Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Bereshit
- Vayishlach
The cataclysmic Battle of the Brothers, so feared by a trembling Yakov - who had dreaded this confrontation for 22 long years, since the day he wrested the birthright from his twin Esav – never materialized. It was a dud; a boring, uneventful non-event. It lasted even shorter than the celebrated 1965 Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston fight, when the champ knocked out his opponent with the infamous "Phantom Punch," just 1:44 into the first round. In our sedra, instead of KO’s, there were kisses.
Was Esav truly sincere in his embrace of Yakov? The mysterious dots above the word, "Vayishakayhu – and he kissed him" – are interpreted by some as quote marks, implying this was not your typical love-smooch. They read the word instead "Vayinash’chu, & he (Esav) bit him," adding that Yakov’s neck miraculously turned as hard as alabaster so that he avoided any deadly injury.
But others maintain that this kiss was genuine, that Esav really wanted to make amends & reconcile with Yakov. Rashi quotes Rav Shimon bar Yochai saying that while it is indeed a given maxim that Esav (read: all Gentiles) hate Jews, in this case the emotion of love was real. And Rav S. R. Hirsch points to Esav’s crying as conclusive evidence that the embrace was genuine; tears, he says, cannot be faked. Esav grasped his lineage & affirmed that he was, after all, a grandson of Avraham Avinu.
Flash forward to the present. How often do witness the constant enmity of others for the Jewish People & Israel; the defamation, lies & curses that are cast upon us, & throw up our hands in desperation. "They hate us!" we declare, convinced that there will be eternal conflict with the world at large, with only the rarest of exceptions.
But then along comes a remarkable event, such as the establishment of ties between Israel & the Arab Emirates, & their amazing outpouring of friendship towards the thousands of Israeli visitors to Dubai, that stops us in our tracks & makes us wonder if maybe, just maybe, there can be a comraderie & cooperation between our peoples.
Think about it: the vast majority of our troubles involve our own relatives: Yishmael, Esav, Amalek, Lavan, Moav & Ammon are all the fruit of our generational family tree. So, even though intra-family fights can be the most caustic, maybe we will someday come to the realization that we share the same DNA, the same genes, the same blood. Maybe hope will someday replace hopelessness.
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
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Hosha'ana Rabba FLYDUBAI & HOSHANA RABBA- ANI VAHU HOSHIA NA- I & HIM SAVE US
"Ani vaHu Hoshia Na", "I and Him, Save Us". We don't just pray to Him, but we also pray to and for ourselves that we should emulate and educate our children to have that instinctive altruism with which He created the world. President Trump seemed amused about Yaniv Hayon, our PLUMBER who confidently worked with G-d like Superman (he learned from a pilot on a TV show!) to save 174 lives on the Dubai hijacking, but we in Israel are totally accustomed already 78 years to our plumbers, teachers, garbage-men, rabbis, farmers & doctors being Hashem's shlichim! This is what Zionism is about.
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part I
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Our King on Rosh Hashana, Our Father on Yom Kippur.
Based on Aroch Siach, p. 221 (Rav Shaul Yisraeli)
