Parshat Vayishlach 5769: Breaking the Cycle

This week Jacob gets ready for this inevitable meeting with Esau, and then has an interesting divine wrestling experience. When Jacob finally meets his brother, he finds out that he and Esau actually can be civil to each other. Dinah is raped and then her rapist asks for her hand in marriage. To avenge the rape, Dinah's brothers Simeon and Levi slaughter all the males of the rapist’s town as they recover from circumcision. Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin, then Ruben sleeps with his stepmother, Bilhah. Isaac dies, and is buried by both his sons.
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.

Behukotai 5768: A Tale of Two Jews.

Last week, Looking south from the beach into the gulf of Akaba, with the first peaks of the Sinai Peninsula to my right and Jordan and Saudi Arabia to my left, I tried to write. Yet sitting on the balcony of my room of the Dan Hotel Eilat and then the lounge chairs overlooking the pool, enjoying a few days of relaxation after my more hurried Israel adventure, I couldn’t write.

I couldn’t write about my experience of Masada, which I had planned to post to my blog about Israel, ShlomosIsrael. I couldn’t get out my Drash on Behar, because I just didn’t like what I was writing. It just couldn’t come together into something.

I’ve had a case of writer’s block and I didn’t understand why. I’m not completely sure it’s over yet.

Last week, I came back to the States a few hours before Shabbat, and immediately fell into my Shabbat practices, even renewing one of my more nutty traditions: wearing Hawaiian Shirts on Shabbos.

Experiencing my regular Shabbat after Israel showed me how much I had changed. I had known of some changes, some of those were what I wanted to write about in my experiences at Masada and the Golan Heights, but those thoughts haven’t completely gelled yet into something I feel comfortable writing.

What I did notice this weekend was other differences. This trip has been a series of odd coincidences, such that I can only believe that Ha Kadosh Baruch Hu scripted them. Purely by accidents of scheduling, our tour bus entered Jerusalem for that segment of the tour on Erev Yom Hazikaron, Israeli Memorial day. We spent that next day at Yad B’shem, the Holocaust Memorial, and the last tour bus to enter the area before Israeli security cordoned the area for Memorial Day events at nearby Mount Herzl. Due to those same security measures instead of seeing the big monuments on Mt. Herzl, we walked among the graves watching thousands saying Kaddish, or laying flowers on the graves of their lost loved ones. The next day, Independence Day, we spent in the Old city. A poignant moment was while we were just entering the area of the Kotel, the Israeli version of the Blue Angels flew stunts nearby.

At the wall I put a small piece of paper with a prayer and a request. Part of that request was to have my eyes opened to the qualities of really attractive women. As I touched the wall, I closed my eyes. I began to cry. A still small voice recited to me

My dove in concealment of the cliff,
in steep hiding places
Show me your appearance,
Let me hear your Voice
For your voice is sweet
and your appearance beautiful [Song of Songs 2:14]

As I opened my eyes and looked up through my tear drenched eyes, I cried some more. Looking up I saw something I had not before. A white dove had made her home high up in a crack in the wall, the cleft of this rock. What surprised me was she was not the only one. All along the wall there were nests of turtle doves, pigeons and even two ravens. I had never noticed till now. The beginning of the answer to my prayer was there in front of me. As I spent time in the streets of Tel Aviv, Eilat, and Jerusalem I suddenly noticed how beautiful the women were in Israel. Prior to this in Tel Aviv I had noticed how many were thin and shapely, but now I realized what really made them beautiful was a look in their eyes and faces, one I rarely see here in the States.

Back in the States last Shabbat, in another one of those coincidences, we had a pair of Rabbis who run a congregation outside of Jerusalem as the visiting Scholars. There were several questions in our usual Shabbat study period where people often voice their opinions to the question brought out by this weeks reading. One question this rabbi asked went unanswered directly, but I felt like it was answered indirectly. He asked whether Israel spoke a different language than those in the Diaspora. Those who answered his questions about the Sabbatical year showed that most of those who answered thought Israelis were just like Americans living in a land as abundant and secure. Interestingly, many there, some of whom were Israelis, and some who have visited Israel on many occasions remained silent, not correcting many of the false assumptions there.

Indeed this week’s portion is the first to say that those in the land are different than those in it. It is this week’s portion that first threatens, or maybe prophesizes that there will be a Diaspora.

