Jenna Greenbloom
My parsha, Vayishlach, concerns the brothers Jacob and Esau. Jacob had stolen his brother Esau's blessing when they were young men and then Jacob ran away to escape his brother's anger. Twenty years later as my parsha recounts , Jacob decided to go home. When they were about to meet, Jacob heard that Esau was coming with four hundred men. Jacob got scared and he decided to split up his family and his progeny into 2 camps. Then he was left by himself. That night he fought with an angel. After the fight, the angel gave Jacob a new name, Israel. By the time the dawn broke, they had fought to a draw.
There were many commentaries on this parsha. They all answer in different ways the question of what and who Jacob was fighting. The first commentary was by the ancient rabbis. They said that Jacob was fighting an angel of Esau and he was telling the future. In this interpretation, Esau was symbolically Rome and Jacob was Israel. This story demonstrated that Rome and Israel were battling and how Israel would suffer and then emerge victorious.
The second commentator, Rabbi Abraham Chill, a modern interpretor, agrees that Jacob was wrestling Esau's angel. Rabbi Chill thought that the fight was between opposing views of how human should live. Jacob represents kindness and compassion and Esau represents self-centeredness and destruction. Esau could not change what Jacob thought. He could only hurt him physically.
Other commentators believe that the fight was in Jacob's mind. He could not meet Esau without wrestling with the guilt he still had for stealing Esau's blessing. After 20 years he felt the need to admit that he had done something wrong. When he finally admitted that, he became a new person symbolized by his new name Israel, and he was ready to meet Esau and hopefully reconcile.
As I become Bat Mitzvah and head into Jewish adulthood, I think about Rabbi Chill's interpretation of my parsha. Jacob represented kindness and compassion as opposed to Esau. I hope to be able to live my life in this way as well, being kind and compassionate to other people. My experience at Kids 4 Peace helped me realize how important it is to be friendly with people of other faiths and not just my own. I hope to continue to live my life this way as a Jewish Adult. I am particularly excited that I will have the opportunity to live in Israel where I am moving with my family in July for a year. I will be able to see my friends from Israel and my new Kids 4 Peace friends.
Shabbat Shalom
I would like to go back to the first commentary which sees Esau and Jacob as symbolizing Rome and Israel at war. Unfortunately even today, there are many countries in the Middle East who are battling Israel. We pray that like in this story, Israel will continue to emerge victorious. This summer I participated in a program called Kids 4 Peace. Through this program Muslim, Jewish and Christian children are being taught to accept others in Israel and Canada so that one day there will be peace in Israel, and they will no longer have to suffer like Jacob/Israel in my parsha. At Kids 4 Peace, I learned about the Muslim and Christian religions and my new friends learned about Judiasm. Most importantly by spending time with children my age who were Muslim, Christian and Jewish we learned that we are all very similar and can get along peacefully.