Multiple Personas

This week the weather was much colder, leaving me and my fellow students bundled up even inside, seeking warm places to study for exams and write papers. We have only this weekend left to prepare, then after the first few days of next week the fall semester will be over, just like that. I’ll be officially halfway done with my coursework then! Chanumas begins next weekend, and I’ll be with my parents and sister to light the candles and eat latkes and watch movies and be just like Buddy the Elf.

Before then, though, we keep moving through the book of Genesis in Parashat Vayishlach. This parsha consists, really, of three major stories:
1) Jacob meets with Esau, finally, and there is reconciliation despite Jacob’s fear
*Jacob wrestles with an unidentified man when he stays in Peniel for the night – many people think this figure is actually an angel or even G!d
2) Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, is raped by a man from the Hivites (a local community), who then wants to marry her – Jacob agrees on the condition of the community members’ circumcision, but Simeon and Levi are enraged that their sister has been treated this way and kill all the Hivite males
3) Jacob is told to make an altar in Bethel (where G!d appeared to him), so he travels there – he is given the name Israel here
*Rachel gives birth on the journey to Benjamin, but dies from the difficult labor and birth
*Isaac dies and is gathered to his fathers
*The last chapter of the parsha presents the genealogy of Esau

Jacob’s story in Genesis takes us on a journey – from his childhood home to working for Laban to running away from Laban to Bethel to running away from Esau to Peniel to Shechem to Bethlehem. He seems both bold and timid – he takes Esau’s birthright, then spends years running from him. He works for Laban and marries his daughters, then retreats from a strained relationship with him. He wrestles with an unknown man, then begs for him to stop. He asserts control over the Hivite community, but is upset that his sons avenged for their sister’s rape. Jacob, throughout his life and as he has been studied, offers vast possibilities for study and interpretation. He is shown in the text as a person who cannot be easily classified – much as people in general tend to be. This makes Jacob both relatable and frustrating.

This week, the story of Dinah’s rape stuck out to me. I haven’t read the story for a while, and the whole sequence is both sickening and surprising. There doesn’t seem to be justice doled out for what happened to her at first, then her brothers avenge her rape through killing. While this is not especially palatable, particularly today, I appreciate seeing the concern her brothers had for their sister’s reputation.

Next week we’ll begin Joseph’s story. Until then – stay warm!