Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 15 Kislev, 5784
Parsha Va-Yishlah (Genesis 32:4 – 36:43)
Third Portion: 32:31- 33:5

Good morning – as things come into the light of the full moon and we turn towards the next moon cycle.  Something for me has been coming to light lately and I think today’s portion is codifying it (Genesis 32:31-33):

31And Jacob named the place Peniel, for [he said,] “I saw an angel face to face, and my soul was saved.”

32And the sun rose for him when he passed Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh.

33Therefore, the children of Israel may not eat the displaced tendon, which is on the socket of the hip, until this day, for he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip, in the hip sinew.

I wrote about this prior – the name of the place. Peniel/Penuel. There is some good commentary as to why Jacob changed the name – or why the Torah changed the name.

I think we sometimes (I sometimes) get too focused on accuracy.  Could the Torah be challenging us on this idea of accuracy?   I read this morning in Mark Nepo’s Book of Awakening:

Devotion

                Sincerity is that which
flows out of your
genuine innermost self.
Without this, honesty
is mistaken and insuffi-
cient. It is like trying to
move in a boat without an
oar.

• • • Mochimasa Hikita

It is one thing to see accurately. It is another to allow yourself to feel what you see with sincerity. And still another to allow your actions in the world to be formed by both honest seeing and sincere feeling.

I love this idea of honest seeing AND sincere feeling. Sometimes those conflict. If we feel one way and see a different way – how do we remain devoted to ourselves?  “Sincerity flows from the genuineness of self.  Without sincerity, honesty is mistaken as insufficient.”

We need to see honestly AND feel sincerely.

My takeaway from this section of the Torah – is how hyperfocused I can get on being accurate. On being “right.”  I withhold my feelings (like Jacob wrestling with the angel) until I can find accuracy on what feeling is “right” or “apropos” for the situation.

If I feel insecure (as an example) – instead of allowing myself to feel this – I try to go back and see if maybe I wasn’t accurately accounting the incident that connected me to my feeling of insecurity.  But what I have missed? Validating the feeling within me – rejecting it instead – and telling myself that feeling wasn’t appropriate.  Owning my feelings of insecurity is sincere. It’s devotion. To myself. It’s saying “ hey – I understand your feeling right now – and that is what matters.”  Instead of “hey – why are you feeling insecure?  You probably misunderstood what happened – otherwise you wouldn’t be feeling insecure. Let’s go back and figure out what really happened – because that will fix the issue of insecurity.”

I experience this with my kids.  At times, they want to go back to the past to determine what accurately happened to determine if their own feelings are valid or not. It’s a great strategy and coping mechanism.  I see this with friends – I do this myself.  We rehash the past to get to a place to figure out whether our feelings are valid. And this is a good strategy.  Our brains can do a lot to convince us of things that may or may not be accurate.

Until we run into someone who has a different reality or perspective on what happened.  Then we are left in a tough situation.  “What REALLY happened?”  Which is ignoring the very real feeling in the current moment to go “back in time” and figure out what really happened.

This is a takeaway for me from the name change – that has no real explanation in the Torah. It seems “inaccurate.”

Let’s keep going on the portion:

1Jacob lifted his eyes and saw, and behold, Esau was coming, and with him were four hundred men; so he divided the children with Leah and with Rachel and with the two maidservants.

2And he placed the maidservants and their children first and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and her Joseph last.

3And he went ahead of them and prostrated himself to the ground seven times, until he came close to his brother.

4And Esau ran toward him and embraced him, and he fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.

5And he lifted his eyes and saw the women and the children, and he said, “Who are these to you?” And he said, “The children with whom God has favored your servant.”

Interesting.  Jacob was super worried about Esau and what he might do to him and his family. The Torah commentaries try to paint Jacob as being accurate.  But what if we can validate Jacob’s sincere fear of facing Esau – and the courage he had to face Esau AND AT THE SAME TIME acknowledge MAYBE Esau had already let go and had forgiven Jacob, because (as Isaac blessed him) Esau had SINCERELY grieved? Both of those realities could be true at the same time.

We can argue and debate on which is accurate. Was Jacob WRONG to be afraid of Esau because Esau had already forgiven him?  Or was Jacob RIGHT because Esau really hadn’t.

That’s not the point (in my opinion).  I think the point is – right/wrong are judgments.  Curiosity dictates looking at the Torah (and our lives) in a way that asks questions and allows for multiple realities.

