Jordan's Juice

In our Parasha this weekend, Jacob has his fateful meeting with Esau. As we will learn tomorrow morning, Jacob sends his family across the River Yabbok and remains alone, awaiting Esau’s arrival. While asleep, he wrestles the angel. We know this story well; it parallel’s last week’s dream sequence of the ladder reaching up to heaven. The dreams bracket the Jacob story in the Torah.

But we don’t often look at what follows. Following Jacob’s episode of God Wrestling, he takes a deep breath and goes out to meet his brother. He sends wave after wave of gifts to Esau, hoping against hope that Esau won’t kill him. These bribes, if you will, accomplish their purpose for Esau greets his brother Jacob warmly, even going so far as to kiss his brother on the neck. Following a bit of family time, Jacob and Esau go their separate ways, never to meet again.

Of course, things are never as simple as that. When we take a closer look at the text, there are a number of items that stand out; some of them will indeed surprise you. Let’s start at the beginning. If you recall from last week, when Jacob cheats Esau out of the birthright of the first-born, Esau had demanded some of that red stuff, that red lentil stew. The Hebrew word for red is Edom; hence Esau is also called Edom in the Torah, the father of the Edomites. Edom is a kingdom in what is now southern Jordan and northwest Saudi Arabia. More to the point, in Roman times, Edom was called Idumea, a kingdom conquered by the Maccabees and its inhabitants forcibly converted. The most famous of the Idumeans, descendents of Esau: Herod the Great. So realize that when the rabbis of old would look at this story, they wouldn’t see two brothers embracing, they would see Jacob – or more to the point, Israel – encountering Herod, a symbol of Rome. And since the Romans destroyed the Temple and later expelled the Jews from Judea, the rabbis hated the Romans; any mention of Esau, therefore, evoked this hatred.

So Esau came to symbolize Rome, specifically Christian Rome. In the Talmud and other Rabbinic literature, whenever we see the word “Edom” in the text, we are supposed to think about Christian Rome. It is a code word. And the rabbis are quick to read that code back into the Biblical text – which of course knew nothing of Rome or of Christians, to be sure.

Instead of Jacob and Esau meeting on the plain, we now interpret this passage as Israel and Edom, Christian Rome, meeting on the plain. And Edom kisses the neck of Israel. Or does he? Once again, we can look at a wonderful fanciful Midrash:

The rabbis revocalize the Hebrew word for kiss, nashek, and come up with the Hebrew word “to bite”. In this new interpretation, perfectly consistent with the text, by the way, Esau, Edom, Christian Rome, bites the neck of Jacob, Israel, the Jewish people. But suddenly, Jacob’s neck turns to stone and Esau’s teeth all break! That is hardly a friendly reunion.

Suddenly, when we compare these two versions of the text, we can find a deep meaning. What is the difference between Israel and Christianity embracing or biting each other’s necks? I think you can see the obvious: one story tells of reconciliation while another tells of conflict. In the latter story, when Jacob’s neck turns to stone, we can learn that no matter how greatly we Jews have been persecuted over the centuries, we will survive and our enemies will eventually shatter. We are, the Torah tells us, a “stiff-necked people”; the Midrash suggests that we are a “stone-necked people”. The latter story then is a story of triumph over adversity – and it is a good story to tell. We Jews hear it all the time; it confirms our deepest anxieties and still gives us hope.

But the first story is even better because of its potential. Jacob and Esau, Israel and Edom, have been separated. Israel lives in fear of Edom, of Christianity. One day, Israel is forced to confront his fears. He is sleepless; he takes safety precautions; he prepares for the worst. And then, at the moment of encounter, Israel and Edom embrace, spend time together and then go their separate ways. They do not become one people again – but that is fine. Instead, they move forward in love – and with a healthy dose of respect for each other, knowing that both of them are rich in spirit yet going on separate paths towards the Almighty One.

That is what we hope to accomplish when we encounter the Other in Judaism. Respecting each other’s differences, we are richer for the experience.

Now surely there are xenophobes and suspicious minds among us. We Jews have a bitter, 2000 year experience of persecution. Even in America, we still perk up at even the slightest inkling that our modern Golden Age might be compromised. Perhaps this explains our attitudes towards so-called Messianics and other Evangelicals who seek to convert us. It also explains our support of Israel, a country truly under siege by those who seek to destroy us, latter day descendents of Esau, perhaps. There are those among us who advocate a total separation from non-Jews, a return to the ghetto as it were. They offer this as a panacea for a whole host of ills: intermarriage, Jewish learning, community building, etc.

But I never liked the idea of a ghetto. It seemed to me that ghettos always led to pogroms and gas chambers. It might be wistful thinking to believe that an insular community would solve certain problems – but I feel that these problems would only be exacerbated by a retreat from the children of Edom. We have to find a way to build a Jewish world amongst the Edomites.

And so I embrace the embrace, the time when Jacob and Esau, Israel and Edom, kissed, talked and moved on. There will be times when we can make this happen, not just with Christians but with Muslims as well. Now I am no Pollyanna and I know that there are indeed some Christians and Muslims out to get us. But really, they are few and far between, especially in this country.

A good example of an embrace is our annual December Dilemma, when we celebrate Chanukah at about the same time that our Christian neighbors celebrate Christmas. We discussed this a few weeks ago but suffice it to say that the proper response to a WalMart clerk wishing us a Merry Christmas is “Thank you”. But more to the point, if Christians are professing, “Peace on earth, good will to all”, I’m willing to sign on to this campaign. I’ll still be a Jew and she might still be a Christian – but hopefully we will all live in peace. If we can live out our faiths – instead of killing for our faiths – I’ll put a Jewish star on my fireplace chimney.

The three Abrahamic faiths all worship the same One God. We just have very different – and exclusive – ways of doing that. We do not mix well, theologically. But we do mix well in the public square because our values are essentially similar. And that is good; it is like Jacob and Esau embracing, talking and then going their separate ways.

So the final lesson of this passage is this: when we are at work, at school or at play, our respective faiths are at work, school or play as well. And our faith discussions should we frank, honest and joyful – a testimony to our faiths without coercion. This is kissing and talking. And then, after work, school or play, we go home and celebrate with people of like faith – just as we are doing now. Our encounters here and there will enrich our lives, the lives of others – and the lives of the Other, who now is not our enemy but our friend. And friends respect the differences – and the similarities – between them.

So Jacob and Esau’s tale can be read as a morality play – and we can choose the ending. We can choose whether our necks turn to stone and we shatter our enemies. Or, we can embrace, talk and move forward, confident in our faith and strengthened in faith by the encounter with the Other. Surely there will be problems, often severe, that will arise. But if interaction is the norm, we will be able to work them out.

Let us resolve, then to embrace and not bite, keeping our eyes open but our necks soft. As we learn from each other, we enrich each other. And truly, that is Divine. Amen.

# posted by Jordan Parr @ 11:43 AM