Parshah Summary – P’shat
The parshah opens with Jacob returning home to the land of Canaan after a 20-year stay in Haran. He sends angels ahead of him to meet his brother Esau in hope of a reconciliation, but they return to report that Esau is on the warpath with 400 armed men. Jacob prepares for battle, but also sends Esau a large gift (consisting of hundreds of heads of livestock) to appease him, and then intensely prays for salvation. That night, Jacob sends his family and possessions across the Jabbok River, while he remains behind and encounters a mysterious being with whom he wrestles until daybreak. Jacob suffers a dislocated hip but vanquishes the supernal creature, who bestows upon him the name Yisrael, Israel. When Jacob and Esau finally meet, they break down crying and make peace, hugging and kissing, and then part ways. Jacob purchases a plot of land near Sh’khem, whose crown prince—also called Sh’khem—abducts and violates Jacob’s daughter Dinah. Dinah’s brothers Shimon and Levi avenge the crime by killing all male inhabitants of the city, after rendering them vulnerable by convincing them to circumcise themselves in order to intermarry with them. Jacob admonishes his sons for their violence, and again fearing for his life after what they have done, Jacob and his family flee. Rachel dies while giving birth to her second son, Benjamin, and is buried in a roadside grave near Bethlehem. Jacob arrives in Hebron, to his father Isaac, who later dies at age 180.
Torah of Awakening | Jewish Meditation Teaching
וַיֹּ֗אמֶר לֹ֤א יַֽעֲקֹב֙ יֵֽאָמֵ֥ר עוֹד֙ שִׁמְךָ֔ כִּ֖י אִם־יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל כִּֽי־שָׂרִ֧יתָ עִם־אֱלֹהִ֛ים וְעִם־אֲנָשִׁ֖ים וַתּוּכָֽל: He said, “No longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have wrestled with God and with humans and you have prevailed!” - Bereisheet (Genesis) 32:4, Parshat Vayikhlakh
What is the nature of pleasure? Is pleasure something to be enjoyed and celebrated, or is pleasure a spiritual obstacle? There is a teaching recorded in the Talmud that contains a puzzling dialogue between Moses and Hashem
בִּקֵּשׁ לְהוֹדִיעוֹ דְּרָכָיו שֶׁל הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, וְנָתַן לוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״הוֹדִיעֵנִי נָא אֶת דְּרָכֶיךָ״, אָמַר לְפָנָיו: רִבּוֹנוֹ שֶׁל עוֹלָם! מִפְּנֵי מָה יֵשׁ צַדִּיק וְטוֹב לוֹ, וְיֵשׁ צַדִּיק וְרַע לוֹ, יֵשׁ רָשָׁע וְטוֹב לוֹ, וְיֵשׁ רָשָׁע וְרַע לוֹ? אָמַר לוֹ: מֹשֶׁה, צַדִּיק וְטוֹב לוֹ — צַדִּיק בֶּן צַדִּיק. צַדִּיק וְרַע לוֹ — צַדִּיק בֶּן רָשָׁע. רָשָׁע וְטוֹב לוֹ — רָשָׁע בֶּן צַדִּיק. רָשָׁע וְרַע לוֹ — רָשָׁע בֶּן רָשָׁע.. (Moses) requested that the ways of the Holy Blessed One be revealed to him, and it was granted it to him, as it is stated: “Show me Your ways and I will know You” (Exodus 33:13). He said, “Master of the Universe! Why is it that there are righteous who prosper, righteous who suffer, wicked who prosper, and wicked who suffer?” (The Divine) replied to him: “Moses, the righteous person who prospers is a child of a righteous person. The righteous person who suffers is a child of a wicked person. The wicked person who prospers is a child of a righteous person. The wicked person who suffers is a child of a wicked person. (Berachot 7a) This teaching (attributed to Rabbi Yohanan in the name of Rabbi Yosei) attempts to answer that old perennial question: if there is Divine justice in the world, why do bad things happen to good people? Why are there bad people who seem to have all the good things? The answer given here is a little baffling – it’s just because of their parents? Not the most satisfying answer. However, a novel interpretation of this passage comes from the renown 19th century rabbi known as the Chasam Sofer. He says that the good person who suffers, called the tzaddik v’ra lo- literally, “righteous and bad for him,” is not one to whom bad things happen. Rather, it is someone who doesn’t know how to receive painful experiences. After all, painful experiences will absolutely happen to all people, regardless of how good or bad they are ethically. The issue is not whether pain will come, it is how we deal with the pain when it does come. That’s why the passage says that the tzaddik v’ra lo is a righteous person with wicked parents. Thet have good intentions, but because they have wicked parents, they don’t learn how to receive pain and not get caught by it; they are still ruled by their impulses, in the same way a wicked person would be. Conversely, the rasha v’tov lo – the wicked person who prospers – doesn’t mean a wicked person to whom good things happen; good experiences are constantly happening to all people, regardless of how good or bad they are ethically (like, for example, our next breath.) Rather, this is someone who may be ethically wicked, but because they have good parents, they have learned the skill of receiving pain without resistance, as well as the skill of cultivating gratitude and appreciation for the all the blessings. The Chasam Sofer is interpreting the Gemara in light of this most fundamental quality of meditation: the simple receiving of this moment as it is – also known as “equanimity.” The main obstacle to equanimity is the impulse to resist and reject our present moment experience. This resistance, in turn, takes two main forms: rejecting or running away from what we don’t want, and longing for or running after what we do want. One common approach to cultivating equanimity is to purposely restrict your enjoyment of pleasure and voluntarily take on a certain amount of pain; this is the path of asceticism. From the ascetic point of view, pleasure is seen as suspect, even immoral, because it leads to weakness of character and dependence on external experience. This is the context within which the