When have you wrestled?
Jacob Wrestling With The Angel - Marc Chagall
What do you see?
What do you feel?
(כא) וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֕ם גַּ֗ם הִנֵּ֛ה עַבְדְּךָ֥ יַעֲקֹ֖ב אַחֲרֵ֑ינוּ כִּֽי־אָמַ֞ר אֲכַפְּרָ֣ה פָנָ֗יו בַּמִּנְחָה֙ הַהֹלֶ֣כֶת לְפָנָ֔י וְאַחֲרֵי־כֵן֙ אֶרְאֶ֣ה פָנָ֔יו אוּלַ֖י יִשָּׂ֥א פָנָֽי׃ (כב) וַתַּעֲבֹ֥ר הַמִּנְחָ֖ה עַל־פָּנָ֑יו וְה֛וּא לָ֥ן בַּלַּֽיְלָה־הַה֖וּא בַּֽמַּחֲנֶֽה׃ (כג) וַיָּ֣קׇם ׀ בַּלַּ֣יְלָה ה֗וּא וַיִּקַּ֞ח אֶת־שְׁתֵּ֤י נָשָׁיו֙ וְאֶת־שְׁתֵּ֣י שִׁפְחֹתָ֔יו וְאֶת־אַחַ֥ד עָשָׂ֖ר יְלָדָ֑יו וַֽיַּעֲבֹ֔ר אֵ֖ת מַעֲבַ֥ר יַבֹּֽק׃ (כד) וַיִּ֨קָּחֵ֔ם וַיַּֽעֲבִרֵ֖ם אֶת־הַנָּ֑חַל וַֽיַּעֲבֵ֖ר אֶת־אֲשֶׁר־לֽוֹ׃ (כה) וַיִּוָּתֵ֥ר יַעֲקֹ֖ב לְבַדּ֑וֹ וַיֵּאָבֵ֥ק אִישׁ֙ עִמּ֔וֹ עַ֖ד עֲל֥וֹת הַשָּֽׁחַר׃ (כו) וַיַּ֗רְא כִּ֣י לֹ֤א יָכֹל֙ ל֔וֹ וַיִּגַּ֖ע בְּכַף־יְרֵכ֑וֹ וַתֵּ֙קַע֙ כַּף־יֶ֣רֶךְ יַעֲקֹ֔ב בְּהֵאָֽבְק֖וֹ עִמּֽוֹ׃ (כז) וַיֹּ֣אמֶר שַׁלְּחֵ֔נִי כִּ֥י עָלָ֖ה הַשָּׁ֑חַר וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ לֹ֣א אֲשַֽׁלֵּחֲךָ֔ כִּ֖י אִם־בֵּרַכְתָּֽנִי׃ (כח) וַיֹּ֥אמֶר אֵלָ֖יו מַה־שְּׁמֶ֑ךָ וַיֹּ֖אמֶר יַעֲקֹֽב׃ (כט) וַיֹּ֗אמֶר לֹ֤א יַעֲקֹב֙ יֵאָמֵ֥ר עוֹד֙ שִׁמְךָ֔ כִּ֖י אִם־יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל כִּֽי־שָׂרִ֧יתָ עִם־אֱלֹהִ֛ים וְעִם־אֲנָשִׁ֖ים וַתּוּכָֽל׃ (ל) וַיִּשְׁאַ֣ל יַעֲקֹ֗ב וַיֹּ֙אמֶר֙ הַגִּֽידָה־נָּ֣א שְׁמֶ֔ךָ וַיֹּ֕אמֶר לָ֥מָּה זֶּ֖ה תִּשְׁאַ֣ל לִשְׁמִ֑י וַיְבָ֥רֶךְ אֹת֖וֹ שָֽׁם׃ (לא) וַיִּקְרָ֧א יַעֲקֹ֛ב שֵׁ֥ם הַמָּק֖וֹם פְּנִיאֵ֑ל כִּֽי־רָאִ֤יתִי אֱלֹהִים֙ פָּנִ֣ים אֶל־פָּנִ֔ים וַתִּנָּצֵ֖ל נַפְשִֽׁי׃ (לב) וַיִּֽזְרַֽח־ל֣וֹ הַשֶּׁ֔מֶשׁ כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר עָבַ֖ר אֶת־פְּנוּאֵ֑ל וְה֥וּא צֹלֵ֖עַ עַל־יְרֵכֽוֹ׃ (לג) עַל־כֵּ֡ן לֹֽא־יֹאכְל֨וּ בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל אֶת־גִּ֣יד הַנָּשֶׁ֗ה אֲשֶׁר֙ עַל־כַּ֣ף הַיָּרֵ֔ךְ עַ֖ד הַיּ֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה כִּ֤י נָגַע֙ בְּכַף־יֶ֣רֶךְ יַעֲקֹ֔ב בְּגִ֖יד הַנָּשֶֽׁה׃
(21) And you shall add, ‘And your servant Jacob himself is right behind us.’” For he reasoned, “If I propitiate him with presents in advance, and then face him, perhaps he will show me favor.” (22) And so the gift went on ahead, while he remained in camp that night. (23) That same night he arose, and taking his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven sons, he crossed the ford of the Jabbok. (24) After taking them across the stream, he sent across all his possessions. (25) Jacob was left alone. And a figure wrestled with him until the break of dawn. (26) When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him. (27) Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” (28) Said the other, “What is your name?” He replied, “Jacob.” (29) Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.” (30) Jacob asked, “Pray tell me your name.” But he said, “You must not ask my name!” And he took leave of him there. (31) So Jacob named the place Peniel, meaning, “I have seen a divine being face to face, yet my life has been preserved.” (32) The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip. (33) That is why the children of Israel to this day do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the socket of the hip, since Jacob’s hip socket was wrenched at the thigh muscle.
