The Walking Wounded: Limping into Light

This week's parasha, Vayishlach, features the famous story of Jacob wrestling with a mysterious being in the dark of night. Bible scholar and translator Robert Alter highlights that Jacob's adversary resists identification: 

Appearing to Jacob in the dark of the night, before the morning when Esau will be reconciled with Jacob, he is the embodiment of portentous antagonism in Jacob’s dark night of the soul. He is obviously, in some sense, a doubling of Esau as adversary, but he is also a doubling of all with whom Jacob has had to contend, and he may equally well be an externalization of all that Jacob has to wrestle with within himself.

In other words, the Torah's text allows us to imagine that Jacob's struggle is simultaneously with an external enemy -- the "other," Esau, the twin with whom Jacob has wrestled since their days in the womb -- and also represents a conflict within, a manifestation of his own internal wrestling.

This notion -- of a dramatic wrestling happening on multiple levels at once, in the midst of great darkness -- resonates so deeply for me at this moment. Like so many of you, I have continued to be gripped by news events of the past week: a tense ceasefire, a perverse daily ritual of the exchanging of lists and demands and real live humans, tension down to the wire, and now the horrible violence of rocket barrages and airstrikes and artillery shelling all over again. (All of this has cast me back in the place where I found myself in the earliest weeks of the war... with sleepless nights and waking up to check my phone for middle-of-the-night updates). As new reports and survivor testimonies from October 7th continue to come to light, and as we witness ongoing terror -- both physical and psychological -- I continue to feel angry and outraged by Hamas's cruelty and sheer evil. Reading Israeli media, I am also horrified over and over again by -- and want to fight back against -- the rhetoric and policies of extremists within the Israeli government as well. Closer to home in America, I continue to feel internal struggles and in-fighting playing out within the Jewish community as disparate voices jockey for power. And I'm sure that all of us are navigating scary antisemitism, reeling in the wake of the shooting of three Palestinian college students in Vermont, and worrying over how to best uphold and preserve our own American democracy. What does this mean for our well-being and our sense of self? Wrestling abounds!

Here is how Jacob's wrestling story unfolds in the parasha (or click here to read the text of Genesis 32:25-33 in Hebrew as well):

Jacob was left alone. And a figure wrestled with him until the break of dawn. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for dawn is breaking.” But he answered, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” Said the other, “What is your name?” He replied, “Jacob.” Said he, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.” Jacob asked, “Pray tell me your name.” But he said, “You must not ask my name!” And he took leave of him there. So Jacob named the place Peniel, meaning, “I have seen a divine being face to face, yet my life has been preserved.”

Perhaps a reader of Torah might think that this entire wrestling episode has merely been a dream. However, the next line makes it clear that this is not the case; when Jacob wakes up, he finds that, in fact, his injury remains: "The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip." 

The pshat (plain meaning) of the text is that although Jacob's sparring partner (whether external and/or internal) disappears at daybreak, Jacob's injury does not. His limp is clear as could be, in the light of the day. Jacob's wound is real.

Word-plays abound in the text. Jacob (Yaakov, in Hebrew), whose own name is derived from the word for "heel," now stands at the banks of the Jabbok River (Yabok, meaning "crooked") and walks away both injured and walking crookedly himself. I'm drawn to Jacob's injury this week, because I think many of us are walking around in the world with a "crooked gait," feeling profoundly scarred and wounded, perhaps permanently(?), in light of the events of the past 56 days. Like Jacob, we find ourselves among the walking wounded (even as we continue to witness others whose wounds are even more direct and profound than our own).

In thinking about Jacob and his limp this week, I re-discovered a beautiful Dvar Torah written by my beloved teacher, Rabbi Steve Sager (of blessed memory). For anyone who is interested in delving more deeply into this Torah story and the images it evokes, I do recommend reading his essay -- entitled "Heroes who Limp" -- in its entirety. (Some particular gems include the connection he draws to angels who -- according to our midrashic tradition -- have no leg joints, and his discussion of how some rabbinic commentators seek out evidence that Jacob heals quickly from his wrestling injury. In contrast, Rabbi Sager writes: "I prefer a hero who limps, and I seek out the company of those teachers who allow me my hero.") 

To me, the most precious contribution my teacher makes here is in pairing Jacob's wrestling story with a poem from contemporary Israeli poet Rivka Miriam. (She published this poem in 2007; Steve wrote about it in the context of this parasha in 2018; for me, reading the poem now -- in the context of this current Israeli war -- is a different experience altogether.) Here is Rivka Miriam's beautiful poem, with Steve's translation into English... and for those who are interested, you're also invited to click here to access the poem in Hebrew:

And in the inner room we keep Moses' heaviness of mouth,

Isaac's weak eyes, and Jacob's dragging leg.

And when war stirs us, it is to the inner room we go

to examine them closely.

For each one who goes out to battle wraps himself in just these.

In Steve Sager's words, Rivka Miriam thus "preserves Jacob's limp as an asset, not an infirmity." Through the poem, the battle wounds, frailties, and past traumas of our ancestors are transformed into our protective gear. 

After all, Jacob walks away from his wrestlings transformed in two ways. Yes, he now has a permanent limp, but also, through the very same struggle, he also earns a blessing for himself, one which results in a new name (Yisrael) and a new sense of who he is in the world. Thus, Jacob's limp becomes a treasure. Quoting Rabbi Steve Sager once again: "It is nothing less than a struggle-with-an-angel to wrestle forth the blessing that emerges from the weak place. If we remember that we grow -- skin and bone -- most vigorously around the wounded spot, then the limp itself can be its own blessed reminder and encouragement, sunrise after sunrise."

Like Jacob, we -- members of the Jewish tribe -- have been injured profoundly, and in many different ways, through our recent wrestlings. Like our ancestor, may we come to find that these injuries have the potential to become a source of strength and blessing as well. Even limping, may we propel ourselves and the world forward, from darkness into ever-increasing light.

Shabbat shalom, 

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum

P.S. - There are many important divrei torah to be written this week. One that I didn't choose to address above -- but I also can't completely refrain from mentioning -- is that this week's parasha also features the story of the rape of Dina (see Genesis 34). The sexual violence and rapes that transpired on October 7th -- and how these have been downplayed and ignored -- is another important story. Many organizations in NYC (including my alma mater, JTS) are hosting a protest this coming Monday in front of the UN entitled "#MeToo unless you are a Jew." Last Shabbat, my colleague Rabbi Sharon Brous -- from Kavana's Jewish Emergent Network sister community IKAR in Los Angeles -- delivered an incredibly powerful sermon on this topic and also the danger of ignoring, diminishing and marginalizing women's voices in a number of other contexts. It's called "Women Wage Peace" and it's a must-hear -- please do me a favor and find 20 minutes to watch, and then let's talk about it. (Also, in case you haven't seen it, I highly recommend the conversation between her and Ezra Klein on his podcast episode entitled "The Sermons I Needed to Hear Right Now" -- and expect that her Torah will resonate deeply with our Kavana community.)

P.P.S. - Don't forget that Hanukkah begins next Thursday evening at sunset. Looking forward to bringing some light into the world together!