31. And I will lay your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries to desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet odors. 32. And I will bring the land into desolation; and your enemies who dwell in it shall be astonished at it. 33. And I will scatter you among the nations, and will draw out a sword after you; and your land shall be desolate, and your cities laid waste.[Leviticus 26:31-33]

The text continues with a remembrance of the covenant for those outside of the land:

44. And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor will I loathe them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God. 45. But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God; I am the Lord.[Leviticus 26:44-45]

Since Jeremiah’s time, during the first wave of exiles, there had been not a tale of one set of Jews but two. There has been the Diaspora and the Land. What is true spiritually and socially today has been true for millennia. We have used different names for the two. In the Babylonian Talmud we hear the term “In the west” for Israel and in Israel we hear the term “in Babylon” for the Disapora. Even the greatest of Sages were known to makes this distinction:

When they told R. Johanan that there were old men in Babylon, he showed astonishment and said: Why, it is written: That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, upon the land; but not outside the land [of Israel]! [Ber 8a]

While most are not familiar with it, there are not one but two Talmuds, the Balvi and Yerushalmi. The Balvi, or Bablyonian Talmud, is the perspective of the Diaspora, the Yerushalmi, of those in the Land. The outlook of the Diaspora is different than the one in the Israel. It shows on people’s faces, particularly young people. As I was looking more at them, I noticed it most in the multitudes of young attractive women.

Thinking about it this weekend I wondered what makes the language of the Land what I’ll call Lashon haartez different than the language of the Diaspora, Lashon HaGalut. I don’t think it’s just an American thing: Given 60^th Independence Day celebrations, I saw enough Jews from Spain and Latin America to know it’s not just something about America. It’s something else.

A key to that something else was something that did disturb and startle me the first few times I saw it. Young people in their late teens and early twenties were carrying rather large firearms slung around their back or over their shoulder like it was a backpack or purse. These kids in civilian clothes are off-duty IDF soldiers. Israel out of necessity has a compulsory military service for virtually all its citizens, starting at Age 18. While American kids can spend their next few years after High school in college, for most Israelis, before college is military service, or a mixture of college and military service. Part of that service is that your firearm is completely your responsibility. Hence a lot of kids watch their guns with as much care as moms and dads watch their children, taking them everywhere.

Yet in a Chicago California Pizza Kitchen the other day, kids not much older or younger we so different. Watching one rather interesting table it was not guns that every gal had, but iPods, sitting at a table with each other yakking yet each listening to their own music at the same time. While Both Israelis and Americans love their cell phones, watching a cabdriver in Israel carry on four conversations on different phones at the some time was not just amusing but instructive. Watching a group of people at a outdoor coffee kiosk on Ben Gurion Street in Tel Aviv one guy sitting at a table with several of looked liked his friends was on the phone with someone. While not understanding Hebrew, I could tell the guy holding the phone and whoever it was on the other end were all part of that group conversation. This is so different from the cell phone users I see everywhere in the United States. To use your cell phone means no one else in the world matters – an invisible phone booth goes up.

There is one thing about this place called Israel; there is a sense of purpose found in a sense of community. Be it very early education in the communal setting of a Kibbutz, or the compulsory community of military service, Israelis know everyone is part of a bigger purpose. Such things provide a sense of confidence and even optimism even in the worst of conditions. Women with a sense of purpose, showing such self confidence like this become incredibly attractive in a way I find so rarely here in the States, where individualism so isolates us and leaves so often thinking only of ourselves, and intentionally shutting out others. The country that venerates “We the People” more often than not is about “I the person.” It shows on people faces and the invisible walls around them as I walked around downtown Chicago last weekend. To be honest both men and women young and old all too often have this up.

Many people wonder if the fruit in the Garden of Eden was a setup. Given the of this weeks portion, I wonder if the Diaspora was as well. God had to have known we would fail. Why God did create a situation where there was a Diaspora, why were we not commanded all to enter the land at the time of Ezra? Thinking back on my trip and on my return to my regular life, I think the answer is that we need each other. Judaism is never complete unless people are speaking both Lashon Haaretz and Lashon Galut. Both together synthesize into something more. What that more is will takes months for me to understand.

I’m still trying to figure out my trip. Some people had told me ahead of time how I would feel when I got back. Some would simply say “you’re going to enjoy it” others “you might go as a tourist, but come back a pilgrim” Neither were quite my experience. The best advice I was given was not to expect anything because whatever I expected would turn out different than that.

That was my Experience, even when I expected it. What I did come back with was a bit of the eye opening I wanted standing in tears at the Kotel, I know more who the dove in the cleft rock is.