An Ongoing Struggle

In this week’s Torah portion, we read about the historical wrestling match between Yaakov Avinu, our forefather, and the Angel of Esav, the Saro shel Esav, the angel sent by Hashem to resolve the issue of the stolen blessing in an encounter that has come to symbolize the Jewish people’s dealings with the rest of the world since time immemorial.

That confrontation began over 3,500 years ago and in one way or another, continues today. As you know, the two basically fought to a draw, though the angel managed to inflict an injury on Yaakov’s thigh.

It seems that, despite his deep faith in Hashem, Yaakov Avinu lived under a lot of intense pressure almost everywhere he turned. I can review the myriad events, but most of us are cognizant of what Yaakov had to deal with over his lifetime.

And then there is the retelling of how he endured each challenge and how his faith carried him through a series of crises that occasionally overlapped with one another.

But even more compelling is an explanation by the Lubavitcher Rebbe on this week’s Torah portion of how whatever our patriarchs experienced in their lives is an indication of what the Jewish people will have to confront during their history. In other words: Maaseh Avot Siman L’banim—whatever Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, and Leah had to deal with in their lives is a way to foretell what the Jewish people will have to cope with in their lives.

To that end, there are many of their experiences that we can depict here and analyze. For this week, let’s deal with how Esav’s angel foretold life for the Jewish people going forward. The angel confronted Yaakov at a time when he was not really expecting an encounter.

Our commentaries write about the struggle and how the angel made an attempt to withdraw from the bout and return to wherever he came from because it was his turn to rejoin his group of angels that would be singing praises to Hashem.

Before the angel had a chance to run off, two things happened. The first thing is that he took a strong swipe at Yaakov’s thigh and dislocated it. Yaakov then asks the angel to bless him before he leaves.

The Rebbe writes in a sicha on this week’s Torah portion that the injury the angel inflicted on Yaakov forced our patriarch to struggle and limp as he moved on from that encounter and went to rejoin his family.

On the matter of Maaseh Avot Siman L’banim and how it foretells what might occur to us as a nation in the future, the Rebbe stated that included in the crippling blow to Yaakov’s hip is every injury and blow inflicted on the Jewish people from that moment on.

According to this interpretation we can assume that included on the blow inflicted on Yaakov by the angel of Esav were the pogroms, inquisitions, the oppression in European shtetls, the Holocaust, the wars against Israel, and more recently, the Gaza war and all those terror attacks in Israel that maimed and murdered so many civilians and IDF troops.

The good news is that Yaakov Avinu did not just survive the attack, he went on to build a nation of Torah scholars, warriors, judges, priests, kings, and merchants, each tribe flourishing despite the hardships and obstacles they encountered—and overcame.

The important thing is that inside that biblical event in this week’s Torah reading are all those events that almost dragged Yaakov down, and if that had played out, it might not have bode well for the Jewish people’s future, which for the most part is now history.

Let’s take a step further and ask: If the angel representing Esav had indeed confronted Yaakov with the intent of beating him almost into non-existence, why did Yaakov ask him to bless him before he left to return to what appears to have been his day job of singing praises to Hashem?

As we explained briefly, this encounter between Yaakov and this mysterious angel was a foretelling of what we as a people would have to deal with going forward. Toward that end, it is both simple and complex. The good news is that despite the setbacks and some near misses, Yaakov and his family endured and succeeded.

To that end, we can say that the military prowess that Israel displays as represented by Yehuda, and the political leadership of Yosef, were all packed into that great battle between Yaakov and the angel.

All Israel and the Jewish people want is to live peacefully and independently. And there have been periods like that, but then time and time again, it resorts back to these ongoing battles and the ensuing complications.

When Yaakov finally meets Pharaoh, he tells him that his number one objective is to live quietly and peacefully. At the time, perhaps we didn’t know that to see what our future would look like, we just had to look behind us.

Read more of Larry Gordon’s articles at 5TJT.com. Follow 5 Towns Jewish Times on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for updates and live videos. Comments, questions, and suggestions are welcome at 5TJT.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.