Parshat Vayishlach is like a novel
within the Torah about the life of Jacob.
Why? Because unlike most ancient stories,
the story of Jacob is a story of a character
who changes. When we first met Jacob,
he was doing things like tricking
his brother Esau out of his birthright,
tricking his blind father into blessing him,
and tricking his Uncle Laban out of
several hundred sheep.
Now it's years later, he hears that his
twin brother Esau--the one whose
inheritance he stole so many years ago
-- is coming to meet him, along with a
security detail of four hundred men.
Jacob handles this the way he's handled
everything else in his life
-- by manipulating, dodging,
and hedging his bets.
He divides his entourage into two camps
so that if one of the groups is attacked,
he'll at least have some children
and goats left over. He asks God to remember
him for prosperity and Jacob arranges
for a series of gifts to be sent to Esau.
Finally he sends his wives and children ahead
across the river, and spends the night alone.
Then something strange happens.
As the Torah tells us,
"A man wrestled with Jacob until daybreak."
A man. And then when the man saw
that Jacob was winning, he wrenched
Jacob's hip at its socket. Jacob isn't the type
to take things lying down, and even
having his hip dislocated doesn't stop him
from winning this seemingly unprovoked fight.
But somehow this mysterious opponent
is different. Defeated, the man says to Jacob,
"Let me go, because dawn is breaking,"
The Jacob we know isn't about to let this guy
go without getting something for himself
out of the transaction, so he tells the man
that he won't release him unless
the man blesses him.
But instead of blessing him, the man
changes him, saying, "Your name
will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,
-- which means 'wrestles with God' --
because you have struggled with God
and men, and succeeded."
Jacob then asked the man what his name is,
but the man responds,
"Why do you ask me my name?"
and then the man leaves.
Jacob understands that something important
has happened, though he
doesn't yet know what
He names the place P'niel,
or "the face of God," meaning, as he puts it,
"I have seen God face to face
and my life has been preserved."
As Jacob limps off into the sunrise
on his damaged hip, we see something in him
that we've never seen before: humility.
Then he sees his brother Esau.
Before his encounter with the mysterious man,
Jacob might have met his brother
with an armed entourage
or have avoided him somehow,
But the new, humbled, crippled Jacob bows
to the ground seven times at Esau's feet.
Esau runs up to greet and kiss him,
and the two brothers weep.
Then Jacob tells Esau that,
"to see your face is to see the face of God."
and asks him to please accept his gifts.
They reconcile.
Who is this mysterious stranger
who wrestled with Jacob and changed him so?
The Torah goes out of its way
not to tell us. The most common explanation
is that Jacob was "wrestling with an angel."
But just a few chapters back,
Jacob met a whole slew of angels climbing
up and down a ladder,
and the text wasn't afraid to call them angels.
This wrestler is clearly called a man,
Another possibility is that this wrestling match
is a metaphor for Jacob wrestling
with his own conscience.
It's an intriguing idea, but the story
is a bit too physical. When's the last time
your conscience dislocated your hip?
Consider this: the mysterious man really was
Jacob's brother Esau.
This is a physical reenactment of
Jacob's first moments, when,
as the Torah tellsus, Jacob and Esau wrestled
with each other
in their mother Rebecca's womb,
Now Esau has his opportunity to finish
that first wrestling match, knowing all that
Jacob has done to wrong him,
but also knowing knowing how
time and life can change
what matters most to us.
Esau comes by night
so Jacob won't recognize him,
but Jacob does know who this man is.
He names their meeting place P'niel because
there, in Esau, he saw God face to face.
While it might be more exotic
to wrestle with an angel,
Jacob knows at that moment that
the way we see God on Earth
is by facing the people we've wronged,
by looking into their faces
and by knowing that we too can change.
Producer: Sarah Lefton
Animation Director: Nick Fox-Gieg
Animation: Colleen MacIsaac
Editorial Director: Matthue Roth
Theme Music: Tim Cosgrove
Written and Narrated by: Dara Horn
Sound Recording: Gabe Schwartz