December 4, 2020
Walking Across the Bridge
Vayishlach, 5781
There is a story about the chassidic Rebbe, Yisrael of Ruzhyn (1796-1850). The Ruzhyner Rebbe is known for his regal court and for his strong faith in Hashem despite the many false accusations and difficult trials he faced in his life.
One Shabbat all the chasidim of Rebbe Yisrael of Ruzhyn were sitting and learning Torah in Ruzhyn when they saw their holy Rebbe approaching.
The chasidim asked the Rebbe: “Rebbe, please tell us what is the proper path to go on for service of Hashem?”
The Rebbe responded: “How should I know?” The Rebbe then went on to tell them the following story.
There were once two beloved friends that were sentenced to death by the king. In truth, even though the king wanted to pardon them, he was unable to because even though he was the king he was bound by the law of the land to sentence them severely. Therefore the king issued a strange ruling. He asked his officers to stretch out a long rope over a deep and dangerous river. He said that if these two men would be able to walk across the rope that he would then pardon them and release them from their sentence.
The first man set out and safely crossed over the river by walking on top of the rope. His friend stood on the other side and yelled across to him: “My beloved friend, please tell me how you walked across this river so that I may also know how to cross it.” The first man responded: “I have no idea. The only thing I can tell you is that when I walked across the rope if I felt I was falling off the right side I quickly moved my body to the left and if I felt that I was falling off the left I quickly moved to the right.” (From Zeev Kitsis, Fifty Readings in Hassidic Stories, Hebrew, 202.)
What do you think the Rebbe was telling his chasidim?
My theory is that he was telling them, “In life, don’t be afraid to cross the river. Sure the river is very scary. But I have crossed the river and you can follow me across. The key is to not to be frozen in place but to move forward as the alternative is going back to the king’s judgment.”
In our portion, Yaakov Avinu crosses a river despite being very afraid. Says the Torah:
“That same night he arose, and taking his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children, he crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After taking them across the stream, he sent across all his possessions. Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn” (Bereishit 32:23-25)
This scene of Yaakov crossing the river is very powerful. Yaakov is at a crossroads. On one side of the river is Lavan and on the other side is Esav. Yaakov needs to cross the river to reenter the Land of Canann and confront Esav. It is a scary path as Esav represents an existential threat to Yaakov. But still Yaakov plunges forward and crosses the river.
As Yaakov readies himself to cross the river he encounters a mysterious man who wrestles with him and injures Yaakov’s gid hanasheh. The Torah tells us that as a consequence to this day we descendants of Yaakov do not eat the gid hanasheh.
There is deep symbolism in the injury that Yaakov suffers and in the prohibition of eating from the gid hanasheh (32:25-33).
The Sefer Hachinukh explains the symbolism of why we do not eat the gid hanasheh:
“It is from the roots of this commandment [that it is to serve as] a hint to Israel that though they will suffer many troubles in the exile by the hand of the nations and by the hand of the [descendants] of Esav (i.e. the Christians), [the Jews] should trust that they will not perish, but rather that their descendants and name will stand firm forever, and that their redeemer will come and redeem them from their oppressor. And in continually remembering this idea through the commandment that serves as a reminder, they will stand firm in their faith and righteousness forever. And this hint [stems from the fact that] that the angel who fought with Yaakov our forefather - who according to tradition (Bereshit Rabbah 78) was the guardian angel of Esav - wished to eliminate Yaakov from the world, he and his descendants; but he could not [get the better] of him, (Genesis 32:26) but anguished him in injuring his thigh. Likewise, Esav's seed anguishes the seed of Yaakov; but in the end, [the latter] will be saved from them. As we find (Genesis 32:32) with respect to [our] forefather that the sun shone to heal him and he was saved from pain, so will the sun of the messiah shine and he will heal us from our pain and redeem us speedily in our days, amen” (Sefer Hachinuch, 3).
Yaakov’s wound and our refraining from eating the gid hanasheh remind us of the dangerous rivers that we will face in life and that we will surely encounter. We refrain from eating the gid hanasheh in order to remind us that when we cross a dangerous river we are not alone. Our ancestors crossed many, many rivers. At times they suffered greatly, but ultimately they prevailed in their efforts. Just as the sun shone to heal our ancestor after he wrestled with an angel so too the sun will heal us.
The example of Yaakov goes even deeper. The Chasam Sofer (ad loc) tells us that Yaakov Avinu turned himself into a bridge so that others could cross the river upon him. We not only take solace in the symbolism of the gid hanashe which reminds us that our ancestors faced far greater challenges, but we also remind ourselves that by holding on to the examples of Yaakov Avinu and the teachings of the Torah that we will have a bridge to cross the rivers of life.
