At the beginning of the portion, Jacob finds out that Esau is sending four hundred soldiers to meet them. He understandably gets very upset, splits his camps into two to allow at least half to escape an onslaught, and he begins to pray.
10. And Jacob said, O God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord who said to me, Return to your country, and to your family, and I will deal well with you; 11. I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which you have shown to your servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan; and now I have become two bands. 12. Save me, I beseech you, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he will come and strike me, and the mother with the children. 13. But you said, I will surely do you good, and make your seed as the sand of the sea, which can not be counted for multitude.[Genesis 32]Preparing for a Torah reading I’m doing this week at my minyan, I’ve been thinking about this piece, and can’t help but feel something I haven’t before. The cantillation marks don’t do the emotion justice. Jacob is both terrified and angry. Being played the fool by Laban over Rachel and Leah is one thing; being played the fool by God is another entirely. When I read the text, I can’t help but cry. It can be compared to the child who finds a parent has apparently broken a promise. Each time I read this or talk about this, I wonder, why am I crying?
This isn’t the first time God appears to break a promise of course. The first was the Akedah. God promises Abraham that his descendants will be a numerous as the dust on the earth, and that this covenant will be through Isaac. Yet
1. And it came to pass after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, Abraham; and he said, Behold, here I am. 2. And he said, Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell you.[Genesis 22]Abraham does not complain, Isaac only questions what will be used for the sacrifice. As many have noted, Isaac and Abraham never talk after the Akedah. I have often wondered about Isaac’s preference for Esau. Parents, I have found, often try to live vicariously through their children, to do the things they could not do. Isaac sees in Esau the strong, violent guy that would have broken his bonds and saved himself at the Akedah without divine intervention. Somewhere deep in Isaac, there is a part of him that wanted to be man enough to stop his father. Esau represents that in him.
There is another story this week.
1. And Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land. 2. And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her. [Genesis 34]While her brothers commit subterfuge and genocide because of this, of Jacob’s reaction we are told at first:
5. And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter; and his sons were with his cattle in the field; and Jacob held his peace until they came. [Genesis 34]
And later,
30. And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, You have brought trouble on me to make me odious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and I being few in number, they shall gather together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house. 31. And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with a harlot? [Genesis 34]
In neither of these conversations are Dinah’s feelings or trauma ever mentioned. Her value as property and good relations of the other peoples of the land seem to be the only issues.
I wonder about the four generations, the Abraham - Isaac - Jacob - Dinah connection. I’ve wondered a lot about Dinah in the past. As a survivor of partner abuse, I’ve spent a lot of time exploring how does the Torah deal with the issue of victimhood, of being violated? I’ve always looked to the story of Dinah in this week’s portion for guidance, but Iv’e never found it. A Halakhah of the survivor does not exist there. It is not a single story, but a generational story. The true survivor was Isaac, as Elie Wiesel has put it, Isaac was the survivor of the first Shoah. Abraham committed the iniquity, and Isaac bore the burden, unable to recover from it. He looked to his sons though dim eyes, eyes that only saw that tragic event which changed his life. Isaac’s granddaughter saw the same in her rape, yet her attacker, not only apologized but tried to remedy the situation, only to be murdered by her brothers.
Abuse and violation are transmissible through generations. The ex-girlfriend who abused me in college was an abuse survivor herself. The abuse became so part of her life she didn’t even know she was doing it, only to transmit it to others. That the story repeats is the terror for anyone who has had this in their family. Alone waiting for Esau’s troops, Jacob has this terror now. His fear is not about the revenge his brother swore, but that the promise that has once come close to be taken away from Abraham will happen for real this time. He fears he too is going to be swept up into this cycle of violence, as a different kind of sacrifice to the Lord.
But it doesn’t happen; his meeting with Esau is not an attack, but a meeting of brothers who then go off on their own ways. What changed is what happened after that prayer.
25. And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. [Genesis 34]Whether it was God, an angel, Esau, or a battle in his own soul, the wrestling changed everything. He released a large part of the past iniquity in that wrestling tournament in the darkness. He emerged transformed, blessed with a new name of Israel. All the anger and fear that Jacob felt came out in the wrestling match. He was able to use all his skills and knowledge to make the meeting with Esau go off peaceably.
Fear and anger distort our view of the world. It causes us to say things that we do not mean, either about our selves or about others. It distorts our decisions into destructiveness to everyone. One rape, as horrible as it is, does not substantiate the slaughter and pillage of an entire town. The animal flight or fight response that is our fear and anger is more ancient than human existence. It is with human existence that this win-lose scenario changes to the possibility of conscious cooperation: a win-win. Everybody can win and consensus can be reached. Yet win-win almost always happens when anger and fear are under control instead of controlling us.
Three years ago, I wrote about a very interesting pattern. The way Jacob arranged people, and the gifts he gave to Esau had strategic value. While definitely the measure of wealth in that part of the world, the close to six hundred various animals he gave Esau also would slow down an army to a crawl. Esau would have to fight in a living quicksand a two front battle which could easily surround him. All the advantages of trained soldiers over a bunch of farmers were taken away – both Jacob and Esau know it. I concluded Jacob was smart enough to create deterrents. That does not come out of panic, or rabid anger, it comes out of self control and know how. It was that know how that got him from a wanderer with only a staff to a successful man. But it also comes from God’s blessing.
Your name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for as a prince you have power with God and with men, and have prevailed. [Genesis 32]Being Benei Yisrael, we are the inheritors of that Blessing. When we are angry or afraid, we, Like Jacob, struggle with God. We can vent our fears and our anger in the direction of the Holy One in our own holy struggles in the darkness. By the time the light comes, we are transformed into one who does not act out of our fear or anger, but our reason and force of will.
There is no halakah of the survivor in Dinah. It is found in her father Jacob. We don’t get over it. Post traumatic stress syndrome is forever. What’s worse it can be transmitted through the generations if we are not careful. But we can control it, and turn it from a curse into a blessing. We can stop the transmission if we are conscious of it. In our releasing the pain and anger in safe directions, towards our struggle with God, we change into something more, and we find success we never know we had.
We can even end the cycle transmitting the iniquity from in our relationships as well, by a conscious effort to do so. Yet there will always be triggers, parts of the trauma we didn’t even know was there. Such triggers will affect our behavior. It may be a small thing that sets off a cascade of emotions. A small fight over the trivial becomes a big one with no one knowing why. Yet there are also behaviors which are more pervasive. While the trauma of the Akedah may be controlled in this portion, in the story of Joseph, we will see that there is still some behavior which still needs addressing.
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