A central incident in this week’s Parshah is Jacob’s struggle with an unknown assailant and the changing of his name from Jacob to Israel. Except of course he continues to be called Jacob. Unlike Abraham, who when his name was changed from Abram, is never again called Abram but only Abraham; Jacob, after having had his name changed to Israel, is again, immediately and usually, called Jacob. This fact was the cause of a dispute between the Rabbis of the midrash. Some said that Jacob’s main name now became Israel, with Jacob being only secondary, while Rabbi Zechariah maintained that Jacob remained his primary name, with Israel being merely added to it. How are we to understand this argument? As, already pointed out, Jacob in the bible is normally called Jacob, something the Rabbi’s also knew. So it is not a dispute about facts. Rather it is a discussion about the nature of the Jewish people, and what is their primary status in the world. The name Jacob signifies the Jewish people in their weak, subservient state. It is the name of Jews in exile, dependent on the good will of others, and spreading G-d’s message by their interaction with their host societies. Israel, on the other hand, is a name of power. It is the Jewish people as a sovereign independent nation, able to influence world events as an equal partner among the nations. Both of these scenarios, of course, are part of both Jewish history and Jewish thought. The Jewish people can and have been in both situations. The dispute in the midrash, however, is about which is the normative state. Is it normal for Jews to be sovereign, with exile being an aberration, or is dispersion and political emasculation the normative state of the Jews, with independence and sovereignty being the exception. Both these ideas have found their proponents . Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch believed that exile was part of the Divine plan for both the Jews and humanity, enabling Jews to influence history from within. Rabbi Abraham Kook, however, saw exile as an aberration, limiting the scope of Israel’s Divine mission, that could only be truly fulfilled in a Jewish state. Today we appear to have both situations at once and maybe that is the true synthesis of Jacob that became Israel, yet remained Jacob.

ALIYAH BY ALIYAH SYNOPSIS

 

Rishon	Jacob hears Esau is coming to meet him, is afraid and prays.
Sheni	He sends presents, wrestles with an angel and has his name changed to Israel.
Shelishi	Esau arrives, is friendly and is introduced to the family .
Revi’i	Jacob politely declines an invitation to visit Esau at home and buys some land outside Shechem.
Chamishi	Dinah is raped by the local prince’s son and Simon and Levy use deception to massacre the whole town.
Shishi	Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin and is buried in Efrat. Isaac dies. The descendants of Esau.
Shevi’i	The chiefs and monarchs of Edom.
Haftorah	Hosea: 11;7-12;12: The sins of the Northern Kingdom.

 Sidra Statistics

Parshat Vayishlach

·         has 154 verses ;

·         is the 8th in Genesis, 8th in the Torah

·         longest in Genesis, 3rd longest in the Torah

·         has one pos mitzvah.