Facing our Fears - Tehila Gimpel: The Land of Israel Fellowship

hey everyone so this portion is so interesting Jacob is heading back to face off with Asa and meeting with the angel is such a strange worry in chapter 32 yaakov leaves Leman and eventually meets angels in this place called from there he sends Messengers and they come back with this warning ASAP is coming towards you with you know 400 caronies like gulp that does not sound good that sounds threatening so yaakov devides the camp he has these sort of two scenarios in his mind like on the one hand he's sending gifts hoping praying that things go peacefully on the other hand he's preparing for the worst if he has to fight he's dividing up the camp into two groups so that if one gets decimated God forbid the other one may be able to escape and then from verse 10 to verse 13 he's praying you know Hashem please help me and then in verse 14 it says he lodged there that night she has these two encampments and they go to sleep you know good night kids in Camp one good night kids in Camp two kisses everybody good night then he starts reviewing the gifts that he sent off you know and he's going over these gifts that he's sending to ASAP to try to appease him and look again how weird it is in verse 22 it says so the gifts passed on before him and he lodged that night in the camp meaning now he goes back to sleep for the second time it's saying that he's going to sleep to Lodge in the camp and he said his plan into motion should be a good night's sleep right good night everybody but then look what happens in verse 23 it says that he arose during that night he took his two wives and his two maidservants and his 11 children and he crossed via book so imagine how strange he just divided everyone into these two camps made this whole big deal out of it then he gathers everyone together wakes up in the middle of the night and starts crossing the river now wasn't the whole point of the dividing to protect them what is it urgent for yaakov to get up in the middle of the night and start Crossing him imagine him picking up each child in the pitch black darkness and crossing the river like okay tomorrow you can cross the river we're going towards you know this meeting with Ace of what is the rush in the middle of the night and who even crosses rivers in the middle of the night I mean it's so dangerous and then he starts moving all of his stuff it says that he starts moving all of his property across and then you know it's like you have to think about how how illogical this is you know in the night time you should be happy that there's this natural barrier a river between you and ASAP the nighttime is the most vulnerable time of night of day right so if ASAP came at least there would be a river slowing him down what is the rush to cross the river towards ASA and then Jacob gets everyone across and it says that he's left alone why is he left alone clearly his whole family is on one side of the river imagine how they're like waiting for him and then he's on the other side of the river he's alone why is he alone Rashi famously says that he went back to get his small dishes which is of course very strange like you're trying you're leaving your whole family alone the family you were so worried about what if ASAP shows up like you're going back because you forgot a few little dishes the you know it seems like he's leaving his family open to attack for these few little pots and pans the midrash says well the righteous are very careful with their property and they don't waste money but I mean really does that make sense he just gave curds and herds of livestock as gifts to ASAP in order to protect his family why would he put them at risk for a few little cups and dishes that you could just buy new ones tomorrow and then the story gets even crazier an angel suddenly starts wrestling with him and hurts him in the sciatic nerve and from then on it says we don't eat the sciatic nerve why is Hashem bothering him he seems to be doing exactly what Hashem has asked for him Hashem told him go meet with ASAP I'm going to protect you he's putting all of his Affairs and orders preparing for all types of you know eventualities that could happen in this meeting seeming to be a good father protecting his family why are you going after him even deeper of a question just why is this injury memorialized like what is so great is there something to be proud of why are we always not eating the sciatic nerve and all the animals that we'll ever eat like Israel never eats to say I don't know why you know in China we're known as the people who don't eat the sciatic nerve like that it became part of our identity so you know what the heck is going on here and then suddenly the angel thinks it's not important to keep fighting with him after the sun comes up like why does the sun coming up matter everything was driving me crazy and finally I learned this year the explanation of the Russian bomb Rabbi schmold been mayor the grandson of Rashi whose commentary on the tour we've discussed many times and he says something that after you read it you're like oh and then you don't even understand how it wasn't obvious to you to begin with like it seems like oh of course the way we always understand this is that in the middle of the night he gets up and he's crossing over towards his meeting with ASAP the response says no he was running away he planned to me days of he had this whole double plan of if we fight and if we make peace but feet he woke up in the middle of the night and he was too scared he tried to run away he wasn't giving up a natural barrier he was trying to create what he was trying to cross over the river and run in the opposite direction and the rush bomb doesn't only claim this he he pretty impressive proof in second Samuel chapter 17 there's one other time that the place mahanim is mentioned and it's in the context of David running away with AV Shalom and there are many linguistic parallels in that story and David also crosses the river right there and it says that he's in it's like this is Bible code for stories of running away when the book of Samuel is using this language repetitively it's to remind you of another story that he already assumes that you understand is the story of morning winning thing like oh yeah David is running away in the same way that yaka was running away and then when you read this you're