By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel
CHULA VISTA, California — In New York, there was a fascinating news story the other day. On Nov. 29th, 2012, nobody got murdered or mugged in the streets of New York.
New York newspapers said this was very unusual. Now, Chicago is an altogether different kind of town.
Crime is a daily occurrence in many large cities.
Getting mugged in New York or LA is a common experience. Perhaps some of you have been mugged in the past.
But how many of you would ask your mugger to give you a blessing?
In this week’s Torah portion—that’s exactly what happened to Jacob—Jacob got mugged by an angel. He fights the angel all night long. Then he asks Jacob for a blessing before the break of dawn
What really happened here? Inquiring minds want to know!
Jewish philosophers and exegetes wonder: Was Jacob really mugged? The story seems so surreal; on the surface, while muggings occur all the time, receiving a blessing from an assailant is not something that occurs in wakeful consciousness.
However, such experiences occur routinely in dreams.
But what is a dream? What role do they play? According to Freud, dreams are the royal road to our unconscious. According to Jung, our dreams serve to guide us along our earthly path. The dream says something about the thoughts and feelings we suppress during the day. Our unconscious becomes liberated to speak its truth through the symbols of our dreams.
Our dreams say something about our aspirations, hopes, and fears.
From this perspective, Jacob has much to fear—and for good reason. He has been less than ethical with his father and his brother, who has an armed militia marching toward him.
Our dreams expose us and leave us naked to the truth we often try to conceal. Jacob has been lying to himself and others for over 22 years. The time has come for him to take ownership. God confronts Jacob in a dream.
In this dream, Jacob sees himself fighting someone who has superhuman strength; the assailant is ruthless and determined to win—at any cost.
One evening, Jacob encounters a strange angelic being who ruthlessly attacks him. The angelic assailant will stop at nothing to achieve his goal over Jacob: he even hits him in the kahunas, but Jacob fights on.
Finally, before the break of dawn, something strange happens. The assailant wants to leave before sunlight. Jacob refuses, unless he first gives him a blessing. The angel asks him a very important question:
What’s your name?
Jacob replies: Jacob
The angel says: Well you will now have a new name—Yisrael, one who fights with angels and men—one who wins!
How would Freud or Jung analyze this conversation?
Jung wrote about a similar incident. Once there was a woman who believed that she was superior to others. On one occasion, she went to an extravagant ball. The butler greeted her, and led her to a room. Suddenly, she found herself up to her waist in excrement. She wanted to know from Jung, what the message of her dream represented.
Jung thought to himself, “Even a blockhead could figure out this dream!” He told her that her façade of superiority was phony. She was living a dishonest life and failed to hold true to her higher ideals. It was time to change.
The same could be said about Jacob, for Jacob means “deceiver,” or “trickster.” When the angel asked him what his name was, he was really asking Jacob to get real for once in his life. It was then that Jacob confessed that he was a deceiver.
The angel told him, “You know, you really don’t have to cheat to get ahead. Instead of identifying as a trickster and charlatan, assume a new identity—the role of a fighter, one who fights honestly for and sometimes even with his God for what he wants!”
Thus, Israel was born.
The moral of this week’s parsha is wonderfully simple.
There is an art to fighting the inner enemy. The Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu (6thB5th century BCE.) and general expressed this idea well in The Art of War, (ch. 3, Axiom):
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
A Pogo comic strip said, “We have seen the enemy, and he is us.” We are oftentimes our own worst enemy. This applies to Jews, gentiles, Republicans and Democrats, Israelis and Palestinians and so on . . .
The path to blessing requires fearless honesty and a willingness to change.
And now you know the rest of the story.
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Rabbi Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista. He may be contacted at michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com