Post by Rabbi Neil on Jan 3, 2020 22:22:34 GMT
In this week’s sidrah of Vayishlach, Jacob struggles with God and is renamed Yisrael, meaning He Struggled With God. Being part of Israel means struggling with God. Certainly in Jewish history there have been many widely differing perspectives on God from, for example, Philo to Maimonides to Spinoza to Buber with many others in between. I have often focussed on this struggle but this Shabbat I want to focus on another aspect of the narrative. “vayikra ya’akov shem hamaqom p’niel, ki ra’iti elohim panim el panim v’tinatzel nafshi – Jacob named the place Peniel, meaning “I have seen God face to face yet my life has been preserved.”
What does it mean to see God face to face? Some modern translations suggest Divine being instead of God but El really is God. Jacob fights God and then afterwards acknowledges that he has seen God face to face. What does this mean? On a simple reading, it suggests that God walks amongst us, can be represented physically. Certainly, there are many texts in Torah which describe God using anthropomorphic terms – that is, terms which describe God in human terms – God’s hand, God walks, God wrestles, God visits and so on. Later Rabbinic commentary abhorred the possibility that this could be taken literally, even though it is possible that was the original intent of the text.
Rabbinic commentary describes a relationship. Wrestling with God means having a particularly challenging relationship with God. Describing God with physical attributes is a way of acknowledging that God is in some sense like us but only in ways that words cannot properly describe, which is why we have to use imperfect metaphors of God seeing, speaking and doing. So, what kind of relationship is it to see God face to face? There are two possibilities. The first is an adversarial relationship. That would certainly make sense in this context given that Jacob and God have just wrestled. This could be a relationship of confrontation, of eyeing each other up, a relationship, therefore, of distrust. If so, though, why would Jacob celebrate it and name a place after it? Surely it makes more sense to assume a second possible meaning of face-to-face, which is an intimate relationship, eye to eye almost to kiss rather than to fight. After the struggle, the text seems to say, comes the resolution. After baring his soul, after wrestling with God, Jacob is now ready to recognise God, to encounter God closely.
Jacob is certainly an interesting character theologically speaking. Only last week, we read of him dreaming of a ladder and realising that God was in that place but he did not know. Now he’s moved from that lack of awareness to an intimate relationship. He develops theologically. This is perhaps where Jacob is an important ancestor, because his relationship with God develops essentially from lack of awareness to struggle to acceptance. He goes through a theological journey. It’s very easy for us to just focus on the struggle but that struggle surely takes place within the context of the realisation of God. I’m not saying that Jacob didn’t believe in God beforehand but, rather, he came to a new realisation of God, realised that God was in that place too, then not long after encountered a spiritual crisis and resolved it.
What was that spiritual crisis? I wonder if it has something to do with conflict. It’s all very easy for God to be fluffy and good. God who heals the sick, God who lifts up those bent low, God who opens the eyes of the blind. God who gives us the gift of the miracle of life for which we can be thankful every day. God who creates wondrous bodies such as ours that allow us to stand before God in prayer. That’s a great image of God. That kind of God helps us get out of bed in the morning, that kind of God helps us remember during bad times that there is Someone there for us, to comfort us, to guide us, to lead us through. But that’s not entirely the God of the Bible. God can be kind, comforting and caring, but God is also avenging, angry and absolute. Rabbinic commentary tried to sanitise the Biblical version of God. Where Isaiah said that God “makes peace and creates evil,” the Rabbis changed that line in the liturgy to God who “makes peace and creates all,” a line we recite in the Yotzer morning prayer. God who creates evil? That’s something to struggle with.
And perhaps that’s what Jacob struggles with. In the run-up to meeting his brother, he’s afraid, he knows he may face death. He struggles not with God but with the thought that God may not be there to protect him always. He struggles with the knowledge that God isn’t necessarily going to ensure that everything is hunky-dory in the end! God is not our slave who does whatever we want whenever we ask. Maybe struggling with God means that he realises that you can’t force God into ensuring everything ends well for you, which is why he’s given a limp at the end so as to say “It might not end well and that, too, can be a moment with God, an expression of God.”
Does Jacob go through a journey of realising that God and evil can and do co-exist, then struggling with that knowledge and then reconciling himself with that knowledge? If so, does he become a paradigm for a religious journey that we all must undertake? When we’re introduced to God as children, we’re introduced to a God who is more parental, who guides and nurtures us, who protects us from all harm. But as we grow, we learn that our parents aren’t able to always protect us, that we’re responsible for our own actions. At that point we rebel, we fight our parents, we struggle. And then after that struggle we learn to look at our parents anew, we learn to meet them face to face, to sometimes argue and express our independence and sometimes face to face in order to embrace them. Perhaps it is the same with God. Perhaps we all grow from a child-like perception of God, not realising that God is in this place, and this place, and this place, to a realisation that while we always have a responsibility to God we must exercise that responsibility according to our free will based on God’s expectations. Sometimes we will fight against those expectations, sometimes we will embrace them. We move from robotic dependency to relationship, to something much deeper and more profound, something more nuanced, more challenging and thus more rewarding.
