Vayishlach: Confronting and Defeating our Enemies

Consciousness experiences division as we engage in negative thoughts, emotions and feelings that lead us to negative actions.

“Jacob became very frightened and was distressed; so he divided the people who were with him and the flocks and the cattle and the camels into two camps.” (Genesis 32:8)

We have remarked this situation in our previous commentaries on this portion of the Torah (see in this blog Parshat Vayislach: “Love and Light as Redeemers from Darkness” of November 14, 2010 and Vayishlach: “The Prevalence of Love” of December 4, 2011). This time we emphasize on the consequences of fracturing consciousness by disregarding our permanent connection with the Creator.

The lesson from our father Jacob's distress are twofold. On one side, we must be humble enough to recognize that we are not perfect and negative illusions of the material world can overwhelm us. On the other hand, there are situations that we just can't handle when fear and doubt undermine our wisdom, understanding and knowledge of who we are, including our connection and/or relationship with God. The realm of negative illusions is indeed overwhelming because we actually live in them.

What can we consider “real” in life when most of what we live and experience every day are illusions? Things change as we change our perception and approach to them. This is already part of an illusion as we face the material reality from different levels of consciousness with different approaches. In this sense we have to make a detailed inventory of what we consider true and false.

At this point we discern on right and wrong, useful and useless, positive and negative, etc. and start making the choices that determine what is truly real for us. Real as true, right, positive, constructive and uplifting such as joy, kindness, truth and plenitude, all these in abundance. A place and time in consciousness where there is no lack whatsoever, in which love rules as the material manifestation of God's love.

Let's reflect again on Jacob's situation before meeting his brother Esau. He received God's promise to protect him, met with God's angels in his way, and prevailed over the angel of Esau in a nightlong struggle. Why was he afraid of his brother? We reiterate that the answer is related to entering in the realm of the lower aspects of consciousness, represented by Esau. Approaching Esau implies to come down to situations and circumstances we rather fear. In this context “to fear” means to avoid. Jacob wanted to avoid meeting Esau but he couldn't.

This happens to us when we want to settle in the highest realms of consciousness. At some point we must meet our lower emotions, feelings, passions and instincts not to descend to them and get trapped by them, but to elevate them and transform them into positive expressions of life.

We can't get into Jacob's thoughts at that time, but we can put on his shoes in similar situations we live every day. Some of us rather avoid engaging with negative people or bad situations that we are aware we can't change into a positive outcome. We rather back off and if possible keep away from them, but that is not the way because our mission as Jews is to be the light for the nations. This means to be the redeemers amid the darkness that threatens to end the goodness that life is.

We have to meet Esau, we must confront our enemies and defeat them once and for all. We can't afford to dwell and cohabit with what undermines our principles as love's ways and attributes. As we said earlier, we are aware that these enemies can be overwhelming, but if God's Love sustains our love, what could be against? As we are fully aware of this, we don't have to fear or avoid that which denies and harms the goodness of who we are.

We must ask ourselves in honesty and truth if we are ready to confront and subdue the negative traits that have the potential to destroy Love's ways and attributes. Should we rather appease them by feeding them with ox, ships, goats, donkeys and camels as Jacob did with Esau? Or should we confront them with angels as the ways of good deeds and actions that all aspects of consciousness must manifest in life?

Our approach to what Esau represents is either to redirect his approach towards a positive end, or to vanish him as the mortal enemy who wants to destroy us. Let's be aware that our enemies dwell both within our consciousness and, as a consequence of this, also outside in the world.

In our current times we are again confronted by Esau's threat to kill us. Israel is surrounded by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists that want to destroy us because Israel's values represent the opposite to their principles. History repeats itself time and again against us, and we don't need to sacrifice more Jewish lives to appease our enemies.

Millions have already being sacrificed throughout history, and the lessons are fully learned: Never again! If our enemies want to destroy us, we are ready to destroy them before they strike. God is on our side, we have His blessings since He blessed our forefathers. Now we have to make God's blessings manifest by unequivocally being and doing who we are as the people of His covenant. We are the good guys, we know this, and the whole world also knows it.  

The moment is now and the place is where we are to confront the negative aspects of consciousness that pursue our destruction. It's either them, or our permanent awareness of God's love as our essence and true identity. It is about who we really are, or the negative illusions in which our enemies live.

Let's be fully aware that we are ready now to confront and defeat our enemies both within ourselves and in the world.

