From: JoshHoff@aol.com
Sent: Friday, November 23, 2007 4:46 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Cc: rickyl@iafrica.com
Subject: Netvort:parshas Vayishlach, 5768
You've Got to Cross it by Yourself
By Rabbi Joshua ( combatantly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
Yaakov,after making his preparations for his encounter with Eisav after twenty
years of absence ,brings his family and possessions across the Yabok
river, and then goes back to his original encampment.The rabbis, as cited by
Rashi, tell us that he went back to retrieve some small jugs that he
had left behind. That night, Yaakov encounters a mysterious, unnamed man
and struggles with him until dawn. Rashi,again citing the midrash,tells us that
this man was the ministering angel of Eisav. Rabbi Yaakov Lifshitz, in his
Ikvei Binyamin,ask why Yaakov chose to face the angel alone. After all, Rashi,
in the beginning of the parsha says that the 'malachim' who Yaakov sen to meet
Eisav were actual angels, presumably as opposed to human messengers..Since
Yaakov had angels at his disposal,why didn't he use them to combat the angel of
Eisav who attacked him at night?
Rabbi Lifshitz answers that Yaakov was teaching future generations that
when encountering a crisis in life, a person cannot rely on anyone else
to face the crisis for him. Rather,he must have the courage to meet the
challenge on his own.If a person does not do this ,but, rather, succumbs to his
fears, no angel will be able to help him,either.This is the test of life that
everyone must face, and only through marshaling his own inner strength and
trusting in God Who gave him that strength will he be able to face the forces
of Eisav that confront him. I would like to expand on this idea proffered by
Rabbi Lifshitz, based on some other approaches that have ben given to
Yaakov's fight with the angel.
The rabbis tell us that the angel of Eisav was another guise or the evil
inclination.Why,then,was it only Yaakov who was confronted by him in the middle
of the night, in the form of an angel,and not the previous two
patriarchs,Avraham and Yitzchak? Rabbi Gedaliah Schorr,in his Ohr
Gedaliahu,explains that while Avraham represented,in kabbalah,the trait of
chesed,or kindness,and Yitzchak represented the trait of gevuarh,or
perseverance,Yaakov represented the trait of emes,or truth,referred to in
kabbalah as tiferes, which is an amalgam of chesed and gevurah.What typifies
this trait,says Rabbi Schorr,is the quality of 'levado,'of being alone with
God, as Yaakov was left alone that night. Truth must be determined by objective
reality,not by what others people persuade a person to think. Yaakov's
connection with God enabled him to ignore outside influences and pursue
the truth in promoting God's will in this world. Rav Elchanan Wasserman
offered a different but relatedanswer.He said that the three patriarchs represented
the three pillars on which,as the mishneh in Avos( 1:2) teaches us,the world
stands. Avraham represented gemilus chasadim,or acts of kindneess, Yitzchak
represented avodah,or service of God,and Yaakov represented Torah.The angel who
attacked Yaakov was particularly fearful of the ability of Torah,which is the
lifeblood of the Jewish people,to enable them to endure over the
generations,and this is why he chose to attack Yaakov,rather than the first two
patriarchs.
Perhaps we can combine these two approaches,of Rabbi Scorr and Rabbi
Wasserman,,and explain that Torah is,in fact,truth,it being,as Rav Chaim of
Volozhin says in his Nefesh HaChaim, man's means,in this world,of learning God's
truth. Following this approach,we can understand why Yaakov faced the angel by
himself, and did not utilize the angels that he had earlier used to frighten
Eisav himself from attacking his entourage. The story is told of the Vilna
Gaon,that an angel once offered to teach him a difficult section of Torah, so
that he could understand it easily.The Gaon refused the offer, insisting that
Torah,to be meaningful for a person,must be pursued through using his own
powers of understanding,as given to him by God. Yaakov, too, in defending
Torah against the angel of Eisav, or,in broader terms,the evil inclination,
insisted on doing so on his own, using on his own God- given
abilities,and relying on God alone to help him defend the truth that He
revealed.
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