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If someone asked you what the most important thing that ever happened to you was, what would you say?

Maybe it’s a single day or event.  Maybe it’s more subtle than that… a process or a series of events over time.  It could be anything frankly that made you a different person than you were before.  That’s why it’s a nearly impossible question!

That said, most of our commentators agree that the incident at the opening of Vayishlach, this week’s Torah portion, actually was the most important thing that ever happened to Jacob, our third patriarch.  And when most of our commentators agree on anything -- more or less -- that’s pretty significant!

Vayishlach finds Jacob and his family on their way back to his birthplace.  It’s a momentous journey, and not just geographically.  This is the younger, wayward son who left home under intense circumstances, to put it mildly.  The one whose last interaction with his family of origin was shrouded in deceit, and whose own family life began amidst a similar storm of rivalry and veiled truths.  The very first step on this journey of his is also the hardest, as he comes face to face with the daunting task of making peace with his estranged older brother.

Upon hearing that Esau is coming to meet Jacob the next morning backed up by no fewer than four hundred men, naturally Jacob panics.  He divides his own people and cattle into separate camps, prepares a plethora of gifts to sweeten the reunion with his brother and his family ahead of him.

Jacob now finds himself very much alone.  And he wrestles with an  ish, an unnamed being, until dawn.  Some rabbis have called this man an angel and say he was sent by God to encourage Jacob.  If he could prevail in this struggle, surely, he could muster the confidence to face his brother.  And Jacob does prevail.  Even as he wrenched his hip while they struggled, he refused to let this mysterious being go until he blessed him.  The blessing he receives comes in the form of a new name “Yisrael.”  Ki sarita im elohim v’im anashim… va’tuchal -- for you, Jacob, have struggled with beings divine and human… and you made it. 

Jacob emerges from this struggle fundamentally different, with a sense of wholeness and integrity he hadn’t possessed before.  So much so that his reunion with his brother went very differently than he anticipated.  Rather than the battle he feared, the two brothers embraced each other full as adults for the first time.  And they wept.  Jacob – now Israel – through his struggle, had found a way to end the cycle of pain and misunderstanding within his own family.  At least for now.

With everything that happens to Jacob in his long and eventful life, why do our commentators agree that this was his most important moment? 

Because through that wrestling with beings divine and human, he was able to wrestle his way into a better and more honest future.  And in struggling with himself and his shadows, he becomes one who is able to recognize and to say to his brother that seeing him again is like seeing the face of God.  This story isn’t the last word for Jacob… we’re talking about families, after all!  And in families, we love and we struggle.  We sometimes hide our true intentions behind what feels armor fortified by hundreds.  There is no real end to it.  When the ish says to Jacob “let me go, for dawn is breaking,” no truer words could have been spoken.  When we are brave, then like Jacob we will come to know those sparks of the Divine in those who share our lives with us.  And when we are braver still, and we reveal our truest selves to those with whom we share a love that is complicated, rich and irreplaceable, then the dawn breaks, and morning may yet come.

Shabbat Shalom,