By Emily Rogal
Jacob is just like, on his A-game because it seems like he’s winning, and all of a sudden, this ‘man’ “wrenched Jacob’s hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained” (Genesis 32:26). The man, who the rabbis pretty much all agree is an angel or something of divine nature (which makes the whole thing a little more messed up if you ask me), tells Jacob that he has to go “for dawn is breaking” (Genesis 32:27). Jacob refuses to let him go until this angel blesses him...despite the fact that literally five minutes ago, this guy was beating him to a bloody pulp. And the angel replies, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob but Yisrael for you have struggled with beings, divine and human, and have prevailed” (Genesis 32:28).
And that’s it. Jacob wrestles with what we’re told is some sort of angelic being, engages in conversation with said being, and then when I may have thrown an extra punch, Jacob asks for a blessing and rather than this person’s insurance information or something. And then, Jacob returns to his family lumping. For better or worse, this strange encounter has marked Jacob in both a physical and spiritual way. As I was reading this text, over and over again and attempting to find meaning in it, I realized that what I connected to the most was the seemingly instantaneous happening of something equal parts random and devastating, and realizing that you’ve been marked by an event and after the initial event has finished, when the sun rises, you are left with the broken pieces to stitch together.
This forced me to think about the times in my life where I have felt alone on the riverbank, attacked by something that I had no control over. I want to challenge us to think about what it means in our own lives to wrestle with something until daybreak, to feel as though you are fighting a battle with every fiber of your being. Just over a year ago, I lost my 17-year-old best friend in a car accident.
When I was delivered with the news of her passing, I felt just as Jacob must have felt: scared and alone, separated and changed. I was marked by this horrifying event, and I didn’t even have a choice in it. Like my lousy appendix that had to come out, this was an event that was marked within my skin. Not in a physical scar, but a phantom pain of sorts that I felt when her name flashed across my Facebook friends list or when I would see a lipstick stained cigarette, or smell a bonfire or hear a Frank Sinatra song, and I would be taken back to that vulnerable place all over again.
And sometimes, it feels like we never leave the riverbank, the place of vulnerability. How are we supposed to heal when we are constantly bombarded by things that threaten to tear us apart at the seams? I am hurt and scarred by the social and racial injustice in the world. I am scarred by the pain of my loved ones, I am scarred by the sheer amount of work that needs to be done in this world. The question then becomes, where does healing come from? When does that process start? But how can we heal, when sometimes it feels as though we experience heartache continuously?
I think the answer comes from this story. I have this vivid image of Jacob grabbing the angel by the collar, dragging his enemy towards him, ferocious and angry and hurt and enlivened by the pain in his hip, and saying, “I need a blessing. I refuse to let this pain be inflicted upon me for no reason. I will accept this pain graciously but I will let it change me.” The very act of struggling, of being marked, is what is divine within the story. Not divine in the sense of a chorus of angels or even God, but realizing that at some point, healing will come. That at some point, you will be okay.