“Shall I not in that day, says the Lord, destroy wise men from Edom and discernment from the mountain of Esau? And your mighty men shall be dismayed, O dwellers of the south land, in order that every man be cut off from the mountain of Esau by slaughter. Because of the violence of your brother Jacob, shame shall cover you, and you shall be cut off forever.” (Obadiah 1:8-10)

“And the house of Jacob shall be fire and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau shall become stubble, and they shall ignite them and consume them, and the house of Esau shall have no survivors, for the Lord has spoken.” (1:18)

Vayishlach: The Prevalence of Love

We continue in Vayishlach with our line of thought from Vayeitzei regarding angels as the epitomes of Love, also as the ways and means to life and the material world, as well as to our relationship with the Creator: “Jacob sent angels ahead of him to his brother Esau, to the land of Seir, the field of Edom.” (Genesis 32:4) because it is through Love that we conceive and approach everything, as the material manifestation of God's Love. This includes negative circumstances that challenge our determination to make goodness prevail in the midst of adversity. This also implies that we must take a practical approach to negative and potentially harming situations and people, as Jacob did when he met Esau twenty years after parting from each other at the verge of fatal confrontation. Esau, Seir and Edom are synonyms of the same emotional traits that make us act with a negative approach to material reality. These oppose the approach represented by Jacob's qualities.

The verse refers to Esau as a space (land, field) in consciousness that we must draw near with the best traits and qualities endowed with Love as our Essence and true identity. These are the angels as messengers which we also send to the Creator when we want to be close to Him. This land by definition is hostile to Love's attributes because it is a field of consciousness that does not discern, listen or understand according to intellect but to negative emotions, passion and instinct. As we said about Vayeitzei, there are Heaven and Earth as two apparent separate camps that are actually one, and Israel's mission is to unify them in our individual and collective consciousness. This is how we turn the material world into a place for the Divine Presence to dwell among (in) us.

When our ordeals or fears overwhelm us, we tend to feel divided and separated from the camp of God's Love: “(…) now I have become two camps. Now deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I am afraid of him, lest he come and strike me (…)” (32:11-12) because we feel abandoned in our doubts and uncertainties regarding the strength we need in order to make Love's ways prevail over the apparent power of ego's desires and illusions.

Ego does not have any power unless we provide it. Hence it depends on us to empower either aspect of consciousness toward the right purpose. We know quite well that our mission is not easy, and history reminds us this. Most of our ancestors failed or died in their endeavor to sanctify God's Name and to honor His will. We must understand that such mission carries difficult battles that start first within our individual consciousness.

We have to be not only willing but ready for a lengthy struggle to subdue the messenger of doom that our Sages call “the angel of Esau”. This battle eventually will be won, but victory also demands eternal vigilance to secure Love's attributes as the ruling means to redeem the material world from the darkness of ego's negative illusions.

We prevail in that struggle guided by the highest awareness of our connection to God's Love, which in return elevates us closer to Him. “And he [Esau's angel] said, 'your name shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel, because you have commanding power with [an angel of] God and with men, and you have prevailed'.” (32:29), “God said to him, 'Your name is Jacob. Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name.' And He named him Israel.” (35:10)

The name Israel is composed of one specific imperative quality complemented with God's will or submitted to Him. Either way, this name represents a unifying bond with the Creator. Jacob's prevailing determination to subdue the negative aspects of human consciousness -- represented by Esau's angel -- turns Jacob into a commanding and ruling power sustained by God.

Obscure translations define Israel as “the one who struggles with God”, based on the fact that Jacob fought with one of His angels. We must clarify that Israel's struggles are destined to fulfill God's will through His Commandments, in order to dissipate the negative aspects of our consciousness when we approach the material world. We fulfill God's will by emulating His attribute of abundant loving kindness (rav chesed) with which His Creation is sustained.

When we approach everything in time and space with His Love and ours, Love prevails: “And Esau ran toward him and embraced him, and he fell on his neck and kissed him, and they wept.” (33:4) Rashi quotes Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai saying that, in spite of the widely known belief that Esau hated Jacob, at that time his compassion was moved and he kissed him with all his heart, because Love always prevails. When we trust and honor Love as our true Essence and identity, we proclaim God's Love as His Glory that pervades His Creation: “There he [Israel] erected an altar, and he named it 'God is the God of Israel'.” (33:20)

Our Sages say that Jacob built this altar in gratitude to the Creator for saving his life during his encounter with Esau, which he considered a miracle because when His Love is manifest through our loving actions, all we experience moment to moment is a miracle: “Make Your face to shine upon Your servant; save me in Your loving kindness. (…) Blessed be the Lord, for He has shown me His wondrous loving kindness in an entrenched city [adversity].” (Psalms 31:17, 22)

Parshat Vayishlach: Our Redeemers from Darkness

The day arrives in which the two brothers meet after 20 years, and the opposite forces both represent are again face to face: “And Jacob sent (vayishlach) messengers before him to Esau his brother to the land of Seir, the field of Edom.” (Genesis 32:4).

It is evident that the man of peace who Jacob is chooses peace with his brother at any cost in order to avoid bloodshed. At this point there is a lot of debate among our Sages with the obvious questions. If Jacob has the reiterated blessing and protection from God's Love, why does he apparently doubt them? Why not colliding with his nemesis and destroy him once and for all, considering that Jacob has God's reaffirmed protection?

