Wrestling
By Ramona Brand, Director of Youth Learning
On December 6, I undertook a Bat Mitzvah ceremony, leading parts of the service, reading from Torah for the first time, and giving a D'var Torah.
I was uplifted by the family and friends who were kind enough to be present for this affirming Jewish tradition. I have deep gratitude for all those who made it possible. Vayishlach was the Parsha of the week, but its message is not time-bound. In this new year, may all who wrestle find a positive outcome.
In 1972, when I reached my 13th birthday, I did not have a Bat Mitzvah ceremony. I was not even aware that there was such a thing. Ours was a very secular family, being New York ‘bagel Jews’, living on the eastern end of Long Island with very few other Jewish families around.
I knew, of course that I was Jewish. We celebrated Hannukah and Passover, which was the extent of our ritual observances. My grandparents lived in Brooklyn, so there was plenty of Yiddishkeit to soak up, but mainly our Jewishness was expressed through intellectualism, social improvement, academic achievement and a somewhat superior aloofness from religiosity.
However, my periodic exposure to more than what my family practiced; attending younger cousins’ Bar Mitzvahs, High Holiday services at college, participating in a young adult Chavurah, and in my mid-20s joining (oy vey!) a young Jewish singles group, left me wanting to know and learn more. There was something primal I felt in my gut when Hebrew was chanted, when Shabbat candles were lit and songs were sung, when other people made ‘in jokes’ about camp, or youth groups, that I didn’t quite understand. And so, my personal Jewish journey began.
In 1987, after five years of teaching in the Boston public schools, I accepted a position as a third-grade secular studies teacher at the Cohen Hillel Academy in Marblehead. That year was an eye-opener. Keeping Kosher was a real thing, not just some ‘old world’ custom? There were more holidays than Hannukah and Passover? and Egg noodle kugel was not OK for Passover? That was my family’s traditional Passover dish, because egg noodles are flat, right?
And then there were my wonderful 3rd grade students who could daven with the T’fillah teacher each morning in our classroom. I sat quietly at my desk, pretending to be busy prepping the next lesson because I wasn’t able to participate in the prayer.
I surreptitiously peeked at my students’ Siddurim and listened hard trying to make out patterns and recognize sounds. Although I was their teacher, I felt inadequate and more than a little embarrassed.
But, over the years I learned and grew in my personal Jewish education, and one job after another in the Jewish educational world came to me. In each new, more involved position, I grew and continued to learn and teach.
So here I am now, with thirty-eight years of Jewish professional life under my belt, the last quarter century spent as a Director of Congregational Schools. As a Jewish educator and leader of religious schools I helped to guide hundreds of children, including my own four, to their day on the Bima. Yet it was one thing I never accomplished, and as the years went by, the larger it loomed as something I might not be capable of doing. As a director of religious schools, I felt inadequate and more than a little embarrassed. Insecure, like a pretender, an imposter. A little like Jacob.
Shakespeare famously wrote “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”
Born the second son holding on to the heel of his older brother, Jacob takes the birthright away from Esau. Though Esau is responsible for selling his birthright for a bowl of red lentil stew, Jacob through guile and trickery steals Esau’s blessing to Esau’s great distress and fury. Jacob spends the next twenty-two years metaphorically chasing Esau, even as he has run away from him.
The stolen blessing becomes his growing anxiety. As we have read over the past few weeks, Jacob lives a life of deception and calculation, trying to be what he is not and never quite fitting into the skin he pretends to have. He never fully becomes Esau the firstborn, nor Jacob, the natural born leader. He lives by his wits, but also by looking over his shoulder. He tricks, and he is tricked. He lives in other people’s spaces and never quite carves out his own.
Insecurity and pretending are signs of imposter syndrome. And according to the great Torah Scholar, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Jacob has a huge case of it. It comes to a head in Vayishlach. Jacob has come back to reckon with his brother and his fear of meeting Esau is palpable as he shrewdly divides his family into two camps and declares to God that he is unworthy of the kindnesses God has shown him. And for the first time, he sets himself apart and alone from his people to face his fears.
Much has been written about the great wrestling match between Jacob and a mysterious “איש”, man. Interpretations range from Jacob wrestling his conscience, wrestling God, wrestling an angel of God, or even an angel representing or protecting Esau.
“But what if the איש was Esau himself,” proposes Rabbi Rachel Silverman, Director of Camp Ramah of Greater Boston, “and the two men worked out their differences physically, in the dark, before they had to face each other in the light? Perhaps only then could they approach each other with a sense of forgiveness.”
The “איש” blesses Jacob with his name change because he has wrestled with divine and human adversaries and has overcome. Jacob calls the location Penuel – the place where he saw God’s face.
This view (that he has wrestled Esau) is supported by what Jacob says when he meets Esau in the daytime: “Seeing your face is like seeing the face of God.”
In a bit of fascinating Hebrew word play, wrestling is ha’avkut and hugging is hibuk. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, President of the URJ offers, “The word for wrestling is not so dissimilar to the word for hugging….And what's amazing about wrestling is there's something intimate. You have to really be close, and you feel almost that sense of becoming intertwined. …….And there's something, you know, uniting about hugging and wrestling.”
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes,” It is as if the man said to him, “In the past, you struggled to be Esau. In the future you will struggle not to be Esau but to be yourself. In the past you held on to Esau’s heel. In the future you will hold on to God. You will not let go of Him; He will not let go of You. Now let go of Esau so that you can be free to hold on to God.”
The twins who jockeyed for position in the womb now jockey for position in middle-age. What began with wrestling ends in hugging. Jacob gives Esau his due, gives back to Esau his rightful place and in that can let go of his imposter syndrome. Jacob is now ready to be his best self and fulfill his blessing.
After the sturm and drang of Jacob’s life saga it is almost easy to overlook the significance of the parsha’s close because of its quietness. The maftir which I chanted begins, Vayavo Yaakov shalem. Jacob emerges whole. Jacob departs from the encounter with Esau at peace. He goes to Shechem and purchases land. No dissembling, no tricks, no postering. The land he straightforwardly buys is to begin a homestead where he may fulfill his blessing and build the nation of Israel. El-Elohe Yisrael. A parsha which begins with a reference to the land of Edom (Esau, the Red) concludes with Jacob settling into his own land.
Vayishlach teaches that none of us are too old to face our insecurities and that it’s never too late to wrestle with and overcome our challenges to become our best selves. Jacob’s blessing is our blessing; that as the people of Israel we are given the opportunity to look inside ourselves, find our truths, and live our best lives. It may be scary, but if we don’t try, we only just get older anyway. On December 4th, 1972, I halachically became an adult in the eyes of Jewish tradition simply by turning thirteen. After wrestling with my challenges, today I rightfully earned the name Bat Mitzvah.
January Religious School Calendar
Sunday classes January 11, 18 & 25/ meets 9 a.m. – noon.
Wednesday classes: January 7, 14, 21 / meets 4:15 – 6:15 p.m.
Actress and Storyteller, Sandy Ryder regaled our students with Hanukah stories to kick off our holiday celebration.
Students enjoy a festive morning of Hanukkah activities and treats
