Shabbat Vayishlach
The Hebrew poet, Zelda once wrote: “Everyone has a name given to him by God and given to him by his parents.”
We each have different names, different identities, some thrust upon us others discovered.
Our live’s work? To figure out what our true name is; in the poet’s words, the name given to us by God.
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This week, we find Jacob about to encounter his brother Esau after many years.
As he lies down to sleep an angel appears to him and wrestles with Jacob all night long.
When the sun is about to rise, and Jacob is not completely defeated, he is given a new name. The angel, and later God renames Jacob, Israel: “for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed” (32:29).
According to the Sefat Emet, this story isn’t to be taken literally – Jacob does not literally wrestle with some other being.
Rather, it is a story about Jacob’s inner struggle as he wrestles with his conscience, torn between his human tendency to avoid unpleasant encounters and the divine impulse in him that urges him to do the difficult but right thing.
We can imagine Jacob saying to himself, “Until now, I have responded to difficult situations by lying and running. I deceived my father. I ran away from Esau. I left Laban’s house stealthily instead of confronting him. I…no…longer…want…to be…a person…who lies and runs.
Through his struggle, Jacob manages to shed his identity as the trickster becoming Israel, the one who engages with God and people instead of avoiding or manipulating them.
At the end of the struggle, he is physically wounded and emotionally depleted. Nevertheless the Torah describes him (in 33:18) as shalem, “whole,” at peace with himself.
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Like Jacob, each of us wrestles, at different times in our life to find peace and wholeness, to live lives of integrity.
We can all think of a moment when it seemed like we were doing everything right, succeeding in all the ways others expected us to — but…felt…like something was missing...
Only after we put aside the expectations others had of us, could we hear the name given to us by God, our higher calling, our deeper purpose. Jacob’s was to become Israel, to move beyond his small sense of self to become the father a nation.
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The prayer we’re about to do, the Aleinu, speaks of the power of listening for God’s name. After we describe the world as it could be we proclaim: b’yom hahu yiyheh Hashem echad, ushmo echad. On that day, God and God’s name; the world and our hopes for it; who we are and who we aspire to be…will be one.
So may it be.