These questions must be directed to ourselves, not with the purpose of justifying Jacob's decision in this case but to understand the complexities of living in the realm of darkness with the mission to bring Light to it, and making sure to reveal the Light concealed in darkness. This is the disjunctive that Adam, Noah, and others could not resolve and failed in their endeavors.

Entering in the realm of ego's illusions is similar to penetrating a dark labyrinth with no light, and illusions are the only available references to deal with such mirage. In practical terms, it is like being trapped in desires that demand immediate satisfaction, and it seems to be no way to escape from them except by appeasing them with what they demand.

Jacob knows that goats, camels, donkeys and cattle, which represent our lower emotions and passions, are the main demands of ego's desires: “and took of that which he had with him a present for Esau his brother: two hundred she-goats and twenty he-goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, thirty milk camels and their colts, forty kine and ten bulls, twenty she-asses and ten foals. (32:14-16).

What if Esau's desires are from a different nature? What if in his innermost thoughts and feelings Esau yearns for his own redemption? After all, the prophecy is quite clear: “And redeemers will come up on the mount of Zion to judge [do justice to] the mount of Esau, and the kingdom [sovereignty] shall be the Lord's.” (Obadiah 1:21).

The Torah's account of events gives us the answers when we read that Jacob calls his brother “my master” and presents himself as his “servant”. Our Sages debate these definitions and conclude that Jacob would be punished for bowing to one who desecrates the Name of God with his contemptuous wickedness. Sages say that the eight times that Jacob called Esau "my master" represent eight kingdoms that later would subjugate the Land of Israel and the Israelites.

From this episode we learn that we must confront negativity in every way as the only resort to make Love prevail always. Jacob's attitude towards Esau is even more ironic after defeating the angel (of Esau) in a nightlong wrestling (Genesis 32:25-30). Jacob (Israel) proved in his long fight with the angel his total awareness and commitment to remove the barriers of darkness that don't allow the complete revelation of the Divine Presence in the material world.

As we have said many times, this is the mission of Israel: to create a place for God to dwell in this world, and that place is Love that created us and Love we must reveal by removing the negative aspects of human consciousness. These are the traits represented by Esau and his descendants, the “nations” that Israel must conquer and subdue in order to settle in the Promised Land.

This conquest and its wars are waged when Israel is in complete unity with the Creator through the unity of Love, because God's ways and attributes are the means to clear ego's negative illusions. Loving actions and good deeds are “redeemers that come up on the mount of Zion to do justice to the mount of Esau”, in order to fully proclaim the sovereignty of God in all dimensions of His Creation.

When we embrace God's ways and attributes as the only rulers and guides of all the levels, traits, aspects and facets (as the “nations”) of our consciousness, we fulfill His will as it is written: "Because the Kingdom is the Lord's, and He rules over the nations." (Psalms 22:28).

God's Love is waiting for us to claim His ways our true redeemers: “And when they cried to You in the time of their distress, You heard from Heaven, and according to Your great compassion You gave them redeemers who delivered them from the hand of their oppressors.” (Nehemiah 9:27), and when we realize this we will be completely aware that “The whole Earth is filled with His glory!” (Isaiah 6:3).

In this sense Jacob knows that he is not ready to confront Esau because he needs more time to elevate his character in order to become the Truth that he and his heirs represent: Love and Light to create a place in this world as the will of the Creator of all. Hence Jacob tells Esau: “(…) and I will move [at] my own slow pace, according to the pace of the work that is before me and according to the pace of the children [Jacob's descendants], until I come to my master, to Seir.” (Genesis 33:14), in order to fulfill the prophecy (Obadiah 1:21) as a Commandment.

In this context we can understand why Jacob called Esau his “master” because ultimately it is Israel's mission to redeem the “nations” (Esau and his descendants), so they all can recognize and praise God's Love as the true sovereign of His Creation: “That Your way may be known upon Earth, Your Redemption among all nations.” (Psalms 67:3).

Israel's confrontation with the perils and dangers of darkness continues in the parshah: “Jacob's two sons, Shimon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, each took his sword, and they came upon the city with confidence, and they slew every male.”, “Jacob's sons came upon the slain and plundered the city that had defiled their sister.” (Genesis 34:25, 27).

This time Israel's sons reacted with the radical approach their father didn't have with Esau. Even when dealing with idolaters who are slaves of their lower passions, the danger to become like them is always present: “Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him: 'Put away the strange gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your garments'.” (35:2).

Other sad events mentioned in this portion are the deaths of Rachel and Isaac.

The portion ends mentioning the generations of the descendants of Esau as a reminder that they represent not only the obstacles to fulfill Israel's mission but the chastisers always ready to strike when we dismiss Love's ways and attributes, and rather choose to follow ego's fantasies and illusions. If Jacob's decisions were indeed difficult in his times, it is also difficult for us to make the right choices now.

In every moment we have to make choices, and the main lesson the Torah teaches is to make them not only for our own individual benefit and convenience, but taking into consideration the collective benefit and well being of all concerned. That is one of the main attributes of Love, and also is one of its ways.