Vayishlach 2020
One of Judaism's greatest strengths is its ability to utilize every emotion. For example, many people try to avoid sadness, but Judaism has a day, Tisha B'av, entirely focused on a sadness so deep that we sit on the ground and cry, feeling as if we have lost a loved one. Purim, in contrast, utilizes joy so extreme that it borders on abandon as we lose ourselves in the holy drunkenness of the day.
But everything, by its very nature, also contains its opposite. For instance, on Tisha B'av there are elements of joy buried within our observance of this day of destruction, for this reason we omit the sad prayer of tachanun on Tisha B'av, precisely on the day which would be most appropriate for reciting it. Pesach, the great celebration of freedom, can not exist outside of the context of slavery, and so the seder reflects both. Chanukah is the day that we engage in light, so it must also, in some way be about darkness.
Times of darkness are an inevitable part of human life, but Judaism teaches that within darkness there is also light, and within light there is also darkness. We say this in davening, “Yotzer ohr u’vorey choshech”- “Who forms light and creates darkness”. Darkness is not just an absence of light, but both light and darkness, as two sides of the same coin, were creations made by God.
What does it mean to live a life woven of light and darkness? Yaakov, in this week’s parsha, is the example of this phenomenon and so his profound mark is hidden within Chanukah. In this week’s parsha the Torah tells us: “And he (Yaakov) got up in the night, and took his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children, he crossed the ford of the Jabbok. And he took them and sent them across the stream, and sent across all he had. And Jacob remained alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn...And the sun rose for him...”
Rash”i brings a strange comment from the Talmud: “And Jacob was left alone- He had forgotten some small jars and returned for them (Chullin 91a).” One of the mideval Tosafists says that there is a hint to this midrashic idea in the verse itself since one may read the letter bet in the verse as a kuf, rendering the word “alone” in the phrase, “And Jacob went alone” as “jar” transforming the verse into: “And Jacob went after his (oil) jar.” The word “l’vado” “alone”, becoming the word “l’kado” “for his jar”. The word in Hebrew for the jars that the Talmud says Yaakov went back for is the same word as that used for the jar of oil which the Chashmonaim found in the Temple and miraculously lasted for eight days, giving birth to the holiday of Chanukkah.
Additionally, the Shney Luchot HaBrit, Rabbi Isaiah HaLevi Horovitz who lived in Jerusalem and Tzefat in the early 1600’s, writes that at the end of this story of Jacob wrestling with the angel the verse states, “vayizrach lo hashemeh”, “And the sun rose for him”. The word “lo” “for him” is 36 in numerical value, hinting at the 36 Chanukah candles which we light to illuminate the darkness.
Yaakov is the most complex of our ancestors. It is he who really establishes the Jewish nation, after all we are Bene Yisrael, the children of Yaakov who is renamed Israel in this fateful darkness in our parsha, it is Yaakov whose children become the Nation of Israel, and yet, when Pharaoh asks him at the end of his life how old he is, he answers, “The years of my sojourn [on earth] are one hundred and thirty; few and hard have been the years of my life, and they did not even reach the life spans of my fathers during their sojourns.”
Yaakov’s nature is to be the, “simple man who dwells in the tent” but he ends up having to contend with Esav, Lavan, and the difficulties of his children wanting to kill each other. His life indeed, more than any other of our ancestors, is the life of Chanukah. We often view Chanukah as all miracles and pure light at a time of difficulty and darkness, but in reality it is a web of light and dark. Chanukah is war, assimilation and destruction, interwoven with miracles, light, and victory. In this sense the great Yaakov and Chanukah similarly evoke the wabi-sabi of real life, a complex chiaroscuro of light and darkness.