People are often bothered by the unseemly deeds of our ancestors, especially those of Yaakov, the trickster. What kind of role-model is he for us and for our children?
Actually, a very good role model. Not because of who he is, but because of who he works to become, because of how he changes and grows over time.
Yaakov transforms himself from a Yaakov to a Yisrael. He first receives this name change as a blessing from the angel with whom he fights. As Rashi points out, the name change is fitting because it is the first blessing Yaakov earns through an open, direct confrontation (related to the word Yisrael) rather than through deception and crookedness (related to the word Yaakov). He has fought the angel face to face as opposed to hiding behind the skin of his brother, fooling his father into giving him his brother’s blessing.
A new face-to-face kind of openness is at the heart of Yaakov’s, or rather, Yisrael’s, new way of being, as the Torah makes clear through the repeated use of the word panim, “face,” in this story. Yaakov calls the place Peniel because of this face to face – panim el panim – encounter with the angel. And his encounter with Esav is also described in these open terms. What he hopes for ahead of time is to see Esav’s face, and to win his forgiveness and favor, all three of which are described using the term panim (32:21). And, when he does actually meet Esav, Yaakov describes the encounter as fulfilling exactly this panim goal – “To see your face is like seeing the face of God” (33:10).
Yaakov has been in many situations in which faces could not be openly seen. He was born holding on to his brother’s heel, not seeing his face. Later, when it came to blessings, his father, in his blindness, could not see his sons’ faces, relying instead, mistakenly, on the feel of their arms as he blessed the wrong son. And Yaakov himself could not see the face of his bride when, in the darkness of night, he was given Leah instead of Rachel. Yaakov wants out of this cycle of darkness and trickery. It is time for night to end and the honesty of daylight to shine forth.
And so it does. When Yaakov runs away from Esav in the beginning of last week’s parsha, the Torah tells us the sun was setting (28:11), but here, when Yaakov returns, ready for an open-faced encounter with his brother, the verse instead reads: Vayizrah lo hashemesh, “And the sun rose for him (32:32)” A new day has dawned for Yaakov/Yisrael, one which is to be bright with honesty rather than dark with hiding and trickery.
Yaakov is not perfect. He is, like us, a struggler, a striver. And in that sense, he is a perfect role model, a perfect father for our people, as he models not a particular personality trait or great deed but a process, the process and the promise of personal growth and transformation.
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Rachel,
ReplyDeleteYou have given a fresh reading to the change of name from Yaakov to Israel, buttressed by such textual evidence as the use of forms of the word panim (=face). You interpret the change of name of Yaakov to Israel as symbolizing a refocus of character from sneaky to direct, but since the name Yaakov continues to be used, it suggests that some aspects of the Yaakov characteristics remain. That the characteristics of Yaakov are not completely gone is indicated by his feigned high respect for Esav (seeing you is like seeing the divine) and instructing his servants to leave ample space between the droves he was sending as a gift to Esav—the space according to Rashi was to make the gift look larger than it actually was.
To a “gules yid” (= a prewar European Diaspora Jew) like me, Yaakov represents a mode of adjustment of Jews living in a hostile environment. Indications of this mode of functioning can be seen in Yaakov’s rebuke of Shimon and Levy in the case of Dinah: We are small in number and vulnerable and cannot afford to antagonize the rulers of the land. Lying low and using cunning allowed the gules yid to survive. Full disclosure: the writer is a pureblood galitzianer.
Moshe Anisfed