Tossing, turning, trying to quiet the mind. Welcome to 2 AM some nights, when various shades of doubt come to pay a visit in this rabbi’s mind. Perhaps, you too, like our ancestor Jacob in Parasha Vayishlach, have known the feelings that only a late night of insomnia can inspire, when we can’t seem to quiet a thought or feeling. This week, we get a call to listen deeper to what keeps us up at night, and to befriend our inner wrestlings.
Fear is the driving force behind Jacob’s wakefulness in Parasha Vayishlach, and for good reason. He is described as terrified at the prospect of re-meeting a brother he’s been in conflict with for decades (Gen 32:8). The night before he is to confront his brother Esau, Jacob lies down, engulfed in self-doubt and has the most extraordinary experience:
Jacob, left alone, wrestled with a single ish, a single “man” or angel or divine being – until the rise of dawn.
Genesis 32:35
As the new morning arrives, he receives a new name that will stay with our people for centuries: Israel, “one who wrestles with God.”
Among the many theories about the identity of this wrestling “ish” are the words of Rabbi Hunya in Genesis Rabbah 73:
He (the mysterious man) appeared to Jacob in the image of a shepherd. He had sheep, just like Jacob had sheep. He had camels, just like Jacob had camels. He said to Jacob, “You pass over yours and then I’ll pass over mine.”
Genesis Rabbah 73:2
In every way, the man mirrored Jacob. In other words, according to Rabbi Hunya, the man actually wasJacob. His primary struggle that night, before he could meet God as Israel, was his own self.
Renowned Psychologist Carl Jung uses the concept “Shadow Self” to describe the aspect of our being that stays unexamined or suppressed because it makes us uncomfortable. Jacob needed to wrestle with the part of him suppressed since his childhood rupture with the twin brother. In fact, the shadow self is often described in psychology as the “psychic twin that follows like a mirror image.”
For Jacob, wrestling this shadow self is the very confrontation that leads to his blessing of being a more whole person – of being Israel – a leader in full relationship with both human and divine.
I encourage us, in community, in dialogue, and perhaps in our next bout of insomnia, to take a note from our Jacob, and get curious about our shadow selves. What would it mean to embrace an element of your nature that craves competition when you’ve been socialized to be agreeable, to admit a creative longing, or to express out loud a heartfelt belief you keep quiet for fear of being judged irrational? Who are you when you integrate shadow and light?
A poem by Stacey Zisook Robinson, “In Praise of Doubt,” describes just this quest for our whole selves that Parasha Vayishlach so masterfully explores:
I find God in My Doubt
in the struggle to
be
the absolute best of me,
and in my fear
that I find only my worst..
I wrestle,
and am restless
and I wander, rootless
exiled
barricaded by silence.
God of hosts
and light and mercy
God of the Desert and unseen edges-
God of my devotion and my rebellion
Open my lips that I may declare your praise.