Parashat Vayishlach

This week’s parasha continues a theme we saw in last week’s parasha, Vayetze, which began and ended with the mentioning of angels. So too our parasha continues in the same venue. In ancient times, there were no chapter and verse breaks within the text. The previous parasha ends with Jacob being met by angels, leading him to call the place Machanayim – referring to the encampment of G-d. Immediately this week’s parasha begins with the next verse (Gen. 32:4), with the words vayishlach Ya'akov malachim ... and Ya’akov sent forth messengers ahead of him.

Since the word malachim can mean both human messengers and angles, the rabbis understand this verse to refer to the angels in the previous verse. Therefore, Ya’akov sends forth both physical and angelic messengers from the camp ahead of him to prepare for meeting his brother Esav. There is a spiritual and physical preparation.

However, in between these two events, a mysterious encounter occurs. In the middle of the night Jacob crosses the Yabok River, and is left alone. A mysterious being comes and wrestles with Ya’akov until day break, at which time this mysterious figure blesses Jacob and gives him the name Israel:

“For you have wrestled with G-d and man, and have prevailed (Gen. 32:29).”

In ancient Near Eastern understanding, the crossing of a river was a symbol of new beginnings, and a new start – a sort of rebirth. That is why there is a purposeful connection with the name of the river (Yabok), and the word vaye’avek – to wrestle/struggle. It was here, at the river of a new beginning in Jacob’s life that he also received a new name – and a new identity – Israel.

This was a test for Jacob, and a preparation for a new beginning in his life; to go from being Ya’akov to becoming Israel – the father of the twelve tribes and a great patriarch of the Jewish people. It was a physical and spiritual preparation.

Although Rashi and other sages identify this mysterious figure as the angel of Esav, there are also understandings of this figure being more than just an angel. A clue to this is in the Hebrew itself. Not only does it mention that he struggles “with G-d and with man,” but his name is changed to Israel. The definition of “Israel” is to wrestle/struggle with G-d. Although you can argue that it may just be figuratively, there are two more hints.

Ya’akov asks the being its name, and the response is interesting, “Why are you asking my name?" Alone it does not mean anything. However, when one understands that the sacred Name of G-d is often referred to “as the Name that no one knows,” and the reverence given to the Name of G-d in Jewish understanding, the reference should be obvious. And the last clue that this is more than just an angel is in the name Ya’akov gives to the place afterwards - P’ni El – the face of G-d:

“Because I have seen G-d face to face, yet my life is spared (Gen. 32:31).”

The idea of G-d taking on a physical form is not unheard of in the Torah, or in ancient Jewish understanding. Within this sort of incarnation is an obvious Messianic connection. It is not ridiculous to understand this mysterious encounter as a physical and spiritual struggle between Jacob and HaShem.

Parashat Vayishlach teaches us that through wrestling with G-d, and striving for G-d’s purpose for each one of us, we will enter into a new beginning for what lies ahead.

This week’s Torah portion (Vayishlach) begins with the words, vayishlach Ya’akov malachim – and Jacob sent messengers ahead of him (Gen. 32:4). These messengers (or angels, as it can also be translated) were sent out ahead of Jacob in preparation for his return. These messengers were given the responsibility of carrying a vital message of reconciliation and peace to a distant brother.

Luke 5 also speaks of the sending out of messengers who would carry a message of reconciliation and peace to distant listeners. And the message that these new messengers would bring would come from none other than the Messiah himself.

As Simon Peter and his partners, James and John, concluded an unproductive day of fishing, they found themselves in the midst of throngs of people. And at the center of this crowd was none other than the carpenter from the Galil, Yeshua. This quickly turned into an unordinary day for the three fishermen.

Upon concluding his message to the crowds, Yeshua miraculously enabled the three previously unsuccessful fishermen to catch more fish than they could possibly bring ashore. Astonished by the miracle Yeshua had just performed, the three rugged fishermen came to believe that Yeshua was indeed the long awaited Messiah. Recognizing the divine spark within them, Yeshua called them to a “new life of fishing.” A type of fishing that would rely on a divine message. And rather than remaining limited to the Sea of Galilee, they were given the ability to take this message around the world.