Yaakov’ life is a series of setbacks and near disasters. As he states at the end of his life, “The days of my life are few and hard (47:9). Yet, through it all, Yaakov never gives up. Despite his set backs and mistakes he always moves forward.
We learn from Yaakov’s life that we can never let a single mistake or setback derail us from moving forward in service of Hashem.
The verse states that Yaakov was afraid to cross the river: Vayirah Yaakov meod vayeitzer lo, Yaakov was very afraid, and he was distressed (32:8). The Talmud asks: How could Yaakov be afraid when Gd had promised him that He would be with Gd at all times? Explains the Talmud: Yaakov was afraid that maybe on account of his sins he was no longer worthy to enter the land—shema yigrom hachet (Berachot, 4a).
Yaakov was most afraid to cross the river because he felt unworthy on account of his past sins.
This week a friend of mine who is a great-great-great-great grandson of the founder of the Modzitzer Dynasty, Rabbi Yechezkel Taub of Kuzmir (1755-1856), told me the following teaching in the name of his holy ancestor.
Rav Yechezkel of Kuzmir taught the following:
In this week’s Haftorah, Ovadiah criticizes the Edomites for being seduced into believing that they are all powerful and mighty. The verse states: Zadon libechah hishiecha, your wicked heart seduced you into believing you that you dwell mightily and securely (Ovadiah, verse 3).
The unusual word here is hishieacha, which means seduced. The same word appears with reference to the snake and Eve in the Garden of Eden. When Hashem confronts Eve and asks her why she ate from the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge, Eve responds: “The snake seduced me (hishiani) into eating” (Genesis, 3:13).
Explains Rav Yechezkel the word hishiani is a compound of yesh and ayin. These two words represent two different ways in which the yetzer harah attacks us and causes us to sin.
First the yetzer harah tells us yesh—we are something. Like Ovadiah scolded the Edomites, so too, the yetzer harah tells us, “Look how great we are. We dwell securely. We are in charge.” This feeling of arrogance causes us to be tempted into believing the yetzer harah and believing we are indeed powerful and mighty. As a result, too often, we listen to the yetzer harah and this causes us to sin. But this initial sin is just the beginning of our problems. As a result of our sin we feel guilty and down for doing something wrong. The yetzer harah senses our weakness and tells us, “You are ayin, you are nothing. Look at you—you are a terrible person. You are a sinner.” We believe the yetzer harah. We believe that we are nothing. We let this initial sin cause us to sink into a terrible cycle of believing that we cannot overcome our initial mistake. Now that we think we are an ayin we continue on a downward spiral of sin after sin.
Rav Yechezkel shared a story to explain the danger of this shortsighted this approach.
There was once an apple farmer who used to take his apples to town everyday in order to sell them from his apple cart. One time there was a group of naughty kids who decided to do something nasty to him. All the kids with the exception of one kid hid near the cart. The one kid who wasn’t hiding ran up to the apple cart and brazenly stole an apple. The farmer started chasing down the kid to get back his apple. Meanwhile, while the farmer was chasing down the one kid, all the other kids came out of their hiding place and stole all the apples from the farmer’s cart.
The point is that we should not be like that farmer (of course we shouldn’t be like the kids either). We shouldn’t let one mistake or one lost apple affect us so much that we obsess over it and make many more mistakes.
This is why the verse says that Yaakov Avinu divided his family into camps: “If Esav comes to one camp and strikes it, then the other camp will be a remnant (pleitah)” 32:9). Explains Rav Yechezkel that this means if the yetzer harah comes and strikes us into committing a sin, we should not give up on life. We should have a pleitah—we should continue to live and try to serve Hashem. Or as Ovadiah puts it: “U-vehar tziyon tehiyeh pleitah vehayah kodesh, Mount Zion will be a remnant and Mount Zion will be holy” (verse 17). When we make a mistake, we should not give up on life. Instead we should turn towards Mount Zion and try to live the rest of our life in holiness.
This week I saw a prayer for courage in the face of adversity from the great, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. I share this prayer with you in the hopes that you find it meaningful and helpful when you are facing a challenge:
Almighty Gd! Source of all the energy of my life, without you I am helpless. Give me the courage-- the physical drive, the emotional energy, and the spiritual will –to risk in order to grow, to welcome every challenge as my life unfolds (From the Gentle Weapon, 4).
Shmuel Herzfeld
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You can now watch a YOUTUBE recording of Rabbi Herzfeld’s D'var Torah:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnuNMXVdoHY
