Vayishlach, וַיִּשְׁלַח "And He Sent Out" Genesis 32:4-36:43

Vayishlach / Jacob's Return With Dinah 5783

Poetic notes on the parashat Vayishlach*

Jacob was in exile

His feet were mired in a foreign clay

They were not sparking life and faith with every step they took

upon their own covenant land,

as when he walked side by side with Abraham and Isaac

While Jacob was in exile,

it was as if the promised land was itself in exile

The whole land promised to Abraham

had been during that time

like a kingdom of Esau

But now Jacob was returning…

When he was running,

when he had reached the city of Luz his heart had turned

In his turmoil he was fleeing from his brother,

and he was somewhere in the northern borderland

when his soul turned back toward Jerusalem

His very life-breath needed to pray there

His force was like the force of a galaxy turning

And now he was re-turning from his Galut

Now his heart was turning away from exile itself

Now he was returning from the devilsh place of Laban

He was returning to the place

where the legs of the ladder from heaven

had come down to surround him

Jacob moved carefully on the wheels of the divine chariot,

His feet were like feet of bronze,

tearing away from the old, worn world

Like a hart dancing over hills,

he was going back to the eternal place

In a world where Adam’s transgression

had made the work of Divine Providence raw,

the ladder of the refined heavenly menorah light

had come down to meet Jacob

The covenant of Divine Providence was intimate with Jacob

It had wrapped him tightly in a cloud of divinity

When Jacob had stopped running and had turned around,

somewhere in the northern borderland,

the lost city of Luz was joined to the site of Jerusalem,

time was folded in upon itself from beginning to end

It had happened before he had crossed the river to Haran,

and before he had gone on to face Laban,

when his soul turned back

to pray at the site of Jerusalem

Iran from the end of time was folded back

into Haran from the beginning of time

All time was folded into Jacob’s time, Israel’s time,

when the city of Luz was folded back by the ladder of heaven

into the foundation stone of creation in Jerusalem

Before going on to meet Laban,

Jacob desired to come close to God on Mount Moriah,

where Isaac had been offered

In the twinkling of an eye

God had moved Mount Moriah north

to meet him at the city of Luz

And Jacob had been brought back to God’s Place

Drawing together, the legs of the ladder of light

had drawn together north and south to where west meets east,

to the place Jacob would call, Bethel

And now he was returning there for the rest of his eternal life

He was returning to Bethel, the House of God

He had met Laban and had defeated him

He had defeated the empire of Laban

and the empire of three beasts

and a fourth was under his foot

Finally, with the birth of Joseph,

the beast of the north,

whose heart beat in the chest of his brother Esau,

would be crushed beneath Jacob’s heel

He could finally return to the land of his promised home

He looked across the waters of the Jordan and saw the promised land

His faith split the waters and he was about to enter the land

His heart was burning like the sun

He had descended into exile weakened,

alone as one,

one man with his God

He rose up upon his return,

with expansive beauty and health,

graced with a tent of peace and love,

the flower of a nation budding from his side,

His God was carrying him like a newborn in his arms

on the winds of revelation,

on the wings of a covenant of eternal Geulah

What need had Jacob of angels?

What need did he have of sending angels to his ungodly brother?

Nevertheless, he sent angels

Jacob sent angels for the sake of Joseph,

for the sake of Leah,

for the sake of Dinah,

for the sake of all of his young household,

to explore how volatile Esau’s volcanic temper might still be?

Why go near at all to Esau?

Would Jacob not take precious Dinah straight to Bethel,

to Luz, the Almond Tree City of Life,

that hidden door to Mount Moriah?

Was not that the place of God,

the place of the light-ladder of angels?

Was not Bethel the place where a holy daughter should be?

It had been there that God had given His word to Jacob,

to bring Jacob back to that very place in safety,

that place with its legs in Luz and in eternal Jerusalem

It was there in the city of Luz Jacob would meld

hidden and revealed Jerusalem into one

For when God called and spoke to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob

He spoke to them of eternal life and redemption for Adam

Why, then, must this truth be protected and hidden like Dinah?

Why is the purity of this light still too blinding to this world?

Have faith, therefore, the revelation is increasing as it should

Jacob was on his way to return with his precious family,

so they together would become Bethel, the House of God

This Jacob had promised Hashem that he would do

He gave his word

And now his wives and sons, with his righteous daughter,

were with him, to help him keep his word

They were with him standing near the miraculous door

to the miraculous mountain of God

But he did not go directly there

Instead, he went by way of the south,

the southern border of the land

He went back south toward Hebron

He would stand eye to eye with his parents,

so that he could see perfectly through their eyes

in his ascent to Bethel,

the place of the vision of God

Jacob knew his covenant with God

was the mountain of Abraham and of Isaac

But Esau was a mountain of enmity with God

Esau still stood in his way, and would for a long time

Indeed, along the way

Jacob had already wrestled by himself with the Angel of Time

He had wrestled through the whole night of history

The night was long but Jacob was strong

The Angel of Time might have killed him,

but could not even touch him without permission

Near the dawn

he touched him and Jacob’s hip seemed gone

He did not give up his faith that God was with him

He kept his faith; his soul continued to fight

The Angel of Time could not defeat or kill him

Nothing he did could break Jacob’s power over time

The angel had to plead with Jacob to let him go

The long night of the history of time was almost over

Jacob knew that he had won

and demanded that the Angel of Time should bless him

"Now you are called Jacob," the angel said,

"In your victory you will be called Israel "

