Thought of the Week - Vayishlach

B''H
Thought Of The Week



In the last Portion we learnt that G-d came to Lavan in a dream, telling him not to talk nicely, and not to talk bad to Yaakov.
Lavan the swindler however thought up of a different plan, he himself will not deal with Yaakov but rather Esav would. So he sent a letter to Esav, telling him, “You remember your brother the swindler, that bought your birthright with the red stew, and that stole the blessing from your father? He did the same thing to me, the swindler that he is. He came to me totally empty handed, all naked from possessions, I was kind enough to let him in, give him a job, give him a roof over his head. And how did he repay me in return, he took my two daughters, with two maidservants, had children with them, gave me grandchildren whom I loved. Swindled me into giving him possessions, and ran away as a very wealthy man with my grand-children as his prisoners of war, without allowing me to say goodbye to them. He also stole my household idols. He is now head towards you.”
Esav then rounded up 400 men from the best of his armies, and went out to meet Yaakov for war. Some of Esav’s acquaintances notified Rebecca of what was about to happen. Rebecca was worried so she sent 70 of her strongest servants who were extremely talented in war, and told Yaakov, “Esav is on his way to you with 400 men, please do as I advice, be honorable to him. Send him presents. Tell him everything that happened, and do not omit anything. Try to calm him down with presents.”

This was a very smart advice, for it is a good way how to deal with our enemy’s. We must learn from this. Even when our enemy’s are coming out with war to us, we must prepare, not giving into them, but rather trying to buy them with love, still remembering they are still our brothers. We should hope that blood is thicker than water. We must pray to G-d that this will work. We can try to follow this tactic but it could only work with prayer and love.

4,000,000 angles were then sent from above to fight Esav and his men. However Esav’s guardian angle (acc to some opinions, the arch angle Michael) overpowered all the 4,000,000 for he is the strongest angle of them all. He then saw Yaakov strolling at night by himself. He asked him in a sly way, “doesn’t it say in the Torah that a Saint may not walk alone at night?” Yaakov then told him, “There is two reasons to why I am walking here at night by myself. One is because, a Saints possessions are holy and precious, and may not be left behind. Second reason, is that this is a very special oilcan. (We saw this in the last Torah portion, that when Yaakov slept on the mountain all the rocks became one. In the morning it says that Yaakov anointed the rock with oil. One may ask ‘where did he get this oil?’ The answer is that there was a miracle on high, that G-d put a small canister of oil next to the rock and Yaakov anointed the rock and emptied the canister. It re-filled itself. Yaakov saw in divine providence that it would be crucial to the future so he kept it. For more info email me.) Therefore because of the value of the canister he didn’t think twice and ran to get it without waiting to stop until someone would accompany him.

The arch angle then asked him a second question. “You said that you will tithe from all your belongings to heaven. You have 11 children and one on the way. You must tithe from them as well.” Yaakov agreed that the arch angle is right, and said that he had 4 children that are 1st born, and therefore are holy to G-d as it is. Leaving him with 8. Hence according to his calculation Levi was the tenth, and that is the reason to why Levi’s children would be Priests in the future. The arch angle kept on asking him all kinds of Halachic questions. Yaakov was getting annoyed, thinking that this was a regular sorcerer trying to get on his nerves. He yelled at him to leave him alone, so the angle threw a ball of fire onto him. Yaakov then told him “you play with me with fire, I am the source of fire” (reference to a verse.) He then started fighting the assumed sorcerer until before dawn.

When the angle saw that he could not win over Yaakov, he then asked him to let him go, for if he did not go, he would cease to exist. This was because he has to pray to G-d on time. Yaakov then understood that this was no ordinary sorcerer, but rather an angel. He then commanded the angel to bless him and heal him from the wound that he suffered, for the angel had struck him in his inner thigh. The angle then blessed him by changing his name to Israel, saying, “You have fought G-d and still won.” A fight that is for the sake of Heaven is always a fight with good value (Ethics of the fathers.)

One may ask, how did Yitzchak error to bless Esav rather than Yaakov, if Yaakov had such super-natural powers to win a G-dly angel? Yitzchak was not dumb, to not see what Esav was doing. He knew who Esav was and he knew who Yaakov was. Why did he pick Esav for the blessing?

The reasoning to this, is because Yitzchak saw that Esav had the archangel Michael himself, the strongest angel of all. He then assumed that if Esav was so lucky to have such an angel, it might be that he will change his bad ways. But then Rebecca saw in her divine inclination that this was bound to change, for according to G-ds will, it was Yaakov who had to have the merit of these blessings. Only through the fight with this angel, and getting him to surrender to Yaakov, and becoming the archangel of the Jews, hence our name, the Nation of Israel. Only after this fight will the blessings of Yitzchak come about. Thus Esav couldn’t fight Yaakov and instead he kissed him with all his heart.

This just shows us how important it is not to get into a fight that is not for heavenly manners. For it says in the Ethics of our fathers, that an idle fight will lead no-where. Whereas a Heavenly fight will end up somewhere, such as the famous story of Raban Gamliel and Rabbi Yeshuah. For the Talmud relates, that when Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was young, he asked Rabbi Yeshuah if the evening prayer was mandatory or voluntary. Whereas the Rabbi replied that it was voluntary. Rabbi Yeshuah then seeking a 2nd opinion, he asked Rabbi Gamliel, who answered that it was mandatory. The young Rabbi Shimon asked Rabbi Gamliel as to why Rabbi Yeshuah said it was voluntary.

In the academy that Rabbi Gamliel was the president of, Rabbi Gamliel asked a general question if the evening prayer was mandatory or voluntary, saying that according to his opinion it was mandatory. No one answered against him. Rabbi Gamliel then pointed to Rabbi Yeshuah asking him what is his thought. So Rabbi Yeshuah said that he couldn’t deny what he told Rabbi Shimon. Rabbi Gamliel then continued on his sermon, ignoring Rabbi Yeshuah who was to remain standing the entire time, thus humiliating him. All the students did not like this, and decided to remove Rabbi Gamliel from his position.
Rabbi Elazar Ben Azarieh who at the time was 18 years old was appointed as the next head. He did not know at the time whether to accept the position or not, so he asked to sleep on it. Before sleeping he asked G-d for a sign whether or not he should accept the position. In the morning he awoke to find out that his hair had turned gray and he looked as though he was 70. This he saw as a sign and accepted.

Rabbi Gamliel then searched for Rabbi Yeshuah to ask his forgiveness. When searching as to his whereabouts he found out that Rabbi Yeshuah was a poor blacksmith.

Amazed at the fact that even though Rabbi Yeshuah was a blacksmith he managed to come to yeshiva as a distinguished fellow in clean clothes, Rabbi Gamliel asked his forgiveness, and he was forgiven. Rabbi Yeshuah then asked the academy to accept Rabbi Gamliel back. However since there is a law that one is forbidden to take away a high status from someone, they decided with the acceptance of Rabbi Elazar that Rabbi Elazar would teach once a month, and Rabbi Gamliel would teach 3 times a month.

From this story we learn that even such a sage, after humiliating another sage, was diminished from his power, had to beg an 18 year old in order to get back some of his position. This is how important the fight for the sake of heaven is. For it ended up that Rabbi Gamliel change many of his ways and be a better Rav.

We should take this into our daily lessons, and when we come across someone we do not like, instead of trying to change their ways or hating them, we should pray to G-d to help us help them, and only help them with love.

©Yermi Kurkus. Thought of the week.

Derived from Me’am Loez, Talmud, Code of Jewish Law, and the teachings of Rebbe Menachem Mendle Schneerson.