere in the world where fate took them – and in the last century the Zionists and pioneers went back to reclaim it and reestablish our claim to the land.
It was the split among our people that caused the Hellenistic attack upon our people, their land and their heritage. Brotherly strife caused the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of our people in antiquity. Our common bonds have sustained Judaism through the millennia of the exile and the battle to reestablish our sovereign land of Israel. Today we are once again being attacked and assailed by foes who would like to deprive us of our sovereignty and our legitimacy. As long as we are united - they will fail. Let us keep our faith, let us keep faith with our brethren, and let us persevere for the sake of future generation, in honor of those who gave their all in days of old, at this time of the year.

Amen

5765

The Torah portion this week is called Va’yishlakh – which means ‘and he sent,’ from chapter 32 verse 4 to the end of chapter 36. The reading begins with our father Jacob coming near to the land God had commanded his grandfather Abraham to go to, the land where his brother Esau, who threatened his life twenty years earlier still lived. Jacob had spent some two decades in Aram of the two rivers, where he acquired two wives and two concubines, eleven sons, and an unknown number of daughters and servants, as well as much sheep and wealth. One might assume that with this “coming of age” and success, both in his personal affairs and business dealings, Ya’akov became assertive and self-confident — but that is not the case. The opening verses of the portion read, "Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the country of Edom, instructing them, "Thus you shall say to my lord Essau: Thus says your servant Jacob, ‘I have lived with Laban as an alien, and stayed until now; and I have oxen, donkeys, flocks, male and female slaves; and I have sent to tell my lord, in order that I may find favor in your sight.’"[Gen 32:4-6]
Our Father Ya’akov is so full of fear and terror that he splits his camp in two, in the hope that if Esau will attack and annihilate ‘Jacob’s camp,’ the other half will survive. He prays, "O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, and I will do you good,’ I am not worthy of the least of all the steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan; and now I have become two companies. Deliver me, please, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him; he may come and kill us all, the mothers with the children." [Gen. 32:10-14]
Ya’akov’s seed spent two thousand years away from the land of the promise. They were exiled by enemies in antiquity time and time again: Ashur and Shumer, Babel and Rome. The land was forbidden to us not for two dacades but for two millennia. Ya’akov split his camp in two, in the hope that if his brother would attack him he would satisfy his lust for blood and revenge on one camp – and the other will survive. History played a similar trick on our enemies, our people were dispersed among the nations, and our enemies never could lay their hands on all of us. They tried hard to annihilate us - but to no avail! God’s punishment became God’s protection. When we were being killed in the British Isles, Spain was a haven of refuge. When Spain forced us to convert of die, Turkey took us in. And when the Czar inaugurated the government provoked “pogroms” in which so many of our brethern lost their lives, a new shelter opened in the New World.
Of all the possible fears that Father Ya’akov could have had in the back of his mind, none could have prepared him or his seed to the worst that happened to us, and at the dawn of a new age of enlightenment, yet! There were those who saw the writing on the wall, who realized and recognized the threat of the Hitlerite era even before they knew the name of our worse enemy. And there were those who began to prepare against him – wishing to establish in time a safe haven for all the innocents whose lives would be threatened. But the world turned a deaf ear to our pleas, the nations were too busy in their own little affairs, failing to realize that the bell never tolls for only one victim – that people who do not rush to the aid of the downtrodden will find soon enough that the ground is removed from under their feet, and they are tomorrow’s downtrodden themselves.
Another November is coming to an end – and we recall the last days of November of 1947, when the winds of winter blew while the men from the promised land worked hard to persuade delegates from South America and Europe, from Africa and Pasifica to vote “yes” on UNSCOP partition plan. Their days began early and ended late at night as they did their best to explain the plight of the DP’s in Europe, a tiny remnant of the great fire that consumed two thirds of Europe’s Jews, who had nowhere to go. America did not want to take them in, neither did any other nation in Europe or elsewhere. Those who tried to return to Poland were massacred by local citizens who claimed a right to finish the job the Nazis began. So the emissaries begged and pleaded, the made promises for future favors – and on the twenty ninth of November they counted the votes. It was thirty-three to thirteen, with ten abstentions. That’s two thirds, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Yes, it is!
Theodor Herzl said, “if you will it, it is not a fairy-tale.” My grandfather dropped the first part, and stated squarely, “it is no fairy-tale!” On the twenty ninth on November it was a fact, a motion passed by a world body. Never mind that the General Assembly has no power to make policy. That power was vested in the Security Council, where the “big five” had a veto power, and no decision can pass if the veto is cast. Never mind that the Arab members of the world peace-making body announced that they will go to war to prevent the decision from coming into effect. Never mind that everybody looked at the mathematical equation, 600,000 Jews against 200,000,000 Arabs – and suggested that no sane person would place a bet on a Jewish state coming into being. Never mind all that! God’s promise was about to be fulfilled. And secular Jews, Ben-Gurion, and Golda, and Sharret and Remmez and Da’yan and so many others, believed with all their hearts and all their being that deliverance was at hand.
God spoke to Ya’akov, when he was on the way to Egypt to reunite with his son Joseph, and told him “Al tira – be not afraid!” It would seem that a little worry is good for anyone, but out-and-out fear – that did not enter Ya’akov’s mind or heart, nor did it enter the hearts of his decedents throughout the generations. In the casbah of Arab lands, in the ghettos of Europe, in the wilderness of Siberia and interment camps in Africa and Cyprus – “lo avda tikvatenu – our hope did not waver.” We took what came and continued on our path to independence. And those who sold us short have been proved wrong, totally wrong. So over the distance of four millennia we look at father Ya’akov and say, yishar ko’akh, well done, father Ya’akov! We shall not let you down, either. Am Yisra’el kha’y!
Amen
Shabbat shalom.

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