Thoughts on Vayishlach and Yud-Tet Kislev, 5760
Jonathan Baker

Before and After

Today is Yud-Tet Kislev, the anniversary of the release of the Baal haTanya,
the founder of Lubavitch, R' Shneiur Zalman of Liadi, from prison.  Upon 
his release, he issued a letter to his followers (included as Chapter
2 of the Igeret haKodesh section of Tanya).  This letter reminded them o
of the humility of Yaakov, as it says, (Gn 32) Katonti micol hachasadim...
I have become small because of all the mercies You (H') have done for me.
Noting (in line with Rashi) that Yaakov felt himself unworthy because
God had done all these things for him, that his merits shrink to
insignificance beside God's mercies, he warned his followers not to be
haughty in this, their hour of triumph, the vindication of Chassidus in
the eyes of the Czarist government.  I had a bit of trouble understanding
what he was getting at, so I looked a little deeper into this passage.

We have two main descriptions of Yaakov: one, that he was humble (i.e.,
katonti), two, that Yaakov ish tam yoshev ohalim he was a simple man,
dwelling in tents.  How do these fit together?  I submit that they
refer to different stages in Yaakov's development, an early and a late
stage.  This week's parsha is the turning point.

Until now, Yaakov has been driven by katonti, by katnut, by smallness.
What it smallness?  It's not just humility.  I see it as perceiving 
oneself as small, insignificant, worthless, meritless.  One who has
low self-esteem, who doesn't feel that his merits will suffice for God
to do what He has to for him.  He has insufficient faith in Hashem, so
he has to go and do everything for himself.  Is this what they call 
an inferiority complex?  I don't know.  At any rate, this is the period
of his life that we have so much trouble with.  He's afraid he won't be
born so he hangs on to Esav's heel.  He's afraid he won't be the real
successor to Yitzchak so he buys the bechorah (birthright) from Esav.
He's afraid he won't get the right blessing so he & his mother pull the
goat-hair over his father's eyes.  He deals cleverly with Lavan, beating
Lavan at his own duplicitous game.  Right in this parsha, he plans triple-
contingency style for meeing Esav, splitting his camp, providing gifts,
preparing appeasment speeches, always manipulating, always forcing
events to go into the true path by himself.  He doesn't trust his merits
to let God get him through - he has to manipulate people and events to
achieve the correct goals.

Then, at the last minute he hangs back.  He goes back to his old camp
on a flimsy pretext (to retrieve some bottles), almost as if he's expecting
something to happen.  He goes to sleep, and then he's wrestling the angel.

Who is the angel?  The Zohar (I:171a) tells us that it's Samael, the
guardian angel of Esav.  It is the representative of the Sitra Achra, the
Other Side.  All night, while the attribute of Judgement is ascendant, 
Yaakov cannot defeat the angel.  At dawn, when the attribute of Hesed,
lovingkindness, becomes the ruling power, Yaakov begins to win, the angel
pokes his thigh and pinches his nerve, yet Yaakov wins, and forces the 
angel to give him a blessing, certifying Yitzchak's blessing.  Yaakov
has fought the Other Side and won.  The angel gives him a new name, 
Yisrael.  The old name, Yaakov, connoted deceit, supplanting, and heel
(as in Esav's heel), and fit the old manipulative, insecure Yaakov.  The
new name connotes serarah, rulership, showing Yaakov to have his strength
from God - yeshar-El.  Yaakov has fought Esav, symbolic of his insecurity,
and won.

Robert Anton Wilson draws an image from Le Morte d'Arthur (Book 6, ch 15)
of Chapel Perilous, the life-transforming experience which one enters,
willingly, not knowing if he will live or die, in which one confronts
oneself and the Divine.  The fight with the angel is Yaakov's Chapel
Perilous, and it transforms him from the manipulative, insecure person
dominated by his humility, into the perfect, balanced, Tam, who can 
live in the tents, secure in his personal power and his relationship
with Hashem, able to delegate things to others knowing that they will
work out.  Avraham, too, was tam, as Hashem said, "hithalech lefanai
vehyeh tamim" (walk before Me and be perfect).

The angel has permanently marked him, his humility will
always be with him, but from now on it's balanced by knowledge of his
own strength.  He is balanced, the Ish Tam Yoshev Ohalim.  Now he can
manage his encounter with Shechem through his children, he can manage
his relationship with his children through each other (Yosef and the
brothers), he can manage to work through crises by using intermediaries
(the famine in Yosef's time) - he is secure in his own power, and can
lead by personality, from the tent, rather than having to do everything
himself.

What does this have to do with the Alter Rebbe's warning to his chasidim?
A statement of Chazal shows the way.  In Sotah 5b, they say, "a talmid
chacham must have one of eight of eighth of pride".  What does this 
mean?  The Rebbe of Lublin tells us it points to our verse: the eighth
parsha (Vayishlach), the eighth verse (Katonti): even when one is 
proud of one's accomplishments in Torah, one must preserve a sense of
humility, Katonti micol hachasadim: my Torah learning is not only of my
own doing, it is also from Your gifts, and I am rendered smaller, more
humble, because I recognize this.

Now we can understand the Alter Rebbe's warning.  Even now, at the hour
of Chassidus' great triumph, my release from prison, our vindication at
the hands of the government, remember, Katonti: it is not only your own
efforts that have gotten us this far, it is with Hashem's help.  So keep
that mark of humility in you always, so that you do not deal haughtily
with other Jews, be humble and gentle with them, don't let triumphalism
go to your heads.  Be like Yaakov, be tam, temper your triumph with
katonti.

Good shabbos.