like oh my gosh now this is all making sense all of a sudden all of our questions get answered he crossed the river because not to me you know when he was planning to meet ASAP he did all this stuff you know to to protect his Camp to divide his camp he's trying to sleep if you guys are insomnia any of you guys are insomniacs like me I hope you aren't but you'll know that like when you're in bed you start getting your anxieties and thinking about all the things that can go wrong he wakes up it's saying two times that he sleeps and wakes up right to show us that he's like not able to sleep he's not able to calm down and so what is he doing he wakes up and he do this I cannot face my brother I cannot face the past and he starts to run away and now it makes sense why does he go back and get these utensils who in their right mind would leave their family alone just to get some pots and pans less there covering up their Trail so that ASAP couldn't track him and it also explains this why is Hashem send a nation Angel Hashem is not sending an angel to bully him and bothering but to bother him Hashem is sending an angel to stop him because he had been commanded to go meet up with Asa when he was trying to run away he lost his courage so the angel is wrestling with him to stop him how does somebody hit the sciatic nerve which is in the back of your leg it's when you're in the direction of running away he's trying to run away he's trying to use the darkness to run away which is why when the sunlight comes out he can say like okay we're done because you can't run away in the sunlight asaph is approaching he's going to see you and there's such a deep message here it's like you know even the four our forefathers sometimes will want to run away you will want to sometimes run away from the things that you know you need to face that you know Hashem wants you to face and Hashem will send you all kinds of angels because our job in this world is to go through Corrections you're born with certain characteristics and your job in this life will be to fix them yaakov was named yaakov because he didn't face things correct directly he would always go round about his name means heal he always would run away he doesn't face his father and say you should bless me I deserve it he doesn't face ASAP and say this is why I did what he did he doesn't face love on each time he runs away he goes round about and what is the Torah saying to you you're going to run away but you're not going to be able to run away you're going to want to but you will end up limping if you do that because there are angels that will stop you and you know it's so interesting when you look at the sciatic nerve it's a nerve that goes down exactly to the heel he's damaged right in that place that's his name yaakov is damaged all the way down because like you will either fix those things that those shortcomings that you're born with or you will walk away limping and what's so great is when Jacob meets ASA you know it's so interesting he says when I see your face it's like seeing the face of Elohim and we know in many places that one of hashem's name is Elohim of course but also that the Torah sometimes use the word Elohim to mean Angels sometimes he uses it to mean like a judge or an important person I don't know what is the exact meaning here but sporno and Uncle loose and others say that it's like seeing a prince a minister a judge an important person that's the meaning here so you see when I see her face it's like I'm seeing a judge maybe that's the meaning because when you see a when he sees ASAP he's reminded of those places where he of those times in his life where he did not live up to his own standard that he knew he needed to live up with and what is less what is more scary and Less Pleasant than facing that mirror that is the true judge right like the most judge thing is to actually see the places where you fell short of your own values that you set forth for yourself it's so painful and you're going to want to run away from that and now you can understand why this is commemorated Forever by the Jewish people the name yaakov becomes Israel yaakov means heal I am damaging your heel you can't use it anymore you can't run away anymore that's what you've been doing but now you're going to change you're going to be Israel means to struggle you struggle face first you struggle directly and you swallow even the name is in future tense meaning yes you've struggled with me the angel but you're going to keep on struggling you're going to face your mission and your and your challenges in life forward on we're going to and we commemorate that forever because that's what we need to do as individuals and as a nation isn't it interesting there are only two Commandments that are eternally related to our forefathers and both of them relate to injuries one of them is avraham being circumcised and one of them is to not eat this sciatic nerve because of yaakov it's like two sides of the same coin Hashem tells Abraham you know this is going to be your mission and you need to do the circumcision and Abraham says like yes and he faces it no matter how painful it is he faces it voluntarily he faces it like face first and then yakub also gets a mission and he wants to run away and Hashem says no you're not going to be able to run away and he's damaged through that it's like to say you are going you know when we do a circumcision we say your true life will come from this Blood meaning what does that mean your real purpose in life is going to come from the pain and the struggles you're going to face pain and struggles our forefathers face pain and struggles and you're going to have the urge like yaakov to just wake up in the middle of the night and say I can't do this I'm going to run away and so forever we commemorate these two options as if to say like we know that there will be struggles and there will be pain are you going to face them covenantally are you going to face them with courage or are you going to try to run away because you are going to face them no matter what you will face you will see the face of Elohim you will see that reflection that judge of where you've fallen short are you going to face that courageously or not and I think that that might be one of the hidden messages of this very mysterious Torah portion with that I wish everybody a beautiful blessed and courageous week bye guys