Please Touch

I want to place before us two items, which at first wouldn’t seem to be connected with each other, but hopefully will emerge as related soon. The first is a Mel Brooks routine from his famous 2000 year old man series. In one sketch, the 2000 year old man reflects on the name “Ivan the Terrible.” Why was he called “Ivan the Terrible?” And, the 2000 year old man says, “It’s because he wasn’t hugged as a child.” If he had been hugged as a child, he would have probably been called “Ivan, the not so terrible.”

The second item is an experience I had in Israel on our 2009 trip. We visited a place in Israel called Na La’gaat, Please Touch. It’s a theater run by the deaf and the blind. And, in one of the experiences we had there, we were led into a dark room. It was so dark, you couldn’t see your own body. I remember feeling for a moment that I didn’t have one, because I couldn’t see it. I had to touch my own hand to reassure myself.

And, in this room, we sat at tables with clay and water, and we had to shape the clay into whatever we wanted, as we talked to each other. And, the point of this exercise was to give us some small sense of what it was like to be blind, what it would be like to have to rely on our other senses. And, it was a very moving experience to put ourselves in someone else’s place in that way.

In this week’s parasha, Jacob has both of these experiences. He has the experience of being hugged. And, he has the experience of putting himself in someone else’s place and knowing for a few moments what it would be like to be blind.

Our parasha opens with Jacob returning home after twenty years to confront his brother Esau. He is afraid of what his brother might do. Their last meeting had been an unpleasant one. Jacob had come to his almost blind father, he had disguised himself as Esau, and he had tricked his unwitting father Isaac into giving him the blessing that was intended for Esau. And, Esau was pretty angry about that.

Now, on the eve of his reunion with Esau, something strange happens to Jacob. A mysterious stranger attacks him in the middle of the night. Jacob wrestles with the stranger, and when the stranger cannot defeat Jacob, he tries to get away. But, Jacob holds on to him, and he says, I will not let you go until you bless me. And, the stranger blesses Jacob by changing his name to Yisrael/Israel, mighty prince or God wrestler or God rules.

Who is the stranger in this wrestling match? Some say it is Jacob himself, and Jacob is wrestling with his own conscience. Some say it is Esau, or virtual Esau. Some say it is God. The beauty of this story is that all of these things could be true at the same time.

I would like to add one more name to the mix. The stranger was Isaac, Jacob’s father. After all, who other than Isaac, holds the power to bless him? And, if the stranger is Isaac, what we have here is a beautiful role reversal. In the original story, Jacob becomes someone else, he becomes Esau, and his nearly blind father Isaac, cannot really tell who he is. He asks him: Who are you? What is your name? And, even as he touches him, embraces Jacob, Isaac is not really sure. He is in the dark.

In this new story, it is Jacob who is blind, and he cannot make out the identity of his assailant, even as he is embracing him. And, he asks this mystery man, “What is your name?” But, the stranger refuses to tell him. So, at this moment, Jacob begins to understand what it is like to be his father. He is in his father’s place. He can see the world as his father must have seen it. He empathizes, identifies with his father.

And, not only that. If the mysterious stranger is Isaac, this is the second time we have a story about Jacob being hugged by his father. And, maybe this is what he really wanted after all. When Rebecca tries to convince Jacob to disguise himself as Esau, Jacob says to his mother:
Oolai y’musheini avi
Maybe my father will feel me, maybe he will touch me
And, even though he can’t see very well, he will know that I am Jacob because I am smooth skinned, and my brother is a hairy guy.

But some of the commentators say the word “oolai’/maybe is different than the word pen/ ‘lest.’ If Jacob were afraid his father might touch him, he would have said “pen y’musheini avi’ - lest my father touch me. But, when he says, “ulai y’musheini avi” Jacob is saying the opposite. He is saying “Maybe my father will finally touch me.” I wish my father would touch me. Na la’gaat/Please touch. Maybe if I become more like my brother, my father will finally love me, my father will finally be close to me.

Maybe, says Jacob, if I can be more like my father, if I can show my father I really understand him, “I am just like you, Dad,” maybe my father will hug me like he hugs my brother. And, that would explain why Jacob holds on tight to this mysterious stranger in the night and doesn’t want to let him go. That seems like a very odd thing to do to someone who you perceive to be your adversary. But, it’s not so strange if that person is also your parent. Don’t we all struggle to be free of our parents, but yearn to stay their children at the same time?

One of the wonderful things about this story is that for a while, you can’t tell who is who. There are a lot of confusing pronouns. “Va’yar ki lo yachol lo”/when he saw he could not prevail. Who saw? Who is up and who is down? Who is the parent and who is the child? Growing up is confusing. We want to be the parent, but we also want to be the child.

In the original blessing scene, Isaac was old, and somewhat helpless, dependent on his children for food. There is a role reversal here. Don’t we often say when our parents get old that we feel as if we become their parents. And, as much as we fantasized about that role reversal as children, when it happens, we don’t like it. We want our parents to still be our parents. We want to be their children. We want them to take care of us.

Is that what’s going on here? Was Jacob forced to grow up too quickly, to assume the role of parent before he was ready? When he holds on tight to his father in the middle of the night, is he holding on in a panic, like a child on his first day of school, who doesn’t want to leave his parents’ embrace?

This is a growth moment for Jacob. For the first time, he imagines himself as his father. He puts himself in his father’s shoes. The moment of growing up is the moment we begin to identify with our parents, see the world as they do, take on their role. We all talk about the moment we hear ourselves saying things to our own children that our parents said to us. We hear our parents’ words coming out of our own mouths.

The key moment of this story is the moment that the stranger says to Jacob:
Shalcheini, ki ala ha’shachar/let me go, because the dawn is breaking
And, Jacob says, lo ashaleichach ki im beirachtani/I will not let you go until you bless me.

Leon Kass points out that to say ‘bless me’ is to admit our need. Tto admit that our happiness is in the hands of another is to admit our vulnerability. It’s to feel comfortable with not being completely in charge.

When does Jacob relax with his own vulnerability? When he is in charge, when he has the upper hand in this wrestling match. It’s when he’s in control that he feels comfortable conceding he is not in total control. He still needs the touch of another.

It’s at this moment that Jacob learns that it’s not either/or, in charge or needy, that it’s not a sign of weakness to need another human being. It’s precisely at this moment of strength/vulnerability, the moment Jacob sees himself as both parent and child, independent and in need - it’s just at this moment that Jacob becomes Yisrael. He acquires the new name that becomes our name, the name of the Jewish people.

Mel Brooks was right. Ivan would have been less terrible if he’d been hugged as a child. It takes strength to say ‘Na La’gaat’/Please touch. It takes courage to trust, to let down our guard, to love.

This is the lesson Jacob learns in the middle of the night. In trusting the darkness, in opening himself to the unknown of an intimate embrace, he wakes up, and finds himself blessed.