(184) JACOB WRESTLES WITH THE ANGEL
(185) The servants of Jacob went before him with the present for Esau, and he followed with his wives and his children. As he was about to pass over the ford of Jabbok, he observed a shepherd, who likewise had sheep and camels. The stranger approached Jacob and proposed that they should ford the stream together, and help each other move their cattle over, and Jacob assented, on the condition that his possessions should be put across first. In the twinkling of an eye Jacob's sheep were transferred to the other side of the stream by the shepherd. Then the flocks of the shepherd were to be moved by Jacob, but no matter how many he took over to the opposite bank, always there remained some on the hither shore. There was no end to the cattle, though Jacob labored all the night through. At last he lost patience, and he fell upon the shepherd and caught him by the throat, crying out, "O thou wizard, thou wizard, at night no enchantment succeeds!" The angel thought, "Very well, let him know once for all with whom he has had dealings," and with his finger he touched the earth, whence fire burst forth. But Jacob said, "What! thou thinkest thus to affright me, who am made wholly of fire?"
(186) The shepherd was no less a personage than the archangel Michael, and in his combat with Jacob he was assisted by the whole host of angels under his command. He was on the point of inflicting a dangerous wound upon Jacob, when God appeared, and all the angels, even Michael himself, felt their strength ooze away. Seeing that he could not prevail against Jacob, the archangel touched the hollow of his thigh, and injured him, and God rebuked him, saying, "Dost thou act as is seemly, when thou causest a blemish in My priest Jacob?" Michael said in astonishment, "Why, it is I who am Thy priest!" But God said, "Thou art My priest in heaven, and he is My priest on earth." Thereupon Michael summoned the archangel Raphael, saying, "My comrade, I pray thee, help me out of my distress, for thou art charged with the healing of all disease," and Raphael cured Jacob of the injury Michael had inflicted.
(187) The Lord continued to reproach Michael, saying, "Why didst thou do harm unto My first-born son?" and the archangel answered, "I did it only to glorify Thee," and then God appointed Michael as the guardian angel of Jacob and his seed unto the end of all generations, with these words: "Thou art a fire, and so is Jacob a fire; thou art the head of the angels, and he is the head of the nations; thou art supreme over all the angels, and he is supreme over all the peoples. Therefore he who is supreme over all the angels shall be appointed unto him who is supreme over all the peoples, that he may entreat mercy for him from the Supreme One over all."
(188) Then Michael said unto Jacob, "How is it possible that thou who couldst prevail against me, the most distinguished of the angels, art afraid of Esau?"
(189) When the day broke, Michael said to Jacob, "Let me go, for the day breaketh," but Jacob held him back, saying, "Art thou a thief, or a gambler with dice, that thou fearest the daylight?" At that moment appeared many different hosts of angels, and they called unto Michael: "Ascend, O Michael, the time of song hath come, and if thou art not in heaven to lead the choir, none will sing." And Michael entreated Jacob with supplications to let him go, for he feared the angels of 'Arabot would consume him with fire, if he were not there to start the songs of praise at the proper time. Jacob said, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me," whereto Michael made reply: "Who is greater, the servant or the son? I am the servant, and thou art the son. Why, then, cravest thou my blessing?" Jacob urged as an argument, "The angels that visited Abraham did not leave without blessing him," but Michael held, "They were sent by God for that very purpose, and I was not." Yet Jacob insisted upon his demand, and Michael pleaded with him, saying, "The angels that betrayed a heavenly secret were banished from their place for one hundred and thirty eight years. Dost thou desire that I should acquaint thee with what would cause my banishment likewise?" In the end the angel nevertheless had to yield; Jacob could not be moved, and Michael took counsel with himself thus: "I will reveal a secret to him, and if God demands to know why I revealed it, I will make answer, Thy children stand upon their wishes with Thee, and Thou dost yield to them. How, then, could I have left Jacob's wish unfulfilled?"