Jacob had passed his test

Now Jacob would test Esau

This began as soon as Jacob had crossed over the Jordan

Having divided his livestock into groups,

Jacob sent one after the other

to meet Esau and Esau's army

"This is a gift of appeasement,"

he told his servants to say to Esau

"For reconciliation, because God is our redeemer

Let this appease you for the pain and loss you suffered,

when God took away from you your natural birthright

and gave it to me, your brother"

Then Jacob brought his eyes face to face with Esau,

with his family spread out behind him

under the wings of different angel troups,

and with Dinah hidden from Esau’s sight

For Dinah personally carried with her the Shekinah

She had the strength of Joseph

She had the potential to condemn or reform Esau,

She could point him to a life of true repentance

But only if he had cultivated and prepared his heart

out of fear of the power she had

Dinah, the daughter of the righteous Leah, had this power

Esau had lost Leah,

because he lacked the faith to redeem her from Laban

And so it was Dinah whom Esau now desired to possess

But when Jacob approached,

Esau said, with the subtlety of a serpent,

"Who is this?"

As if Jacob was offering him Leah and her sons and daughter

as an appeasement

And Esau feigned even more and said,

"I have enough," as if to say,

You keep Leah and her sons, because he only wanted Dinah

He thought to frighten Jacob into giving Dinah to him

He desired to possess her by the force of his position and intimidation

Jacob understood that Esau

was full of subtlety and deceit with feigned civility and humility,

but was filled with violent arrogance towards him and his daughter

Jacob responded to Esau as if Esau had been speaking with honesty

about accepting Jacob's appeasement offering,

about his offering of the gift of livestock

and not about Leah and her sons,

and not about Dinah

Jacob insisted that Esau receive the actual gift he offered

And so Esau did this, rather than that his true intentions be exposed

And so, in this transaction,

Esau formally accepted that his having sold his birthright to Jacob

was a settled legal matter and irrevocable

And so Esau also formally accepted that Jacob had deserved

the blessing of the firstborn from their father

It was settled

But then Esau immediately followed up

by betraying covertly his true intentions to Jacob,

by offering for his army to escort Jacob and his family

to where he, Esau, lived in Seir

The pretence was protection, but it was a protection racket

Esau still thought to require Dinah as his payment for protection

In the end, Esau was not appeased at all

He would be appeased only if his teeth could find Jacob’s neck

Jacob was not deceived

Desiring to keep Dinah far from Esau's lust,

he kept her within the safety of the divine covenant of his return

He had entered through Isaac’s home in Hebron to the south,

But Esau ambushed him there

But now he convinced Esau

that he would follow him to Esau's place in Seir

But as soon as Esau had set forth,

Jacob abruptly turned north

And so it was that Jacob turned away from Esau,

taking Dinah as far away from Esau as possible

It was in this way that the family of Jacob came to Shechem

Over the long years, while Jacob had been in exile,

the whole land had become a corrupt territory of Esau

Instead of the Canaanites being tempered

by the goodness of Abraham and Isaac,

they had been emboldened to be arrogant,

their sins becoming ever more demonic,

with their philosophy justifying violence,

due to the protection racket of Esau in all the land

When Jacob camped near the house of Shechem,

the worm of Esau's lies and envy toward Jacob

had already been planted in Shechem's ear

That worm would live in the ear of all the rulers of Canaan

When the prince of Shechem saw Dinah

and that the Shechinah was with her,

Esau’s shadow soul grew within him

He desired to take Dinah by force and marry her

He felt a lust for the innocent beauty of Dinah,

a lust to conquer the glory of the Shechinah,

to establish a Canaanite kingdom of Edom

Then he took her by force

And he came to Jacob claiming the right to marry his daughter

Then Dinah's brothers by pretence

came and defended her honour,

ending with the sword the prince of Shechem and all that was his

But to Dinah her honour needed no defence

for she received her honour

from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

who were as one father of faith to her,

and from Sarah, Rebekah, Leah and Rachel,

who were as one mother of faith to her

Her honour could never be violated by force

And Jacob said to his sons,

You have dishonoured me!

Then Jacob provided for Dinah to be concealed in Luz

until such time that Esau would be judged

After this Rebekah's nurse died

and was buried beneath the Oak of Weeping

This is where God said to Jacob,

"You are Israel, I am El Shaddai,"

For Hashem is the God of abundant provision

And He said to Israel,

"Be fertile and multiply abundantly"

This is where Jacob anointed the pillar, the stone of promise,

the promise that God will redeem all the seed of Abraham

in the day of the resurrection of Israel in Bethel

But then Rachel, having died in labour, began weeping,

just as she had cried out in pain, "Benoni, Son of My Suffering"

even while Jacob had taken his son into his arms

and had said, "Benjamin, Son of My Right Arm"

For Jacob spoke with faith in the promise of the world to come

For when God called and spoke to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob,

He spoke to them of eternal life and a redemption for Adam

Why, then, is this light carefully hidden

and carefully revealed, like Dinah?

Why is the purity of this light still too blinding to this world?

A child overcome by panic must be corrected gently and carefully

In that day there shall be no Canaanite or Edomite in the land

Have faith, therefore, the revelation is increasing as it should

But through the righteous merit of Dinah

a remnant of the seed of Edom shall be preserved

and shall belong to Israel

Dinah and Rebekah shall be locked in embrace,

and Dinah and Rebekah's nurse, the gentile,

shall sit in the circle of mothers with Rebekah in Bethel

Their circle shall surround the garden of the Tree of Life,

and Bethel shall be found everywhere in Jerusalem,

and Jerusalem shall be found everywhere in the Holy Land

And the nations of the earth

shall come to the circle of mothers in Bethel,

to receive the healing of all wounds suffered by their souls

And the knowledge of Hashem shall fill the earth

as the waters fill all the oceans and seas