Jewish academic and Hebrew scholar Irene Lancaster reflects on Jordan Peterson’s recent book and the story of Jacob and Esau.
Last Shabbat was windy, very windy – more like a gale really. I made a decision to remain in. Very early the bell rang. This is most unusual for Shabbat and I believed it may be a fallen tree just like the previous time, from round the corner, which had landed in my drive, also on Shabbat.
Thinking it an emergency I rushed downstairs and opened the door, to see no-one but a big package triple-wrapped a minimum of.
Later, twenty minutes were spent attempting to unpack all of the covers, when, finally, there it was, essentially the most beautiful book you may ever set eyes on, embossed in blue and gold with the words ‘Autographed Copy’. I could not consider it.
Author, Jordan Peterson, had sent me a signed copy of his latest book, based on a paraphrase of the outline of our ancestor Jacob/Israel: We who wrestle with G-d: Perceptions of the Divine.
The reason for my elation was nevertheless that the book and its title had arrived just in time for the Torah reading of ‘Vayishlach’, which incorporates such gems as Jacob and his ladder and the encounter between Jacob and the Angel ( or was it actually a person), depicted within the very title of the book.
This Vayishlach reading, which encompasses Genesis 32:4 – 36:43, is accompanied by the Haftorah reading of the prophet Obadiah with its famous passage of Jacob’s twin brother Esau’s everlasting perfidy towards the Jewish people.
Peterson’s book itself was published a number of weeks ago in November and, even before that date, negative reviews had are available in thick and fast. These tell us more though in regards to the reviewers than in regards to the book itself. Naturally, Jewish reception has been overwhelmingly positive.
So what does Peterson should say in regards to the Torah portion?
In a nutshell, our hero Jacob has been tricked by Laban into working 20 years for him and marries his daughters, Leah and Rachel. He leaves Haran and sends emissaries to brother Esau, whose birthright he had stolen through deception, within the hopes of reconciliation. But he’s told that Esau is on the warpath with 400 armed men. Jacob prepares for war, prays and sends expensive gifts of livestock to Esau as a bribe. That night, Jacob ferries his family and possessions across the Jabbock River.
He nevertheless stays behind and encounters the Angel that embodies the spirit of Esau with whom he ‘wrestles’ till daybreak. Jacob suffers a dislocated hip, but vanquishes the supernal creature who bestows on him the name ‘Israel’. Israel means ‘he who prevails over the divine.’
Later, Jacob and Esau meet, embrace and kiss, but then part company. The accompanying Haftorah of Obadiah will depict Esau’s real feelings for his brother.
People have spent hundreds of years interpreting this encounter between Jacob and this strange being. Was he man, or more?
Rashi, our first major, and definitely most read, biblical exegete (1040-1105), states that ‘wrestle’ comes from the Hebrew for ‘dust’, which the 2 antagonists raised up with their feet during their fight. However ‘wrestle’ in Aramaic also means ‘intertwine’ or ‘connect’, and that is the interpretation Rashi himself prefers.
So what is that this physical ‘wrestling’ exactly? Did animosity turn into love? Could this be possible? Did Esau acknowledge that Jacob’s role was now not to deceive, depicted by the name ‘Jacob’, but relatively that he would now live a lifetime of struggle and sacrifice, becoming the ‘Israel’ of real life as we understand it?
This is definitely how essentially the most Jewishly aware painter, Rembrandt, interpreted the scene in his famous painting of 1659, accomplished three years after the Jews were allowed back to England by Oliver Cromwell, largely resulting from the efforts of fellow Dutchman, Manasseh ben Yisrael, who petitioned Cromwell unceasingly.
In Rembrandt’s painting, Esau’s Angel is depicted in white. Placed higher on the canvas than Jacob, Esau’s Angel is more just like the Divine Presence. It is that this former enemy, now himself transformed, who renames Jacob ‘Israel’ – ‘he who prevails over the divine’.
So what does Jordan should say about this passage on pages 292-3 of his book?
‘On the sting of his homeland – on the very border between who he’s now and who he was; on the verge of facing all the results of who he was – Jacob wrestles with G-d, as all of us do after we face essentially the most difficult of selections.’
‘… The wrestling partner contending with Jacob is first presented as a person, but later revealed as G-d….And who’re the truly chosen people, based on this account? All those that wrestle with G-d truthfully and forthright and prevail…. He … faces his estranged brother, atones for his past, and makes a productive and united peace…’
‘This agonizing decision transforms him so completely that … he now has a recent identity, a recent name, he’s now Israel, he who wrestles with G-d.’
Utilizing the insights of recent psychology, Jordan has written an appreciation of the story of our Jewish patriarchs in a method relevant for the broken West of the second quarter of the twenty first century and thus revived them for a far wider readership.
Israel itself has been battered and bruised this last 12 months, but is rarely defeated.
For like our patriarch Jacob who eventually became Israel and in so doing found his real self, the country of Israel has countless times been resurrected and rebuilt out of the dust and ashes of millennia of envy and hate.
No more nevertheless will Jacob/Israel be mistreated and despised and this book shows us easy methods to set in regards to the difficult task of transcending suffering and becoming our higher selves.
So I like to recommend this difficult but empathic book as a present for Chanukah/Christmas, seeing as this 12 months the 2 religious festivals coincide.
Mazal tov to Jordan Peterson on his achievement on this 12 months of turmoil for Israel. Interestingly, ‘We who Wrestle with G-d’ is already number one on the Amazon best seller list.
Truly well deserved.