When Jacob names the place Peniel – face of God – then, he’s acknowledging a new relationship with God. He invites us to engage in the same process of assessment, struggle and acceptance. He urges us to consider our own personal theology and to engage in a dialogue with ourselves and with God. He asks us to try to find God anew – to remember that God is in this place, too, even if we did not know it. If God is in this place and we did not know it, then perhaps we need to consider exactly what God’s face looks like – in a way that far transcends anthropomorphism – so that we can see God face to face and truly live. May we, then, go on a journey that involves theological struggle so that, limp or not, we may come to see that God is in this place, too, and that we truly know it. And let us say, Amen.
What does it mean to see God face to face? Some modern translations suggest Divine being instead of God but El really is God. Jacob fights God and then afterwards acknowledges that he has seen God face to face. What does this mean? On a simple reading, it suggests that God walks amongst us, can be represented physically. Certainly, there are many texts in Torah which describe God using anthropomorphic terms – that is, terms which describe God in human terms – God’s hand, God walks, God wrestles, God visits and so on. Later Rabbinic commentary abhorred the possibility that this could be taken literally, even though it is possible that was the original intent of the text.
Rabbinic commentary describes a relationship. Wrestling with God means having a particularly challenging relationship with God. Describing God with physical attributes is a way of acknowledging that God is in some sense like us but only in ways that words cannot properly describe, which is why we have to use imperfect metaphors of God seeing, speaking and doing. So, what kind of relationship is it to see God face to face? There are two possibilities. The first is an adversarial relationship. That would certainly make sense in this context given that Jacob and God have just wrestled. This could be a relationship of confrontation, of eyeing each other up, a relationship, therefore, of distrust. If so, though, why would Jacob celebrate it and name a place after it? Surely it makes more sense to assume a second possible meaning of face-to-face, which is an intimate relationship, eye to eye almost to kiss rather than to fight. After the struggle, the text seems to say, comes the resolution. After baring his soul, after wrestling with God, Jacob is now ready to recognise God, to encounter God closely.
Jacob is certainly an interesting character theologically speaking. Only last week, we read of him dreaming of a ladder and realising that God was in that place but he did not know. Now he’s moved from that lack of awareness to an intimate relationship. He develops theologically. This is perhaps where Jacob is an important ancestor, because his relationship with God develops essentially from lack of awareness to struggle to acceptance. He goes through a theological journey. It’s very easy for us to just focus on the struggle but that struggle surely takes place within the context of the realisation of God. I’m not saying that Jacob didn’t believe in God beforehand but, rather, he came to a new realisation of God, realised that God was in that place too, then not long after encountered a spiritual crisis and resolved it.
What was that spiritual crisis? I wonder if it has something to do with conflict. It’s all very easy for God to be fluffy and good. God who heals the sick, God who lifts up those bent low, God who opens the eyes of the blind. God who gives us the gift of the miracle of life for which we can be thankful every day. God who creates wondrous bodies such as ours that allow us to stand before God in prayer. That’s a great image of God. That kind of God helps us get out of bed in the morning, that kind of God helps us remember during bad times that there is Someone there for us, to comfort us, to guide us, to lead us through. But that’s not entirely the God of the Bible. God can be kind, comforting and caring, but God is also avenging, angry and absolute. Rabbinic commentary tried to sanitise the Biblical version of God. Where Isaiah said that God “makes peace and creates evil,” the Rabbis changed that line in the liturgy to God who “makes peace and creates all,” a line we recite in the Yotzer morning prayer. God who creates evil? That’s something to struggle with.
And perhaps that’s what Jacob struggles with. In the run-up to meeting his brother, he’s afraid, he knows he may face death. He struggles not with God but with the thought that God may not be there to protect him always. He struggles with the knowledge that God isn’t necessarily going to ensure that everything is hunky-dory in the end! God is not our slave who does whatever we want whenever we ask. Maybe struggling with God means that he realises that you can’t force God into ensuring everything ends well for you, which is why he’s given a limp at the end so as to say “It might not end well and that, too, can be a moment with God, an expression of God.”
Does Jacob go through a journey of realising that God and evil can and do co-exist, then struggling with that knowledge and then reconciling himself with that knowledge? If so, does he become a paradigm for a religious journey that we all must undertake? When we’re introduced to God as children, we’re introduced to a God who is more parental, who guides and nurtures us, who protects us from all harm. But as we grow, we learn that our parents aren’t able to always protect us, that we’re responsible for our own actions. At that point we rebel, we fight our parents, we struggle. And then after that struggle we learn to look at our parents anew, we learn to meet them face to face, to sometimes argue and express our independence and sometimes face to face in order to embrace them. Perhaps it is the same with God. Perhaps we all grow from a child-like perception of God, not realising that God is in this place, and this place, and this place, to a realisation that while we always have a responsibility to God we must exercise that responsibility according to our free will based on God’s expectations. Sometimes we will fight against those expectations, sometimes we will embrace them. We move from robotic dependency to relationship, to something much deeper and more profound, something more nuanced, more challenging and thus more rewarding.
When Jacob names the place Peniel – face of God – then, he’s acknowledging a new relationship with God. He invites us to engage in the same process of assessment, struggle and acceptance. He urges us to consider our own personal theology and to engage in a dialogue with ourselves and with God. He asks us to try to find God anew – to remember that God is in this place, too, even if we did not know it. If God is in this place and we did not know it, then perhaps we need to consider exactly what God’s face looks like – in a way that far transcends anthropomorphism – so that we can see God face to face and truly live. May we, then, go on a journey that involves theological struggle so that, limp or not, we may come to see that God is in this place, too, and that we truly know it. And let us say, Amen.