Like the messengers sent forth by Jacob, these called out messengers heralded a message in preparation of Yeshua’s ultimate return. And they too were given the responsibility of declaring a message of reconciliation and peace to others.

We too have been called out as messengers. As followers of the Jewish Messiah, we have been chosen to bring this same message of hope and reconciliation to the nations of the world. Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach once said that our mission is to “leave the world more Jewish than we found it.” This means that we have a divine injunction to be a light that shines in a dark place. To bring our people a hope that surpasses all understanding. Yeshua is indeed the Messiah. And as such, we are meant to prepare for his glorious return.

"Messianic Judaism has never had the luxury of being able to sit back and affirm what has always been at the expense of what could (and we believe, will) be: the recognition of Yeshua as Messiah by all Israel. Yet, just as the pioneers of Messianic Judaism had the boldness to reclaim kippot and tallitot, to disavow the label “Christian” to the extent it meant “member of a sociohistorical entity opposed to Judaism / the Jewish people”, to rename Jesus, and to assert their right to create a distinctly Jewish expression of faith in Messiah, we must have the boldness to fix their mistakes, to go where their acquired Christian theologies would not let them, to de-tangle our ultimate goal from the particular cultural forms of early Messianic Judaism and (more broadly) American evangelical Christianity as they become obsolete or counter-productive, and to follow Yeshua not only as Jewish people but as practitioners of an informed and faithful Judaism. Stagnant Messianic Judaism should be a contradiction in terms (Emphasis mine)."

-Ovadia from the blog, Just Jewish

Parashat Vayetze

Parashat Vayetze begins with one of the most mysterious passages in the Torah. While Jacob was fleeing from his brother Esav, he stopped at a certain place to spend the night. After laying his head down on a rock and falling asleep, he had a dream. In Ya'akov's dream, he saw a vision of a ladder that reached from the ground into heaven, and angels were ascending and descending upon it. Additionally G-d spoke to him, and relayed the promise of giving the land of Israel to him and his descendants, that He would multiply Jacob's offspring, and that through his descendants, all the peoples of the earth would be blessed. G-d concluded by reassuring Jacob that He would not abandon him, for He had made a promise with him.

Throughout Jewish history, commentators have argued over the exact meaning of Jacob's vision. Interestingly, the vagueness of the Hebrew does not help in understanding it any better. For instance, the phrase, “and the angels of HaShem were ascending and descending upon it” could also be rendered as “the angels of HaShem ascended and descended upon him.”

Based on this reading of the text, Ya'akov represents the medium by which G-d's blessings are imparted into the world, and whose descendant's (the twelve tribes who also are birthed in this parasha) further embody G-d's blessings in the earth. The story of the sulam Ya'akov, of Jacob's ladder, is a reminder of G-d's direct interaction into the affairs of humanity.

Lastly, the parasha also begins and ends with with the mentioning of angels. At the beginning of the portion we read about the angels who ascend and descend upon the ladder in the dream, and at the very end of the portion, of the angels who come to meet Ya'akov after he left his father-in-law, Lavan (Gen. 32:2-3). It is interesting to note this specific mentioning of angels both at the beginning and the end of this parasha. For it additionally shows G-d's involvement in the trials that are attested to in-between these angelic encounters.

The first mention is almost a “changing of the guard,” if you will. The description is that the angels first ascend, and then descend. The seemingly opposite of what we would expect. This leads us to believe that there were angelic escorts with Ya'akov as he fled his home. In the dream, Jacob was given the ability to see those angels who were with him ascend back into heaven, as a new host of heaven descend to meet him for the next stage of his journey. For the journey ahead would be full of trials as he is tricked and taken advantage of repeatedly by Lavan. The new angelic escorts would be with Ya'akov to teach him what he needed to be a Patriarch of Israel, and to turn what Lavan meant for evil, into blessings for Ya'akov and his family.

As a patriarch of the Jewish people, Ya'akov served as an embodiment, and vehicle, through which G-d's blessings would be imparted into the earth. This interpretation is further related and clarified in the Brit Chadashah. In the gospel of John, Yeshua speaks to a man named Natanel, and says to him:

In this passage Yeshua clarifies that now he would be the embodiment and vehicle of G-d's work in the earth. That through him is access to the heavenly realms.