“Your name shall no
longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human,
and have prevailed.” Genesis 32:29
So how does a person
change over the course of twenty years?
How does getting married, having children, and wrestling with one’s
“conscience” for things done in one’s early years change a person?
This week’s Torah portion
tells of the reacquainting of Jacob with his brother Esau. The last time Jacob saw his brother was when
he tricked him out of his birthright, followed by tricking his dying father
into giving him Esau’s first-born blessing.
Not the proud memories of behaviors that bring about great pride and
joy. These were the memories of an
immature youth pursuing
But what we learn in this
week’s portion is that after twenty years and the related life experiences,
most of us are not the same person we were as children. Maybe our mannerisms, and maybe even our
interests and appearances can still be found in who we are today, but in most
of us, our maturity and self-reflection have aided us in appreciating the
things that we might have missed in our youth.
Jacob’s name was literally
changed to highlight his physical, emotional, and even spiritual
struggles. The lessons he learned in his
twenty-year “road trip” helped him become the patriarch to our people that we
know him to be today. This weekend, take
the opportunity to share with your children some of the “mistakes” and
challenges you faced as a child and teach them that we all make choices that we
have to live with. What are the things
you learned from these struggles? What
are the things you hope your children can learn from you, so they won’t have to
“wrestle” with the same things themselves?
Have a wonderful weekend and
Shabbat shalom!
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