(190) Then Michael spoke to Jacob, saying: "A day will come when God will reveal Godself unto thee, and God will change thy name, and I shall be present when God changeth it. Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel, for happy thou, of woman born, who didst enter the heavenly palace, and didst escape thence with thy life." And Michael blessed Jacob with the words, "May it be the will of God that thy descendants be as pious as thou art."
(191) At the same time the archangel reminded Jacob that he had promised to give a tithe of his possessions unto God, and at once Jacob separated five hundred and fifty head of cattle from his herds, which counted fifty-five hundred. Then Michael went on, "But thou hast sons, and of them thou hast not set apart the tenth." Jacob proceeded to pass his sons in review: Reuben, Joseph, Dan, and Gad being the first-born, each of his mother, were exempt, and there remained but eight sons, and when he had named them, down to Benjamin, he had to go back and begin over again with Simon, the ninth, and finish with Levi as the tenth.
(192) Michael took Levi with him into heaven, and presented him before God, saying, "O Lord of the world, this one is Thy lot, and the tenth belonging unto Thee," and God stretched forth God's hand and blessed Levi with the blessing that his children should be the servants of God on earth as the angels were God's servants on high. Michael spoke again, "Doth not a king provide for the sustenance of his servants?" whereupon God appointed for the Levites all that was holy unto the Lord.
(193) Then Jacob spoke to the angel: "My father conferred the blessing upon me that was intended for Esau, and now I desire to know whether thou wilt acknowledge the blessing as mine, or wilt bring charges against me on account of it." And the angel said: "I acknowledge the blessing to be thine by right. Thou didst not gain it by craft and cunning, and I and all the heavenly powers recognize it to be valid, for thou hast shown thyself master over the mighty powers of the heavens as over Esau and his legions."
(194) And even then Jacob would not let the angel depart, he had to reveal his name to him first, and the angel made known to him that it was Israel, the same name that Jacob would once bear.
(195) At last the angel departed, after Jacob had blessed him, and Jacob called the place of wrestling Penuel, the same place to which before he had given the name Mahanaim, for both words have but one meaning, the place of encounter with angels.
How Jacob conquered the defining crisis of his life
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Published 29 May 2009
You find yourself in the midst of crisis. You lose your job, or miss the promotion you were expecting. You find yourself with a medical condition that requires a radical change of lifestyle. You make a bad investment that costs you dearly. You find an important relationship in your life under stress. Any of these, or the thousand other shocks that flesh is heir to, can plunge you, without warning, into crisis.
What then do you do? How do you survive the trauma and the pain? I have found one biblical passage deeply helpful. It is not an obvious one. It does not come from the Book of Psalms, that lexicon of the soul, or from Isaiah, the poet laureate of hope. Instead, it comes from the famous, enigmatic passage in Genesis 32 in which Jacob, far from home, wrestles with an unknown, unnamed adversary from night until the break of day.
The context is important: 22 years earlier Jacob had left home, fearing that his brother Esau, whose blessing he had taken, would kill him. Now he is returning, when he hears that Esau in on his way to meet him with a force of 400 men. Jacob, says the Bible, was “very afraid and distressed”, an unusually emphatic phrase in a book that often tells us little about people’s emotions. Jacob becomes a whirl of activity. He dispatches emissaries with gifts of flocks and herds, hoping to propitiate his brother. He prays to God for protection. He divides his camp into two, so that if one is destroyed the other may survive. Jacob’s hyperactivity is not only pragmatic, covering all the options. It is also a measure of the stress he is under.
He knows he is facing the defining crisis of his life. It is then that the famous scene enacts itself: “Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.” Who was the man? The text does not say. The prophet Hosea said that Jacob wrestled with an angel. Jacob himself believed he was wrestling with God. He called the place Peniel, “the face of God”, saying: “It is because I saw God face to face, and my life was spared.”
Jacob’s struggle tells us three things. First, the wrestling match takes place after Jacob has made all his preparations. The real crisis, the inner crisis, catches us unaware and unprepared. However much we plan in advance, factor in all the contingencies, rehearse every scenario, there are events that take us by surprise.
