December 13, 2024 / 12 Kislev 5785
Jacob and Esau again!
Parashat Vayishlach’s preoccupation is the reunion and reconciliation of Isaac and Rebekah’s twin sons. In Vayishlach’s most dramatic scene, Jacob wrestles with an angel who perhaps represents his brother Esau.
I’m fascinated by the many artistic renderings of that moment, which, to my eye anyway, portray hugging, embracing, and dancing at least as much as they depict struggle and fighting. Take a look a couple of them.
Rembrandt’s almost erotic painting shows the struggle between the angel and Jacob as a hug. The two figures literally attach to one another.
In this study, one of several in advance of a painting of the scene, Donato Creti (1671-1749) draws what look to me like ballroom dancers, connecting and separating as they make their way across the floor.
Vayishlach’s last scene is Isaac’s burial in Hebron at the Cave of Machpelah. “Then Yitzhak expired. He died and was gathered to his kinspeople, old and satisfied in days. Esav and Yaakov his sons buried him.” Esau and Jacob (notably in birth order!) stand together at Isaac’s grave – connected, attached, embracing, hugging.
A few lines later they separate again, this time for good. “Esav took his wives, his sons and his daughters, and all the persons in his household, as well as his acquired-livestock, all his animals, and all his acquisitions that he had gained in the land of Canaan, and went to [another] land, away from Yaakov his brother, for their property was too much for them to settle together; the land of their sojourning could not support them, on account of their acquired-livestock.” Evidently, the Land wasn’t big enough for the both of them!
A late Midrash catches the dynamic well.
Rabbi Levi said: In the hour of the ingathering of Isaac, he left his cattle and his possessions, and all that he had, to his two sons; therefore they both rendered loving-kindness (to him), as it is said, “And Esau and Jacob his sons buried him” (Gen. 35:29)…
And Esau took all that his father had left, and he gave to Jacob the land of Israel, and the Cave of Machpelah, and they wrote a perpetual deed between them. Jacob said to Esau: Go from the land of my possession, from the land of Canaan. Esau took his wives, and his sons, and his daughters, and all that he had, [as it is said, “And Esau took his wives… and all his possessions which he had gathered in the land of Canaan], and went into a land away from his brother Jacob” (Gen. 36:6). And as a reward because he removed all his belongings on account of Jacob his brother, the Holy One gave him one hundred provinces from Seir unto Magdiel, and Magdiel is Rome, as it is said, “Duke Magdiel, Duke Iram” (Gen. 36:43). Then Jacob dwelt safely and in peace in the land of his possession, and in the land of his birth, and in the land of the sojournings of his father. [Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer 38]
Fight, struggle, hug, embrace, dance – connect, separate, connect again, separate again. And not just Esau and Jacob; actually all of us, as individuals and peoples too. Better to dance than to fight methinks.
Shabbat Shalom.
Rabbi David