pleasure-negative point of view arises in Judaism and in many other traditions. The counterpoint to the ascetic point of view is the Hasidic approach, which came along to counteract the pleasure-negative ideology that became so prevalent in eighteenth century Eastern European Jewry. After all, it is not pleasure itself that is dangerous, but the clinging to and dependence on pleasure that is dangerous. Feeling good is a blessing of life – why should we go against our nature? Put another way, why should we reject the gifts that Hashem gives us? That’s why Hassidism celebrated eating, drinking, dancing, sexuality, and so on, as a means to realize the sacred; the key was the kavanah – the intention – that one brings to pleasure. One time, Rabbi Yisrael of Rizhyn walked into a room where some of his hasidim were drinking together and making merry, and he seemed to look at them with disapproval. “Are you displeased that we are drinking?” one of them asked. “But it is said that when hasidim sit together over their cups, it is just as if they were studying Torah!” “There are many words in the Torah that are holy in one passage, and unholy in another,” replied that rabbi of Rizhyn. “For example, it is written: וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהוָה֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה פְּסָל־לְךָ֛ שְׁנֵֽי־לֻחֹ֥ת אֲבָנִ֖ים – And the Divine said to Moses, ‘carve for yourself two tablets of stone…’ - Exodus 34:1 “And in another place, it says: לֹֽ֣א תַֽעֲשֶׂ֨ה־לְךָ֥֣ פֶ֣֙סֶל֙ – Do not make for yourself a carved image… Exodus 20:1 “Why is the same word, fesel (“carved”), holy in the first passage and not holy in the second? It is because in the first passage, “yourself” comes after “carved,” and in the second it comes first. And so it is in all that we do: when the self comes after, all is holy; when it comes first, all is not.” In other words, the sacred function of pleasure is to help us transcend ourselves; it is to use the pleasure as a means toward praise and gratitude, to connection with the Source of Blessing, rather than cling to the blessing for the sake of gratification alone. And even deeper, it is to awaken that Presence which is the deepest level of our being, beyond the “self” that craves this and that. After all, there is something essential that we can learn from enjoying pleasure: just as we enjoy pleasure for its own sake, savoring the moment without any future goal, so too we can learn to fully savor the moment as it is, even without any external gratification. We can do this because there is a deeper goodness, a deeper pleasure, that arises from Presence Itself; when we awaken this deeper pleasure, we can see through the ups and downs of transient experience and pierce through to the Oneness of Being, the Divine Ground that knows Itself through our own awareness, through the Living Presence that we are, beneath and beyond the “self” of thoughts, feelings, and changing experiences. וַיֹּ֗אמֶר לֹ֤א יַֽעֲקֹב֙ יֵֽאָמֵ֥ר עוֹד֙ שִׁמְךָ֔ כִּ֖י אִם־יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל כִּֽי־שָׂרִ֧יתָ עִם־אֱלֹהִ֛ים וְעִם־אֲנָשִׁ֖ים וַתּוּכָֽל: He said, “No longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have wrestled with (your) Divine (nature) and (your) human (nature), and you have prevailed!” In the parshah, Jacob is pushed into this realization of Oneness through crisis. He is terrified that his brother is coming to kill him and his family. He sends gifts to appease his brother, he prays for salvation, he divides his camp in the hope that some might survive if they are attacked. But then he spends the whole night wrestling with a mysterious being who attacks and injures him. By the time dawn breaks, Jacob is victorious, and the being gives him the name Yisrael, which means “wrestles with Gd.” Then, it says something interesting: וַיִּקְרָ֧א יַעֲקֹ֛ב שֵׁ֥ם הַמָּק֖וֹם פְּנִיאֵ֑ל כִּֽי־רָאִ֤יתִי אֱלֹהִים֙ פָּנִ֣ים אֶל־פָּנִ֔ים וַתִּנָּצֵ֖ל נַפְשִֽׁי׃ Jacob named the place Peniel, because “I have seen the Divine face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”- Gen. 32:31 It is true that it all turns out well for Jacob in the end; his brother forgives him and they hug and weep upon each other’s necks. But this verse comes before he sees his brother; he doesn’t know yet whether his prayers will be answered; he doesn’t know yet whether his brother will forgive him or kill him. And yet he says, וַתִּנָּצֵ֖ל נַפְשִֽׁי – which is usually translated as it is above: “my life has been preserved.” But the word for “my life” – nafshi – literally means “my soul,” not “my life.” In other words, his becoming Yisrael means that he has pierced beyond the “good” and “bad” of his personal experience, to his underlying “soul” – also called Consciousness – his essential being beyond the “self,” beyond ego. He becomes Yisrael because regardless of whether he lives or dies, regardless of whether his prayers are answered or not, he knows now that everything is the Face of the Divine – ra’iti Elohim panim el panim – “I have seen the Divine face to face.” And so this is our task: not to avoid pleasure, and also not to pursue pleasure as the goal, but rather to receive both pleasure and pain with full Presence. Because beneath our transient experience is a deeper pleasure, a pleasure with no opposite, a pleasure that is the nourishment we need now for our essential being. This deeper pleasure is represented by the letter mem, the symbol for water. Just as water takes the shape of any vessel into which it is poured, so too our consciousness can effortlessly take the shape of this moment in which we find ourselves. וְֽהָיָ֗ה כְּעֵץ֮ שָׁת֪וּל עַֽל־פַּלְגֵ֫י מָ֥יִם – And one shall be like a tree planted by streams water… - Psalm 1:3
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