December 4th: Vayishlach
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
It is always interesting to me when the Torah gives a message twice. The Traditional attitude is that God is never redundant. If we are paying close attention to God’s communications—as we know we should (!), once is enough. Therefore, if God chooses to repeat a message, there must be a reason for it.
Modern scholars see such repetitions as clues to multiple authors and documents, and explain that the Torah is a composite document with different stories and rules—and sometimes, different versions of the same stories. These different documents—tribal traditions from different time periods—were at some point compiled and edited into what we know as the Torah. (See the Documentary Hypothesis.)
Tradition, however, always looks for editorial reasons why God, the presumed author of the Torah, chooses to give some messages more than once. One possible reason is that God wants emphasize the importance or immediacy of a revelation. In the case of Pharaoh’s double dream portending seven years of plenty and seven years of famine, Joseph explains: “As for Pharaoh having had the same dream twice, it means that the matter has been determined by God, and that God will soon carry it out.” (Genesis 41.32)
Another reason for such planned redundancy is the addition of Divine approval to a human action. In Toldot and Vayetze (our recent Torah portions), we have a double assignment of Jacob’s spiritual leadership. The first comes when Rebekah and Jacob fool old blind Isaac into giving Jacob the blessing intended for Esau. The second blessing/assignments comes in Jacob’s dream—with the Ladder between Heaven and Earth. As you may remember, God is at the top of the Ladder and tells Jacob: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring. Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants.” (Genesis 28.13-15)
The best reason I can see for this double blessing is to establish its legitimacy. Imagine the taint on Jacob’s leadership and spiritual authority if his blessing/assignment is given under false pretenses. Moreover, why should God be bound by a blessing given as a mistake—by an imperceptive and beguiled blesser? The fact that God now gives the blessing reinforces Jacob’s standing as the Patriarch—making it clear that Jacob is God’s choice to lead the new religion. (It also leads the Rabbis to reconfigure with Midrash the story so that Rebekah and Jacob are heroes who protect the religion from the profoundly unsuitable Esau.)
I see a similar pattern in this week’s double renaming of Jacob. He is first renamed Israel by the mysterious “man” with whom he wrestles through the night: “Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn,. When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for dawn is breaking.’ But he answered, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ Said the other, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘Jacob.’ Said he, ‘Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.’” (Genesis 32.25-29)
The story is compelling, but who is this “man,” and on what authority does he get to change Jacob’s name? Tradition says that he is an angel, but the mystery is not fully resolved. Perhaps this is why God reiterates the name change later in the portion. Well after the wrestling match, “God appeared to Jacob on his arrival from Paddan-aram, and God blessed him, saying, ‘You whose name is Jacob, you shall be called Jacob no more, but Israel shall be your name...I am El Shaddai.’” (Genesis 35.9-11) God wants readers of the Torah to know that the new name is of Divine origin—regardless of who the wrestler may be.
One other point in this portion: While most of us think of the name Deborah in terms of the famous judge and military leader in the Book of Judges, she is not the original Biblical Deborah. In Genesis 35, just before God declares the name change for Jacob, there is a small, almost out-of-context, detail: “Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and was buried under the oak below Bethel; so it was named Allon-bacuth / Oak of Crying.” (Genesis 35.8) We have not been introduced to this Deborah before, but, apparently she is part of the story—coming along with Rebekah from Paddan-aram when Rebekah is a young bride. The fact that she is described as a nurse and not a handmaid fuels a Midrash about Rebekah’s age when she gives water to Abraham’s servant and camels and is invited to marry Isaac. One figures that, since she gets water and welcomes the traveler—and seems to be of marriageable age, she is at least a teenager. However, through a Midrashic process, the Rabbis “reveal” that she is actually only three years old. Her perception, hospitality, and maturity indicate to Abraham’s servant that she is eminently qualified to be both a wife and Matriarch. But, as a three-year old, she needs her nurse—not a handmaid!—to accompany her, and thus we have Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, being a part of the household throughout Rebekah and Isaac’s marriage. One more thing, realizing that a three year-old is much too young for marriage, the Rabbis explain that Isaac waits many years—until Rebekah grows up—before living with her as man and wife. That is why (1) she stays in Sarah’s tent and not in Isaac’s, and (2) he is so old (60) when they have the twins, Esau and Jacob.
There is a whole world in the Bible, and we can learn from it every time we look carefully. As the Talmudic Sage Ben Bag-Bag explains, “Turn it and turn it for everything is in it. Reflect on it, and grow old and gray with it. Do not turn from it, for nothing is better than it.” (Pirke Avot 5.22)