Reconciliation

Rabbi Melanie Aron

December 13, 2003

Here I am pinch hitting for Rabbi Miller who is ill this morning. I don’t have a formal sermon but I’d like to say a few words about the Torah portion.

The Torah portion begins with Jacob, on his return to Canaan, sending messengers laden with gifts to his brother Esau. There is an argument among the rabbi’s about the wisdom of Jacob sending those messengers to his brother Esau.

Ramban, Nachmanides , a medieval scholar who lived in the Muslim world believed that Jacob acted foolishly. “Esau was going on his merry way and you had to go and send messengers to him!”

Nachmanides then quotes from the Talmud where Rava drew the following analogy.

A man sees a robber sleeping at a dangerous crossroad. He wakes the robber up to warn him of the danger, only to have the robber turn on him to rob him. Let sleeping dogs lie, Rava concludes.

But others disagree. Without confronting his brother, it would have been impossible for Jacob to have become Israeli. These rabbis note that it was going into the confrontation with his brother, that Jacob has the significant midnight struggle that leads to his name change.

Both the Biblical text and later Jewish tradition are critical of Jacob’s actions towards his brother in last week’s Torah portion. The deal that Jacob made with his brother Esau, selling his birthright for a bowl or porridge, was not in consonance with Jewish values concerning behavior in the market place. Even the most creative re-reading of the text by the rabbis, and the rabbis can be quite creative – one rabbi understands, Anochi Esav Bechorecha as meaning I am here, Esau is your firstborn-- recognizes that Jacob acted with the intention of deceiving his father.

Running away for 21 years is no way to resolve this unethical behavior. The gifts that Jacob sends to Esau are an attempt to repay what he stole from his brother. Confronting his brother and being willing to face the consequences of his actions is the only way to make amends for his wrong doing.

The confrontation between Jacob & Esau should not be the paradigm of a Jew confronting a non Jewish “other”, but of a brother seeking reconciliation with a brother he had wronged.

Rabbi Uziel Weingarten notes that we find a hint of the importance of this reconciliation in the words that Jacob speaks on after embracing Esau.

“No I pray you – accept from me this gift, for to see your face is like seeing the face of God.”

Dishonesty and injustice separate us from God. Restoring his integrity, restores to Jacob a sense of God’s presence.

Alexa & Zoe, no one goes through life without a falling out or two. Sometimes others wrong us or misjudge us, but once in a while, we have to acknowledge that we are the ones who are at fault.

When that happens – running away from the problem or trying to ignore it, probably won’t work. But if we acknowledge what has happened and make amends, then we too can feel like Jacob, “for to see your face is like seeing the face of God.”