Yom Kippur, already well over 50 days ago (commemorated two weeks ago with the Sigd festival), asks us to consider the harm we’ve done to others. Less present in the narrative is what to do when we have been harmed and have no recourse. What if the offender can’t or won’t speak to you? When you’re separated by time and space and life has gone on? I realised I couldn’t conceive of what forgiveness truly felt like – considering situations when I’ve felt truly hurt, often the offender hasn’t known I was hurt or hasn’t apologised. We are not obligated to forgive everyone, especially if they haven’t approached to make amends. I discussed this with a therapist, and eventually realised that what it would take for me to forgive was for the offender to change their ways, and in some cases to become a completely different person.
Vayishlach opens with Jacob preparing to meet Esau. To backtrack, Jacob hasn’t seen Esau for decades. In Parshat Toldot, he bought Esau’s birthright when Esau, in a hungry and vulnerable state (haven’t we all been in such a state!), believed he was near death enough that his birthright didn’t matter. (Alternatively, maybe the lentil soup Jacob had cooked was just that good.) He and his mother subsequently tricked Isaac by pretending to be Esau, who became incensed when he returned and harbored a grudge, swearing to kill Jacob who fled to his uncle Laban, where he toiled in order to marry Rachel and Leah.
This sounds alien in our society where we lack birthrights and blessings such as these. But the New York Times’ Ethicist column, currently written by Kwame Anthony Appiah, offers many parallels where siblings fight over inheritance. In some cases, children find out they are being left out of a will; in others, parents confide that they receive no love from one child and wonder if they can leave uneven amounts. Children cut out of wills feel hurt and betrayed, and harbor anger towards their siblings, not speaking for many years. Esau was tricked out of his blessing by his brother and then by his father, a hurt so deep it’s understandable that he threatened to kill Jacob.
Back in Vayishlach, Jacob is preparing for the possibility of running into Esau. He prepares for all eventualities: he sends gifts of livestock to Esau in the hope of buttering him up, and he divides his camp in two just to be on the safe side. When the brothers meet, Jacob bows low to the ground to show subservience to the brother who last he heard was murderously angry. But unexpectedly, Esau embraces Jacob and kisses him. Much has been written about the word kiss, “vayishakehu”. In pointed text, the word has additional dots over each letter called “puncta extraordinaria”, and rabbinic sources provide a few interpretations as to why they added these rare dots to the word “kiss.” Two negative rabbinic interpretations are that the dots indicate that the word should be erased or reversed, changing the meaning to be more aggressive, or saying that we should elide the entire word from our understanding. The Zohar suggests positive interpretation, that the word should be emphasised. “Esau KISSED Jacob!” A further Talmudic interpretation is that the dot is an indication that we should create a midrash. With a dot over each letter, that seems like an excellent opportunity:
Esau knew he would encounter Jacob eventually. He’d thought about this moment for twenty long years. Sometimes he felt so hurt about losing not just his birthright but his relationship with his family that he didn’t sleep all night, and blessed the dawn for its distraction. And then one day, the messengers came with gifts – sheep and goats he knew immediately were a bargaining chip. Did Jacob know him so little? Was he still the same frustrating younger brother who couldn’t take a joke, who acted rashly, who stole everything? Sheep to remind him of Isaac’s betrayal with the skin? Might as well have sent a jar of lentils too, to mock him for how much soup he ate on that fateful night. On his journey with his retinue the next day, he saw a mass of figures – men and women and children and animals, and another group further away, rushing chaotically when they spotted him. A lone cloaked figure stood out. A fire rose inside Esau, and all the pain and anger came rushing back. But this man approached slowly, limping, and fell prostrate to the ground. And a thought came to Esau: my brother has changed. His energy was different, calmer, heavy with emotion. He’d been touched by something. Unbeknownst to him, in the night Jacob had wrestled with a divine messenger and suffered an injury. Esau ran and lifted his brother and wrapped him in his cloak, kissing his face and neck. He couldn’t keep from crying, and the brothers wept freely together, both realising that they had been missing their togetherness, birthright be damned. They caught up like no time had passed, and there was no argument between them. Esau asked Jacob why he sent so many sheep as a gift, and Esau returned them. What he needed was his brother back, but different this time – changed by the years and by the divine visit.
The parallel word with Esau’s kiss is in Toldot, when Jacob tricks Isaac. “Kiss me, my son,” he says, thinking Jacob is his twin. Jacob gives a kiss to his father for a birthright, and later receives a kiss of forgiveness from Esau. The fear between them evaporates, for both have changed enough that no apology or forgiveness was necessary, and they fall into a conversation of gifts. Perhaps Jacob’s night of wrestling and name change to Yisrael provoked that. I hope that that’s not what it takes for the rest of us to change, or to forgive. I know in my personal situations of harm, after a long time I’ve forgotten the original insult and any reunion is sweet. Perhaps that’s what forgiveness feels like: forgetting why we didn’t apologise, embracing, and moving on together.
Dr Stacy Hackner, LBC rabbinical student
The views expressed in this D’var Torah do not necessarily reflect the position of Leo Baeck College.