That is the human condition. We live with constitutive uncertainty. Those who fear risk fear life itself. “One thing,” goes the old Jewish saying, “makes God laugh: seeing our plans for the future.” Freedom means the courage to live with the unknowable-in-advance. That is why freedom is ultimately impossible without faith.
The second is that the real battle that decides our future lies within the self, the soul. If Jacob can successfully wrestle with God, then he can face his brother Esau without fear. If we can win the struggle “in here”, we can also win it “out there”. That is what Roosevelt meant when he said in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.
It is the third point, though, that has made all the difference to me. Jacob says to the stranger/angel/God, “I will not let You go until You bless me.” Somehow, within every crisis lies the glorious possibility of rebirth.
I have found, and so surely have many others, that the events that at the time were the most painful, were also those that in retrospect most caused us to grow. They helped us to make difficult but necessary decisions. They forced us to ask: “Who am I and what really matters to me?”
They moved us from the surface to the depths, where we discovered strengths we did not know we had, and a clarity of purpose we had hitherto lacked. I have learnt to say to every crisis: “I will not let you go until you bless me.” The struggle is not easy. Though Jacob was undefeated, after it he “limped”. Battles leave scars. Yet God is with us even when He seems to be against us. For if we refuse to let go of Him, He refuses to let go of us, giving us the strength to survive and emerge stronger, wiser, blessed.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Published 29 May 2009
You find yourself in the midst of crisis. You lose your job, or miss the promotion you were expecting. You find yourself with a medical condition that requires a radical change of lifestyle. You make a bad investment that costs you dearly. You find an important relationship in your life under stress. Any of these, or the thousand other shocks that flesh is heir to, can plunge you, without warning, into crisis.
What then do you do? How do you survive the trauma and the pain? I have found one biblical passage deeply helpful. It is not an obvious one. It does not come from the Book of Psalms, that lexicon of the soul, or from Isaiah, the poet laureate of hope. Instead, it comes from the famous, enigmatic passage in Genesis 32 in which Jacob, far from home, wrestles with an unknown, unnamed adversary from night until the break of day.
The context is important: 22 years earlier Jacob had left home, fearing that his brother Esau, whose blessing he had taken, would kill him. Now he is returning, when he hears that Esau in on his way to meet him with a force of 400 men. Jacob, says the Bible, was “very afraid and distressed”, an unusually emphatic phrase in a book that often tells us little about people’s emotions. Jacob becomes a whirl of activity. He dispatches emissaries with gifts of flocks and herds, hoping to propitiate his brother. He prays to God for protection. He divides his camp into two, so that if one is destroyed the other may survive. Jacob’s hyperactivity is not only pragmatic, covering all the options. It is also a measure of the stress he is under.
He knows he is facing the defining crisis of his life. It is then that the famous scene enacts itself: “Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.” Who was the man? The text does not say. The prophet Hosea said that Jacob wrestled with an angel. Jacob himself believed he was wrestling with God. He called the place Peniel, “the face of God”, saying: “It is because I saw God face to face, and my life was spared.”
Jacob’s struggle tells us three things. First, the wrestling match takes place after Jacob has made all his preparations. The real crisis, the inner crisis, catches us unaware and unprepared. However much we plan in advance, factor in all the contingencies, rehearse every scenario, there are events that take us by surprise.
That is the human condition. We live with constitutive uncertainty. Those who fear risk fear life itself. “One thing,” goes the old Jewish saying, “makes God laugh: seeing our plans for the future.” Freedom means the courage to live with the unknowable-in-advance. That is why freedom is ultimately impossible without faith.
The second is that the real battle that decides our future lies within the self, the soul. If Jacob can successfully wrestle with God, then he can face his brother Esau without fear. If we can win the struggle “in here”, we can also win it “out there”. That is what Roosevelt meant when he said in 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”.
It is the third point, though, that has made all the difference to me. Jacob says to the stranger/angel/God, “I will not let You go until You bless me.” Somehow, within every crisis lies the glorious possibility of rebirth.
I have found, and so surely have many others, that the events that at the time were the most painful, were also those that in retrospect most caused us to grow. They helped us to make difficult but necessary decisions. They forced us to ask: “Who am I and what really matters to me?”
They moved us from the surface to the depths, where we discovered strengths we did not know we had, and a clarity of purpose we had hitherto lacked. I have learnt to say to every crisis: “I will not let you go until you bless me.” The struggle is not easy. Though Jacob was undefeated, after it he “limped”. Battles leave scars. Yet God is with us even when He seems to be against us. For if we refuse to let go of Him, He refuses to let go of us, giving us the strength to survive and emerge stronger, wiser, blessed.