Dear friends,
I don’t remember the last time I received a real letter in the mail.
Do you remember letters – the kind that came in an envelope and had a stamp? You Oldies but Goodies may even recall stationary. Occasionally I receive invitations in the mail (usually distributed by one of the heimish services that pay a bored teenager to distribute them), and together with the tzedaka solicitations, and bills, my mailbox stays full even without real letters.
The ones that I receive address me with great respect. I am called “generous donor”, “valued customer” and more. Do you wonder about what happened to all of the letter-carriers (oops. I almost wrote mailmen)? How do messages that have some meaning get through?
HOW DID YAAKOV SEND A MESSAGE TO EISOV?
The reason that I am taking you down Memory Lane (while we all still have memories, but that is another issue), is that the first Rashi in the parshah tells you that Yaakov sent “messengers” to Eisov, to let him know that he has left Lavan and is on the way back home. This is a letter that I would not have mailed, nor sent by the equivalent of an ancient mailman-agent. As Ramban points out, why wake a sleeping dog?
Rashi brings another possible meaning of the word messenger. In Hebrew the word malach can mean either an earthly or heavenly agent. Yaakov may have sent actual angels to his murderous brother who was headed his way with 400 men.
This doesn’t solve the problem of why he informed Eisov that he was on the way, and more significantly it doesn’t tell you why the Torah wants you to know about this. The answer is important. It is part of your process in figuring out who you are, and why you are here at this particular time in history and in your particular circumstances.
THE AVOS AND US
Everyone has parents – they don’t stay here with you in this world forever, but we are all links on a chain – none of us just popped up like lilies in the field. This is true for you, and for every human being you will ever encounter, Jew or non-Jew. When we use the word Avos, it means that Hashem committed Himself to seeing that their heritage will always be as much part of His people as the quarks and other particles that jump around in every atom that inhabits their cells.
The deeply ingrained need for doing chessed that is part of being Jewish (as the charity stats demonstrate), isn’t just an exercise in practicing human kindness – it extends to giving your higher self expression in your relationship to Hashem. We inherited this from Avraham who developed by choosing goodness over passivity or worse as he dealt with his tests and challenges.
According to Yalkut Reuveini one of Avraham’s hardest tests was watching Yishmael distort his desire to connect to G-d and to other people through his total lack of boundaries. His savagery in “doing good, and serving G-d” was something that Avraham saw, and hoped to somehow change by praying for him until Hashem Himself told Avraham to do what Sara demanded and to expel him from their home.
He eventually did teshuvah, and it is our hope that his descendants do the same, but so far it doesn’t seem to be on their agenda. Yitzchak was very different – he faced challenges head on, knowing that ego is the greatest challenge of all. He could “dig wells”, not just actually but also spiritually, bringing life and goodness from the most negative situations and demotions.
Yaakov was different. He didn’t only see the ladder whose feet were on the earth but whose head was in heaven – he WAS the ladder. He could bring Hashem into this world much as Avraham did, and also bring the world up to Hashem, much as Yitzchak had done.
Of the three Avos, his imprint is the one most permanently and visibly the one that makes you Jewish. This is why we are called, Bnei Yisrael, rather than Bnei Avraham or Bnei Yitzchak.
BACK TO OUR QUESTION
ARE THE AGENTS MAILMEN OR ANGELS?
They could have been either.
Like the other Avos, he was the foundation of the world, the living map of its purpose. Could he have drawn down spiritual forces? Of course he could have. In fact, the reason why Hashem made angels to begin with was for the sake of these sorts of people.
Those who live the kind of lives where discovering Hashem in every situation and either bringing Him into the picture, or elevating the reality He created is their identity – not just the “self” that you see in their deeds.
A LITTLE STORY ABOUT ONE OF US
A man who is clearly a member of the tribe, although not blessed with much Torah, was miraculously saved on Oct. 7. He and his wife hid in their secure room. The Arabs easily broke down the front door, and began working on the safe room’s entrance. It wouldn’t budge.
They banged on it with hammers, pick axes and finally used explosives. It held. They threw grenades through the windows and got the rest of the house to burn, but the door of the safe room didn’t budge. They tried to get in through the roof, but it was made of granite. They finally left.
He told us the story of his door.
Years earlier he had done some house improvements, including buying new doors. When the contractor came, he realized that he had unnecessarily schlepped a security door (similar to the kind banks have) by accident. Now he knew what weighed the truck down all the way down to the Negev.
“Look, I made a mistake. I know that you didn’t order this kind of a door, but I really don’t want to have to bring it back up the coast. I’ll give it to you for the same price as a normal door, just don’t be angry about being stuck with such a clunker.”
Our friend answered “First of all, I’m not the kind who gets angry. People make mistakes. Secondly I’m also not the kind to cause you a loss. I insist on paying you what the door costs.”
End of story.
Yaakov still lives. His death is never mentioned in the Torah directly. He lives in people like our friend from the Kibbutz, who later opened the door to Israeli soldiers because he tested them to be sure that they weren’t Hamas people in Israeli army uniforms by saying, “Shema Yisrael” and hearing them answer, “Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem echad.”
May we hear more good news, of the rest of the hostages coming home.
Love,
Tziporah
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