And with this, I think we have a new lesson to add:

• The Path of Ascension begins with curiosity and not judgement
• If someone’s curiosity causes doubt and defensiveness, be curious about our own doubt and defensiveness and NOT their motives for curiosity.
• The tree of life is within us. Choose life within with curiosity and not judgment
• Learn to balance the comfort of stumbling, with the challenge of pushing ourselves towards spiritual growth.
• Let go of a stable life. Freedom is accepting “what is” as a blessing. We can’t control what happens. We can only navigate it with bitterness or flow.
• Freedom requires balance – emotions vs intellect, humility vs confidence, thinking as an individual while staying meaningfully connected to others.
• Freedom comes from expansion and not contraction – but contraction is important to the process of expansion
• To live free, we must circumcise the foreskin of past trauma and feel the pain of healing so that our higher selves can appear to us, and we can co-create miraculous NEW life for us and others.
• To be free, we must understand what love requires vs the world around us. 10%.  Just start there. Freedom is seeing the 10% and moving to 11%. Not being trapped by the daunting 90% we feel guilt and shame about.  The 90% is slavery. The 10% is freedom.
• Receive the Universe. Don’t Resist it. This is the path to freedom and liberation.
• We must be vulnerable and ask for the Universe to provide. And. We don’t need to ask because the Universe knows. This is freedom.
• We must accept and receive our role in co-creating moments with Hashem.
• As we experience wells of living water in our life – the path to slavery is arguing and harassment. Make space. For ourselves and others. This is spiritual liberation and freedom.  Allowing and making space.  Spreading out.   Not contraction.
• When we take in stories and data – we need to be careful not to bring our own bias and trauma into how the data gets stored into our hearts and minds. Those who are “not us” are part of the human experience and have their own experiences. Be curious about what we are INFERRING versus what we believe the other person is INSINUATING. This is the path to freedom – especially in communication!
• The path to freedom involves free choice as to what we desire and will focus on. What are we working towards? Be mindful of our wages. This is the path to freedom and will impact how we communicate – both as a sender of communication and receiver of communication. We will infer and insinuate based on our wages.
• The path to freedom involves grief. Allowing ourselves to feel sadness – maybe other feelings we’ve judged as negative? Avoiding and repressing our feelings leads to war and conflict. Being aware of our feelings leads to freedom and joy. This is the path to spiritual liberation. We can receive Isaac’s blessing and grieve to take the yoke off our back.

Today we add:

The path to freedom is not rejecting sincerity for accuracy. Accuracy can be a safe harbor – but it can also be a prison. Remain curious and work towards sincere feeling and honest seeing. THIS is the harmony of Kislev (in my opinion).

What is our takeaway?

Where are we focused more on accuracy than sincerity? Within our own experiences? The experiences of others?

What is accurate?  In the example of Jacob and Esau, is it possible Jacob was “right” to be afraid even though Esau had forgiven him?   In our own lives, where are we trying to figure out whether we are “right” or “wrong” when instead we could be validating how we feel?

Those are my thoughts.  What are yours?

Here are my thoughts from the past two years:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 12 Kislev, 5783

As I reflect on where I was at a year ago reading this passage, I am amazed at how much has changed in my life this past Jewish year.

The idea of angels and wrestling with them, and the realities that are unseen were really new concepts when I read this.

Now, I’ve got a much better and deeper understanding of the ideas around angels. Which I thought weren’t very Jewish concepts at the time.

Last night I was reading a book about quantum physics. It was more for people without a scientific background.

It asked us to consider the concept of space. There is something between each of us. Sitting in a room, what exists in the space between my eyes and the TV? If there was nothing there, I couldn’t see. I have to see each microbe to have my eyes gaze on the object of its focus. That was a fascinating concept. The idea of how interconnected we really are – when what we want to be is separate. The quote from the book said this; “Once something is joined it is always connected, whether it remains physically linked or not.”

I apply this to the relationship between Jacob and Esau. They were joined in the womb. They are always connected whether they are physically linked or not. Navigating that is crucial.

And we, the sons of Jacob, will always be connected to the sons of Esau. As the sons of Isaac, we will always be connected to the sons of Ishmael.

Yet we work to separate these connections in hopes of avoiding them. We don’t want to engage with those different than us. We want to stay separate. And if we do come together, we desire the “others” (who truly aren’t “other”) to conform with us; we have no desire to change to conform to what we perceive as the “others.”

In truth, there is no other. Just us. The idea of separation is merely a fantasy. There exists particles between us that connect us; almost like our souls are all connected via a web of energy.

I like this idea as it reminds me of both my uniqueness AND my connectedness.

