His first attempt to overcome this obstacle was to play the innocent:
He sent messengers to Esav and commanded them to tell him:
I have sojourned with Lavan and have tarried until now.
Ox and donkey, sheep and servant and maid have become mine.
I have sent to tell my lord, to find favor in your eyes.

But the messengers return and tell him
that Esav was already on his way to meet him
"and four hundred men are with him".

It's not said, that these men were armed,
or that Esav had hostile intentions.
But fear is rarely concerned with facts.
And fear was, what took a grip of Heal-Sneak.
'Ya'aqov became exceedingly afraid and distressed.'.

So what does the chosen one do?
First he uses a simple technique of minimizing the threaded assault:
He divides people and animals into two camps, "saying to himself,
should Esav come against the one camp and strike it,
the camp this is left will escape."
Then he addresses his God with the most perfect of manipulations,
similar to the way Ester , for instance , pleaded with a human king.
But ~~~~ there was ~~~~ no answer.
It was night.
Night ~~~~ Dawn ~~~~ Sunrise
will illuminate the stages of Ya'aqov's wrestling with himself..

This silence on God's part is in contrast to Ya'aqov's usual experience.
God is always "with" him,
never reproaching or blaming, leave alone punishing.
It IS YHWH='EHYEH 'IMAKH'="I will be-there with you"! (Ex 3:12.14]
Ya'aqov/Israel must learn to take responsibility for their lives.
No God can do this for them.
But he is the solidary God, who is with his human aspects always,
be it in suffering and be it in sin.
My PH.D. thesis was guided to reveal and understand this.

In order to do this
"Heal-Sneak" combines four manipulations with ~~~ a change of attitude!
The manipulations:
he humbles himself [your servant],
he demonstrates his power [herd after herd},
he sends gift after gift,
he indirectlyly reminds Esav, that they are brothers.

To see the tricks, I imagine myself to be Esav.
I travel with my 400 men through the desert.
Suddenly a herd of goats crosses my path, with some men behind them.
I ask them, who they are and where they are heading.
They tell me, what they tell me and I tell them: "go to hell!
Just let me meet your fine Ya'aqov and you'll see, how he'll finally pay!"
I pass along, and another herd, this time he-goats, comes my way.
The men say the same rubbish, that's "a gift" for me from my "servant" Ya'aqov.
"Fuck off", I yell at them and threaten again.
But lo, there comes a third herd, and then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, a seventh,
how often can I refuse a gift? I must admit, that my anger is melting!
Yes, that I start to feel some longing for this guy. He is my twin-brother, after all!
And what's more: this brother-enemy of mine seems to be a rich and powerful man!
I better be cautious and pretend, that I, too, come as a friend!
[In the 1948 war between the fledgling Jewish State and 7 Arab armies,
a ridiculous firing canon, called Davidka, was moved from one station to the other,
to make the enemy believe, that the Jews had lots and lots of canons and weaponry.]

Then he said;
Let us travel on, and I will go on at your side.
But he said to him;
My lord knows
that the children are frail,
and the sheep and the oxen are suckling in my care;
if we were to push them for a single day, all the animals would die!
Please, let my lord cross-over ahead of his servant,
while as for me, I will travel slowly
at the pace of the gear ahead of me and at the pace of the children,
until I come to my lord, at Se'ir.
Esav said;
Please, let me leave with you some of the people who are mine.
But he said;
For what reason?
May I only find favor in my lord's eyes!
So Esav started back that same day on his journey to Se'ir,
while Ya'aqov traveled to Succot.
[Gn 33:12-17]

"Jacob Wrestling with the Angel provides us with one of the strongest images in the show.
A red outlined figure is seen flying from the top of the canvas
catching the stooped figure of Jacob as he trudges towards the right edge.
The horizon is barely noted by a succession of white dots.
They evoke spots of light, perhaps the sunrise,
that also catches the angel's upper leg still attached to the heavenly spheres.
Jacob, bordered by a dark gray line, is oppressed and bent over
but still striving onward as the verse says,
"…but Israel, for you have striven with the Divine and with man and have overcome" (Gn 32:29).
This simple composition imagines the angel tackling our patriarch
as he journeys toward the fateful meeting with his brother Esav.
Bradford does more than just reflect the text.

"He interprets it instructively telling us
how this struggle with the Divine confronts us over and over again
as we stride down life's roadway.
The struggle helps shape and define our personalities
to better prepare us for the conflicts that await us.
The spare form of the purplish gray ground defines the twilight just before the dawn.
It is here that we metaphorically conduct our life
until a red flash of Divine struggle interrupts our lives."

From "Tru'ah"

Jacob the Immigrant

A D’var Torah for Parshat Toldot by Rabbi Seth Wax, Congregation Mt. Sinai, Brooklyn, NY

On October 5, supporters of immigration reform staged rallies in cities across the United States to advocate for a comprehensive overhaul of a system that routinely disregards basic dignity and respect. After Shabbat services that week, some congregants and I attended the New York-area rally on Cadman Plaza, just steps from our shul. When we arrived, we saw over a thousand people from different organizations holding banners and signs, playing instruments, and representing a myriad of political interest and ethnic groups. Too often, the immigration issue is caricatured by opponents of reform as a largely Latino issue, leading to the possibility of seeing it as a monochromatic issue. And while the October 5 rally certainly attracted many people of Latino descent, there was also a significant presence of people of Asian and African descent, and even a few Jews. This points, I believe, to an aspect of the immigration debate that can sometimes be over looked amidst the struggle to change federal policy and to outmaneuver opponents: many people with incredibly diverse backgrounds are impacted by the flaws in our current immigration system, and their individual stories, family history, and motivations for coming to this country should always play a role in our debates. It is the stories of people who come to this country fleeing violence, seeking a better place to live and support their families, or for greater opportunities that remind us of the need for true immigration reform.

At the end of Parshat Toldot, Jacob has taken his father's blessing from his older brother, Esau, with a ruse at the urging of his mother, Rebecca. When Esau discovers the blessing has been taken by his sibling, he plots to kill him in revenge. Upon learning this, Rebecca warns Jacob to flee to Haran, to stay with her brother, Laban. She suggests that he stay with him for a few days – yamim achadim – until the fury of his brother subsides (Gen. 27:44). As we well know, these “few days” at first last seven years before extending to twenty – a significant period of time. And although Jacob meets his beloved Rachel and marries not only her but her sister Leah, giving rise to a large family, the stated intention behind Jacob's migration to Haran was to wait until his brother's temper abated, that he forget what was done, and that Isaac send for him again. Jacob is thus a refugee, a migrant, with a complex story. Fleeing danger at home for obeying his mother (and seemingly fulfilling a divinely ordained plan), Jacob creates a new life for himself in a new land, bringing his experience and expertise, enriching his extended family, his new land, and himself. ....