Becoming Israel
Friday night, December 9, 2022
Congregation B’nai B’rith, Santa Barbara CA
This week, the Torah begins with fear. Jacob is about to meet his brother Esau, the hunter, who last time they were together wanted to kill him. Now Jacob has been away for twenty years, amassing wives and children and vast numbers of animals, and Jacob is ready to return home, to risk a reunion with Esau. He sends messengers to Esau, who come back to Jacob saying, “we met your brother Esau, and he is coming toward you with 400 men.” Vayira Yaakov m’od. Jacob is terrified. With good reason.
Jacob is the first Jew in history to live with the awareness of sharing the world with someone who once wanted to kill him….and perhaps still does. No wonder he is terrified.
In our time, this month, people all over the country have been talking and writing, holding emergency meetings and issuing statements to the press on the question of how we Jews should respond to a resurgence of antisemitism in our world. With the murder of 6 million Jews still fresh in our memory, what do we do with the knowledge that we live in this world together with people who once wanted to kill us, and maybe some that still do?
It is not a new question.
In the story, Jacob’s deepest desire, his need, is not merely to escape being killed. He is terrified, but if he just wanted to stay alive, he could have stayed up north in Haran, far away from Esau. Jacob is coming home because he needs to meet his brother, face to face. He spends a long day planning an elaborate and carefully choreographed meeting. Then night falls, Jacob sends everyone ahead, and he remains alone.
Alone in the night, Jacob’s plans become irrelevant. Out of nowhere, a man appears, and they wrestle all through the night. Attacking and embracing, throwing and pinning each other, striking and wounding. “Let me go,” says the man, “for the dawn is breaking.” “I will not let you go unless you bless me,” Jacob responds. “What is your name?” asks the man. “Jacob” he replies. “No longer shall you be Jacob, but Yisrael…God Wrestler…because you have wrestled with God and with men, and have prevailed.” Jacob names the place Peniel, “Face of God,” saying “I have seen God face to face and I have survived.”
The story is full of mystery. Was it a dream or was Jacob awake? Who was the man? Was it a man, or an angel, or God? Was it Esau, in some form, or Jacob himself? Only one thing is certain: our ancestor Jacob acquires a new name, the name by which we Jews still call ourselves. “Israel. God Wrestler.”
The sun rises. Jacob goes to meet Esau; the brothers embrace, they weep and then they go their separate ways. It is an ambiguous reconciliation. But Jacob has gained a new name, a new identity. Israel. The one who goes forth to meet his brother, his enemy. The one who wrestles and comes face to face, with God and with human beings. Israel, who seeks relationship, but is not afraid of conflict.
What does this story have to teach about living in the world with those that hate us?
Last Monday night, I attended a forum at the Jewish Federation on the subject of antisemitism moderated by Steve Zipperstein, featuring the former national director of the ADL Abe Foxman, and Hillel Rabbi Evan Goodman and a young woman from this congregation, Tally Wimbish, recently graduated from college. Each of the speakers made good points, but in my view the most important moment of the evening was when the moderator Steve asked Tally what she and other young Jews need right now, and Tally responded, “to be proud Jews….because being Jewish is awesome!”
When Tally said that I wanted to cheer. I get so tired of the anxiety, the worry, and the fear that the Jewish establishment instills in our youth every time we sound the alarm about antisemitism. It always has been risky to be Jewish. Much, much riskier in previous generations and in other places than in America today. And we have not survived for three thousand years by anxiously wondering if a comment is antisemitic. Nor have we survived by hiding our Jewishness. We have survived, and have outlived all our enemies, by living as proud, committed Jews. By taking the risk of real human encounter. That’s how we fight antisemitism.
Our first grandchild, Laila Jules Eilon-Cohen was born three weeks ago to our daughter Rachel and son-in-law Zach. Laila’s birth has taken me back to another important moment in my life, almost thirty-five years ago, when Rachel was born. At that time, I decided after thirty-one years of not wearing a kipah, to begin wearing a kipah everywhere, all the time. I was thinking a lot about what being a parent meant and what kind of father I wanted to be. Among other things, I wanted to model for my daughter not being afraid, and letting the world know who and what I am. I still remember the powerful feelings I experienced as I walked around town, completely exposed as a Jew…for the first time in my life. It was both terrifying and liberating. I shared my feelings with a good friend of mine, who is gay, and she smiled at me and declared “you have come out of the closet!”
When Jacob returned from Haran to meet Esau, face to face, he came out of a closet. In that terrifying journey, and in his long night of wrestling…with Esau, with himself….Jacob became a more whole person. And when we overcome our fears, and come out into the world as Jews, that is the way we fight antisemitism.
Before concluding, I would like to share with you an extraordinary experience that Marian and I had this week, a real life story of stepping out of ones comfort zone to encounter other people, and healing the world.
Last Sunday afternoon, Marian called me to say that two people we had never met before had come to our door. They were a couple, a man and woman from The Netherlands, who are riding their bicycles around the world. It’s a seven-year journey, and they are in year three, having already pedaled all around Europe and the East Coast of the US and then up to Canada and all the way across Canada to British Columbia. Now they are heading down the West Coast and heading to Mexico, and then all the way to Chile, from where they will find a boat to take them to Africa. Their names are Linda and Ben. Every day at around 3:00 pm, after riding all day, they begin to look for a house that looks like it might be welcoming. And they knock on the door and ask if they can stay the night! They have been traveling this way for two and a half years already.
Last Sunday, it was raining when Marian called me to say that they had knocked on our door and how did I feel about saying yes? They had stopped early because of the rain and were pretty bedraggled. It took me a minute to understand the question; it was so unusual! But I asked, “do you have a good feeling about them?” and she said “yes, definitely.” So I said “then yes!”
I came home and met Linda and Ben and we began to talk. We asked them how they had chosen our house, and what happens when people say “no,” and has anyone ever gotten angry at them? No one has ever gotten angry at them, they said. And they have never in two and a half years had to spend more than 30 minutes looking for a house that would take them in. The rain stopped and we went for a walk and continued to talk. Marian swung into action cooking up a great dinner with new vegetables from the farmer’s market, and we talked and talked for several more hours, about our families, and religion, and politics, and some of the people they have met on their ride. We all went to bed and then talked some more over breakfast. Then we took a few pictures, and off they went, continuing on their seven-year bike ride around the world.
Before they left, I said “I consider what you are doing one of the most profound contributions to creating a better world I have ever witnessed.” At which they smiled and said, “people tell us that, but to us it seems normal.” In my view, every day at 3pm when Ben and Linda knock on a new door and greet a completely new person or family with their smiles and their humble request of a bed for the night… they are repairing the world.
And every time that Tally Wimbish puts on her Jewish star and wears it out into the world, greeting the people she meets with friendship and openness, signaling to everyone that she is Jewish and that is her way of being a human being… she is repairing the world.
I know that fear is also normal. There are many good reasons to be afraid in this dangerous world. But Tally, and Linda and Ben, like our father Jacob nearly four thousand years ago, each in their own way are teaching us, showing us that it is possible to be unafraid, to step boldly out of our comfort zone, and to increase the peace of God’s world.
Shabbat shalom.