What about you? What are your thoughts?

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for Kislev 12, 5782

We left off yesterday with Jacob wrestling with the angel (maybe Esau’s guardian angel?) and an exchange of names happens where the angel asks Jacob his name and then renamed Jacob Israel, but the angel never shares their name with Jacob.

The angel gives Jacob what he desires – he blesses Jacob; and this means Jacob trusts his return to Esau will be ok.

Jacob recognizes this as an encounter with Hashem; and he names the place ”Peniel” which means “God’s face.” Jacob recognizes this is the place his soul was saved.

It is interesting here, especially given some of our conversations about ”salvation” and souls. Jacob here has his soul saved, and I reflect on what it took to do that. He wrestled with an angel; he asked for blessing. He persisted. There isn’t really a sacrifice Jacob needs to make – unless you count his hip being touched and hurt; but Jacob makes a full recovery, so was it really a sacrifice? Some interesting questions to consider.

In addition, only Jacob called the place Paniel. Immediately in the next verse the Torah records the place as Penuel. This is really interesting!

Rabbi Bachya b. Asher writes; “of the different levels of angels, the tenth level is called an ‘Ish’ ”man.” (Maimonides). This is the term with which the Torah refers to the angel that fought with Jacob. In Hebrew, the difference between Peniel and Penuel is that the fort net contains the letter “yod” where the latter has a “vav.” When Jacob was fighting the angel, and his mind was fixed in the spiritual realms, he called the place Peniel with a yod, hinting to his involvement with the angel of the tenth level (because yod represents the number 10 in Hebrew).

However, when Jacob came back “down to earth” he changed the yod for a vav (which is the Hebrew representation of the number 6), representing the physical world which is manifested in the six directions; north, south, east, west, up and down. This is really interesting! It gives new depth (at least for me) to this passage!

What are your thoughts?

Now, we find Jacob limping on his thigh. So the touching of his hip did hurt Jacob. Rabbi Baruch Epstein has an interesting take on this passage;

“Included in the original privileges of the first born were the duties of sacrificial service. Esau was extremely resentful at having lost this to Jacob in a moment of weakness by selling his birthright.

That is why the angel attacked Jacob on the way to meet his brother; to injure Jacob sufficiently to disqualify him from priestly service. The sight of a now limping Jacob, who clearly could not serve as a priest, would help neutralize Esau’s anger at their pending reunion.”

That is really interesting to me. If this was Esau’s guardian angel, he didn’t attack Jacob to hurt him; he did it to soothe Esau so that Esau would accept Jacob back! That is really cool! At least in my opinion.

The Torah makes an aside here – we get one of the first food laws; children of Israel may not eat the sciatic nerve of an animal because the angel touched the joint of Jacob’s hip.

Ok. Back to the story. Jacob sees Esau coming with 400 men. Still a little nervous about the meeting he separates the camp into thirds;

1. First; Jacob put the maids and their children up front.
2. Next; Jacob puts Leah and her children behind the first group (because they were more cherished)
3. Finally he puts Rachel and Joseph last (because they were most cherished).

Not being a coward, he went in front of all of them. He prostrated himself seven times on the ground before he approached Esau.

Esau saw this and ran towards Jacob and embraced him. He fell on Jacob’s neck and kissed him and they wept.

There is some controversy about this passage.

Rashi writes “In the Torah scroll, there are dots over the word “va-yishakehu” which means “and he kissed him.” There is a difference of opinion about this matter in the Midrash. Some interpret the dots to mean that Esau did not kiss him wholeheartedly. Rabbi Simeon son of Yochai said ‘The fact that Esau hates Jacob is obvious and incontrovertible, like a legal ruling. However, at that moment Esau’s feelings of compassion were aroused, and he kissed him wholeheartedly.”

Interesting. I think this is what I appreciate most about Judaism. Instead of trying to determine “the truth” we listen to various opinions about the truth to determine for ourselves what we think, always recognizing we may be wrong because there are other ideas out there.

The portion today closes with Esau looking around and wondering how the people were related to Jacob; because Jacob left with really nothing. Jacob immediately gives Hashem credit; “They are the children whom God has graciously given your servant.”

My own personal takeaway from this is about the importance of attributing our blessings to Hashem. Jacob easily could have said “I was smart and a good business person so I was blessed.” Nope. He gave full credit to Hashem.

How often do I (we) give full credit to Hashem for his blessings? That’s one question i am taking away from this passage.

What about you? What are your take aways? What are you learning?

Leave me a response to let me know you are reading this!