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It seems that the answer lies in parshat Vayetse and parshat Vayishlach. Jacob was the man whose greatest visions came to him when he was alone at night, far from home, fleeing from one danger to the next. In parshat Vayetse, escaping from Esau, he stops and rests for the night with only stones to lie on, and he has an epiphany:
He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it…. When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it." He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven." (Gen. 28:12–17)
In parshat Vayishlach, fleeing from Laban and terrified at the prospect of meeting Esau again, he wrestles alone at night with an unnamed stranger.
Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome."…So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared." (Gen. 32:29–31)
These are the decisive spiritual encounters of Jacob’s life, yet they happen in liminal space (the space between, neither a starting point nor a destination), at a time when Jacob is at risk in both directions – where he comes from and where he is going to. Yet it is at these points of maximal vulnerability that he encounters God and finds the courage to continue despite all the hazards of the journey.
That is the strength Jacob bequeathed to the Jewish people. What is remarkable is not merely that this one tiny people survived tragedies that would have spelled the end of any other people: the destruction of two Temples; the Babylonian and Roman conquests; the expulsions, persecutions, and pogroms of the Middle Ages; the rise of antisemitism in nineteenth-century Europe; and the Holocaust. What is remarkable is that after each cataclysm, Judaism renewed itself, scaling new heights of achievement.
During the Babylonian exile Judaism deepened its engagement with the Torah. After the Roman destruction of Jerusalem it produced the great literary monuments of the Oral Torah: Midrash, Mishnah, and Gemara. During the Middle Ages it produced masterpieces of law and Torah commentary, poetry, and philosophy. A mere three years after the Holocaust it proclaimed the State of Israel, the Jewish return to history after the darkest night of exile.
When I first became Chief Rabbi I had to undergo a medical examination. The doctor had me walking at a very brisk pace on a treadmill. "What are you testing?" I asked him. "How fast I can go, or how long?" "Neither," he replied. "I will be observing how long it takes for your pulse to return to normal, after you come off the treadmill." That is when I discovered that health is measured by the power of recovery. That is true for everyone, but doubly so for leaders and for the Jewish people, a nation of leaders. (This, I believe, is what the phrase "a kingdom of Priests" [Ex. 19:6] means).
Leaders suffer crises. That is a given of leadership. When Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister of Britain between 1957 and 1963, was asked what the most difficult aspect of his time in office was, he famously replied, "Events, dear boy, events." Bad things happen, and when they do, the leader must take the strain so that others can sleep easily in their beds.
Leadership, especially in matters of the spirit, is deeply stressful. Four figures in Tanach – Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah, and Jonah – actually prayed to die rather than continue. This was not only true in the distant past. Abraham Lincoln suffered deep bouts of depression. So did Winston Churchill, who called it his "black dog." Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. both attempted suicide in adolescence and experienced depressive illness in adult life. The same was true of many great creative artists, among them Michelangelo, Beethoven, and Van Gogh.
Is it greatness that leads to moments of despair, or moments of despair that lead to greatness? Do those who lead internalise the stresses and tensions of their time? Or is it that those who are used to stress in their emotional lives find release in leading exceptional lives? There is no convincing answer to this in the literature thus far. But Jacob was a more emotionally volatile individual than either Abraham, who was often serene even in the face of great trials, or Isaac, who was particularly withdrawn. Jacob feared; Jacob loved; Jacob spent more of his time in exile than the other patriarchs. But Jacob endured and persisted. Of all the figures in Genesis, he was the great survivor.
The ability to survive and to recover is part of what it takes to be a leader. It is the willingness to live a life of risks that makes such individuals different from others. So said Theodore Roosevelt in one of the greatest speeches ever made on the subject:
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. 1
Jacob endured the rivalry of Esau, the resentment of Laban, the tension between his wives and children, the early death of his beloved Rachel, and the loss – for twenty-two years – of his favourite son, Joseph. He said to Pharaoh, "Few and evil have been the days of my life" (Gen. 47:9). Yet, on the way he "encountered" angels, and whether they were wrestling with him or climbing the ladder to heaven, they lit the night with the aura of transcendence.
To try, to fall, to fear, and yet to keep going: that is what it takes to be a leader. That was Jacob, the man who at the lowest ebbs of his life had his greatest visions of heaven.
Shabbat Shalom
QUESTIONS (AROUND THE SHABBAT TABLE)
1. Do you think greatness leads to moments of despair? Do you think moments of despair can lead to greatness?
2. How can we apply this message to our lives today?
3. With all the stories in the Torah, what is unique about the story of Jacob?
-To engage further with Rabbi Sacks’s teachings, or to sign up to his mailing list, please go to www.rabbisacks.org
^ 1.Theodore Roosevelt, "Citizenship in a Republic", speech given at the Sorbonne, Paris, 23 April 1910.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 8- "Answering Questions on the Kuzari's Proof from Mass Revelation
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Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 9 - "Seeing is Believing" (parag. 21-30)
These paragraphs elaborate on the theme that seeing and knowing is better than any attempt to prove logically, and begins explaining the difference between Israel and gentiles.
Ein Aya Various Universal Stages of the Geula Process
Rav Kook examines the various stages of redemption, explaining how (in addition to the obvious oft-mentioned stages of ingathering the exiles, reviving the Hebrew language, army, state etc.) the messianic dream of world prosperity, the State of Israel and world unity can and are realistically and logically gradually coming true.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 8- "Answering Questions on the Kuzari's Proof from Mass Revelation
How do we know that the "claim" of mass revelation to 2,000,000 witnesses at Mt. Sinai is really true? This important class answers all of the questions skeptics ask about this claim of the Kuzari.
Ein Aya Armies Still Necessary for Balance & the War Against Wars
Rav Kook explains why the world was originally divided into the various seemingly contradicting ideologies and cultures, in order to develop each one respectively. Swords or armies symbolize how each respective ideology defends themselves, as well as deters their opposing ideologies and cultures. On the other hand, the messianic era will be one of peace, and Rav Kook explains the transition to that stage, which mankind is already undergoing.
The Land of Israel LGBT'S IN ISRAEL
The question was asked, how can one make Aliyah with the LGBT parades?
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 7 - Five Accumulative Proofs of G-d
As a preparation for the Kuzari's classic proof of G-d from the mass-revelation at Sinai, we start here with 5 other directions to strengthen our belief which also contribute to what the Kuzari will present as well.
Ein Aya Muscle & Meaning: The Dual Nature of Gevurah (Physical Strength)
Is physical strength and fitness a necessity or an ideal? Although it if often totally overlooked among topics of Judaism, Rav Kook writes that it clearly is also a necessity to deter the many enemies of Israel, but even in Y'mot HaMashiach, in the Messianic era, to a certain extent, it's ideal continues even after our enemies will have been finished off.
