Two Wrestlings
Friday, December 5, 2014
Congregation B’nai Brith, Santa Barbara, CA
Reading the Torah, week after week, we are sometimes struck by a stunning parallel between the weekly portion and a story in our own life. It could be that two young people meet and fall in love, for example, in exactly the week that we read of the marvelous love story meeting between Jacob and Rachel. Or a teenage Bar or Bat Mitzvah standing before us reading of Abraham’s journey, setting out from his father’s house, for an unknown land. In these examples, the parallel is obvious and the meaning of the parallel is clear.
At other times, the bond between text and life is powerful, even shocking, but to find the meaning requires hard work. This week we read the story of Jacob wrestling all night long with a mysterious man, and in the same week our televisions and computer screens have placed before us devastating video footage of a forty- three year old black man Eric Garner being placed in a chokehold, and wrestled to the ground, to die on a street on Staten Island. Two very different wrestlings fill our minds in this single week.
Jacob in our Torah portion was alone and it was night time.
Eric Garner was standing on a street in Staten Island in broad daylight.
Jacob had run away from his brother Esau twenty years earlier and was about to meet him again in the morning. A messenger told him that Esau was coming toward him with 400 armed men.
Eric Garner had not run away from anyone, and had actually just attempted to break up a fight. He was suspected of selling loose cigarettes, although he denied that.
Jacob was attacked by a mysterious man, who is never identified, who comes out of nowhere and wrestles with him all night long. Tradition says that man was an angel.
Eric Garner was attacked by two New York City policeman, with three others gathered around, and placed in a chokehold, an illegal hold which police are forbidden to use and have been since 1993.
Jacob was injured by the angel, who struck him in the socket of his hip, dislocating his hip.
Eric Garner was pinned to the ground, a policeman’s arm closing off his airway, and another policeman pressing down on his chest.
The angel said to Jacob “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.”
Eric Garner said to the policemen “I can’t breathe.”
Jacob said to the angel “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
Eric Garner said “I can’t breathe.”
The angel said “What is your name?”
Eric Garner said “I can’t breathe.”
Jacob said “Jacob.” And the angel said “no longer shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with men and with angels and have survived.”
Eric Garner said one more time “I can’t breathe.”
Then Jacob asked the angel’s name and the angel said “Why do you ask my name?” and he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of that place “Peniel,” meaning “the Face of God”, because he said “I have seen God face to face and my life was spared.
Eric Garner said nothing and lay silent and still. His life was not spared.
The sun rose on Jacob and he walked away from Peniel, limping from his injury.
The policemen stood up and looked at Eric, and realized they had done a terrible thing, although they could not admit it then and still say they did nothing wrong.
This all happened last summer on July 17. After the autopsy, the city of New York medical examiner ruled Eric Garner’s death a homicide caused by the chokehold and the compression of Garner’s chest by the police. But two days ago, a grand jury decided not to indict the police offer who applied the chokehold, less than two weeks after a grand jury in Fergusen Missouri decided not to indict Darren Wilson, the white police officer who shot and killed an unarmed 18 year old black Michael Brown. Slowly we are waking up as a nation to the fact that something is broken in our justice system, something which prevents a policeman who kills an unarmed black man from even being brought to trial.
The police officer’s union has mounted a campaign arguing that Eric Garner’s death was caused by his resisting arrest, and by being overweight and asthmatic, and that the hold used by the officer was actually not the illegal chokehold….since if he could say “I can’t breathe,” that means he must have been able to breathe.
What is wrong with us?
Why is it so difficult for us to say clearly, all with one voice, “this is wrong.”?
Around the country, thousands and thousands of people have been marching in protest. In New York, in Washington, in Boston, in Miami, in Cleveland, in Chicago, thousands and thousands of people are marching right now. Eric Garner’s family have been urging that the protests be peaceful. His mother pleaded: “Go out and protest, but do it in peace.” And the protests have, remarkably, been peaceful. So while something is wrong in our country, there is also much that is not completely broken. I actually have great hope that from these deaths and these outrageous grand jury decisions, something good will come forth. We are waking up, as a nation, and coming to realize the fear that every black man and boy feels when they see the police approach. And the fear and the racism that has crept so far and deep into our police forces. We are coming to understand that the police, whom we entrust to do the immensely difficult and dangerous work of protecting the peace, need our support and they need transformation. They need our thanks, and they need better training.
In New York City by the way, the Jewish community was out there. Four rabbis were arrested last night for sitting down and blocking traffic as part of the massive show of outrage and concern. Rabbis Sharon Kleinbaum, Jill Jacobs, Shai Held and David Rosenn were all arrested. And a gathering of Jews on the Upper West Side recited the kaddish for Eric Garner.
The next thing we read in the Torah is that Jacob saw his brother Esau coming toward him. The Torah tells us nothing about what either of them felt in that moment, but we can easily imagine the intense emotions of dread and loathing….and the longing to overcome their past. The Torah does not tell us what they felt, but it doe tell us what they did. Esau and Jacob, twin brothers locked in struggle with each other from the womb, ran to each other and they embraced. They kissed and they wept.
May our nation, our communities of color, our cities and our police forces, be granted this year a moment of reconciliation….and may we blessed with a future of justice and of peace.