by Rabbi Russ Resnik

A little old Jewish lady decides to make the long journey to speak with a guru in India. She flies into New Delhi and takes a train to a small town in the mountains, where she catches a rickety old bus for another leg of the journey. At the end of the bus line, she hires a porter to schlep her bags as she walks the last few miles. Finally, she arrives at the ashram and demands to speak with the guru right away. His attendants refuse her request at first, but she is so insistent that they let her in on the condition that she agrees to speak only three words. "Fine," says the old lady. When she comes into the guru, she looks up at him and says, "Sheldon, come home!"

People of all sorts long to escape the commonplace and be transformed into someone more holy. What they often discover, however, is that such a change can only come from an encounter with the God of Israel. Along with the covenants and ordinances so often emphasized in Jewish tradition, the Torah speaks of such encounters. Indeed, we might say that without the transformation that Torah describes, we cannot fulfill the precepts that Torah teaches us.

Thus, our last parashah opened with Jacob departing from the land of promise. As night falls, the text says literally, "he encountered the place" (vayifga bamakom; Gen. 28:11). Jacob spends the night in that place and has a vision of a ladder joining heaven and earth. He recognizes that in reality he has encountered God, who sometimes appears in rabbinic literature as HaMakom, or the Place. This encounter with HaMakom prepares Jacob for the journey that lies ahead of him.

At the end of the parashah, as Jacob is about to return to the land, we see the same verb: "And angels of God encountered him" (Gen. 32:2). Now he will be prepared to return to the land from which he departed decades before. "Encounter" in these contexts implies something out of the ordinary, the heavenly realm breaking into the earthly. Jacob is not equipped for his departure or his return without this heavenly breakthrough.

We see the same verb in the story of King Saul. Samuel anoints him as king and sends him back to his father's house to await the time of his public revelation. Samuel tells Saul that he wil

"encounter a band of prophets . .  . Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another man" (1 Sam. 10:5–6).

"Turned into another man . . ." this is the appeal of Jacob's story. We believe there is a transformed world waiting, the restored Creation of which Torah speaks. But like Jacob—and Sheldon—we desire transformation ourselves.  In the end, we learn that only a divine encounter will make us different people.

More than the other patriarchs, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob is like us.  Abraham, despite the flaws that Genesis honestly reports, appears on the scene as a visionary from the very first, a pioneer of faith in the one true God. Isaac is more passive, but he never veers from the faith of his father Abraham. Jacob, in contrast, is the patriarch with whom we can most identify, the Everyman of Genesis. Like us, he is a person in process, whose potential for greatness is evident, but nearly always mixed with qualities that are more ordinary.

Thus, for example, Jacob has the greatness to recognize and desire the spiritual legacy of his father Isaac, unlike his brother Esau who despises his birthright (Gen. 25:34). But he gains the birthright ignobly, taking advantage of Esau's shortsightedness to buy it for a bowl of lentil stew. It will take twenty-two years serving the wily Laban to transform Jacob into the man who can return to the Promised Land and take up the legacy of his forefathers. We may sympathize with his trials at the hand of Laban, but we realize that they are necessary—just like the trials that mold us.

In *Parashat Vayishlach*, however, we learn that such trials do not give the final shape to Jacob, but the divine encounters do. This parashah is a tale of homecoming. Jacob discovers that you *can* come home again, but you cannot come home unchanged. The Jacob who returns is different from the Jacob who departed:

Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob's hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. And He said, "Let Me go, for the day breaks." But he said, "I will not let You go unless You bless me!" So He said to him, "What is your name?" He said, "Jacob." And He said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed." (Gen. 32:24–28)

Jacob undergoes two changes on his way home. His hip joint is dislocated, and his name is changed.

Concerning Jacob's injury, we read, "The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip" (32:31). Literally, the Hebrew can read, the sun rose for him," as Sforno interprets:

After he passed Penuel limping, the sun rose and its rays healed him, as it will come to pass in the future, as it says, *But to you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings*. (Mal. 3:20)

Sforno sees Jacob's wound as temporary, but others see Jacob as permanently impaired. He bears in his flesh the reminder of the divine encounter for the rest of his life. How long Jacob's wound lasts, however, is not nearly as important as the simple fact that God touched him and left a mark on Jacob's soul that he would never forget.

Likewise, Jacob's renaming evokes a variety of translations and interpretations, such as that of Everett Fox:

Then he said:

Not as Yaakov/Heel-Sneak shall your name be henceforth uttered,
but rather as Yisrael/God-Fighter,
for you have fought with God and men
and have prevailed. (Gen. 32:29)

Ramban sees Jacob's new name as the opposite of his old one:

Thus the name Ya'akov, an expression of guile or of deviousness, was changed to Israel [from the word sar (prince)] and they called him Yeshurun from the expression wholehearted 'v'yashar' (and upright).

 

Jacob's new name, like his injury, proclaims the transforming encounter with the divine. Jacob experiences two encounters—one as a young man setting out on his journey with nothing, and one as a mature man surrounded by possessions and cares, dependents and responsibilities. Apparently, the transforming encounter is not only for the young and adventurous, but also for the middle-aged (or beyond) and established. Whether we are caught up in youthful self-absorption or in the complacency of mature age, only a touch from God will really change us.

 

The earliest stories of Genesis hint at the hope of new birth that is central to the work of Messiah and the writings of the New Covenant millennia later.

Through his encounter with God, Jacob becomes Israel, representing us all.  The Everyman of Genesis becomes the one-man embodiment of the chosen people of God. His story reminds us that we all must be changed by a divine encounter to find our place in the fulfilled Creation, as Messiah taught,"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see thekingdom of God" (John 3:3).

For your journey: Only an encounter with God can bring the transformation that prepares me for a life of faithful obedience. I will remain alert to the divine encounters that await me, and embrace them as essential stages in the journey.

 

Shabbat Shalom!
Russ Resnik, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Taken from Creation to Completion: A Guide to Life's Journey from the Five books of Moses, by Russ Resnik, published by Lederer Books/Messianic Jewish Publishers. Available at www.umjc.org or the UMJC office 1.800.692.8652.