It's been almost a year now since I began the Pshat Heard Round the World. It's been a tremendous experience and, as I head into the second year, I'm confronting he challenge of saying something new on the parashah beyond those precious little jewels that everyone nurses in the incubator of his own heart and never fails to haul out over the Shabbat table. Indeed, it will be a challenge on the level of getting the Pshat out earlier.
But not yet. Because, through the miracle of Gmail's instantaneous search capabilities, I see that I have not yet done a Pshat on this week's parashah, Parashat Vayishlach. And the cherished favorite insight I wish to present herein is one of my oldest and favorites,
Ya'akov is returning home after twenty-odd years in Padam-Aram in Lavan's household. He's brought in tow a large household acquired despite Lavan's deceit by years of honest sweat, toil, and, primarily, Hashem's blessing. He's faced down Lavan who pursued him and challenged him at Gal-ed. Now, as he re-enters Eretz Yisrael, he sends messengers/angels to Esav, his brother, his nemesis. He sends the messengers to the land of Seir, where Esav seems to have taken up residence (as is made explicit at the parashah's end). Why does he do this? Why not let sleeping dogs lie, asks the midrash in almost precisely those words? Yet it seems that Ya'akov cannot - he fled from before his brother's rage so long ago, a rage stirred up by Ya'acov's own actions which effective supplanted Esav as heir to the Avrahamic legacy, and now it is time to do the tikkun for a relationship so badly damaged, even if those actions were taken under divine guidance.
So Ya'akov, surprised by his encounter with Lavan, prepares carefully for this one. The midrash tells us that he prepared in three different ways - he prepared via prayer, he prepared for battle, and he prepared to appeased his brother, who, he is informed by his messengers (as understood by the midrash), is still acting in the same, familiar fashion. The appeasement is effected by a lavish gift sent to his brother - small herds of no less than ten different kinds of domestic animals, each sent in the hand of a separate shepherd, set apart by a distance so as to increase the impact of the gift.
It is Ya'akov's words to himself which gives away his apprehension and his hopes in advance of their inevitable meeting.
"I will appease him with the gift that goes before me. Afterwards, when I encounter him, perhaps he will accept me". So the gift went on ahead of him..." (Bereshit 32:21--22).
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This is a translation of the Hebrew text which is, I am confident, a faithful rendering of the simple, straightforward meaning of the text. But oh, how far this simple, straightforward meaning is from the holy grail, the PSHAT!! Here's the Hebrew, transliterated:
Achapra fanav b'minchah haholechet l'fanai acharei chen er'eh panav ulai yisa fanai. Vata'avor haminchah l'fanav.
And here's how the text is rendered by Everett Fox in his translation, in which he attempts to render the poetry, cadence and allusions of the Hebrew:
"I will wipe (the anger from) his face,
with the give that goes ahead of my face;
afterward, when I see his face,
perhaps he will lift up my face!"
The gift crossed over ahead of his face
On this level, Ya'akov is absolutely obsessed by the anticipated encounter: "His face, my face, his face, my face, his face" - a five-time repetition within the space of just over one verse! I'll wipe his face, he'll lift my face - perhaps, perhaps!! What will turn out from this encounter, wonders/prays/steels hiimself Ya'akov.
"Panim" - the Hebrew word for face, is derive from the Hebrew verb root P-N-H, meaning "turn". There is something deceptive about a face. It presents who we are, even as it turns aside the deeper query: who are you really? We reserve that intimacy for a select few intimates, maybe our best friends, maybe our spouses, loved ones, maybe not even them. Maybe not even ourselves. We cultivate our face ever so carefully even as we give away unintended depths via our face, for it "turns" on us as well, revealing and inviting a depth that we are perhaps not so prepared to offer.
What would Ya'akov's face betray? What would Esav's face portend? Would Esav still be angry? Would Ya'akov even know by seeing him? Upon this encounter and its outcome would rest the fates not just of two individuals, but of entire peoples ("Shnei Goyim b'Vitnech" - "Two nations are in your womb", Rivkah is informed), and not just any peoples, but those peoples whose careers would determine the historical trajectory of must of the human race.
But we're missing two "faces"! The Torah typically concentrates seven repetitions of terms within a short space, to tell us that the given word or term is the key to understanding the passage. Where are the other two faces?
Patience, patience. For when Ya'akov finally meets Esav, he approaches, bowing seven times, and Esav runs toward him, (uh-oh), and embraces him (to stab him?) and falls upon his neck (to break it) and "kisses him" (with all his heart? Yes, says Rashbi, although it's totally against his deep-seated hatred of Ya'akov) and they cried". Ya'akov is tremendously relieved - he's done it, he's reencountered his brother. Esav askes about all the gifts, and, when hearing that they are for him, at first refuses them. Ya'akov insists, explaining himself: "for I have seen your face as the face of an angelic/divine being and you been gracious to me".
The sixth face is Esav - he wins, four to two, and the seventh face - the face of an angel or perhaps the face of G-d (for it's the word E-lohim which is employed). Ya'akov's words are understood to refer back to the previous night's wrestling match. For after wrestling that night with the "man", holding his own and receiving a new name, Ya'akov calls that place "Peni'el", for, as he says, "If have seen an divine/angelic being face to face and my life has been saved".
Deep encounter is truly frightening . "No man may see me and live", says Hashem, but who REALLY looks into the face of his fellow? It's an invasion, a penetration into a realm so private it's sacred. When two people separated by a gulf of enmity so deeply entrenched in the very cores of their souls can, even for a moment, look each other in the face and see something sacred, and really hug and really kiss, that moment becomes a revelation of a divine face, a dance of the sevel veils of faces proffered and retracted until, unexpectedly, the face of the divine reveals itself in the spark-gap between two faces really turned toward the depth hidden beneath the surface of the other, waiting to be called up.
Rav Yehoshua Kahan
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Rav Yehoshua Kahan is a teacher at Yeshivat Bat Ayin. He has held pulpits in Knoxville, Tennessee and Los Angeles, and served as educational director of Livnot U'Lehibanot. He blogs on Parashat Hashavua here |