Yaakov did not sit back passively waiting for redemption. He used his intelligence to plead with Eisav – an intriguing combination of deference and strength, bribes, and a willingness to fight. Eisav saw him both as a person of distinction worthy of respect and a brother who posed no threat to his regional hegemony. It was what the situation demanded.
Wrestling for Eternity
“And Yaakov was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until dawn. When he saw that he could not overcome him, he struck his hip socket, and Yaakov’s hip socket was dislocated as he wrestled with him” (32:26).
Of our three forefathers, only Yaakov had to wrestle an angel as part of his personal development. His name was even changed as a result of this confrontation to “Israel,” for “you have striven with the divine and with man and have prevailed” (32:29).
Why is it that only Yaakov had this experience, and not Avraham or Yitzchak?
The Chofetz Chaim, in his Torah commentary, quotes the Zohar that defined Yaakov’s “hip socket” as tmachin d’oraita, the supporters of Torah – those who uphold it and enable it to withstand all the blandishments and threats of Eisav and his cohorts. The other Avot were never challenged like this because Avraham was the man of kindness and Yitzchak the epitome of self-effacing divine service. Yaakov, though, was the paragon of Torah who spent much of his life involved in ideas – the study of God and His morality – with his father and with his teacher Ever in the Academy. Yaakov was the first selfless student of Torah.
The angel of Eisav does not mind when Jews do acts of chesed, or even when we engage in divine service – if we pray and fast and wear tztitzit and the like. The angel of Eisav is only disturbed when Jews study Torah, which has a transformative effect on the soul. It is the “hip socket of Yaakov,” the point on which everything else in Jewish life hinges.
It is impossible to imagine a day without Torah study; it is the oxygen for the Jewish soul. And that is why Torah study is the tip of the spear of our enemies, both external and internal. The Greeks, Romans, medieval Christians, Communists, and Nazis all targeted Torah study, and often made it a capital crime for Jews to learn Torah. So, too, our instinctual drives often kick into gear when we want to learn Torah. It is then that the phone or doorbell will ring, the food will simmer on the stove, the baby will cry, the children will need a bath, and the office will call (and sometimes all of the above). The distractions that intrude on our Talmud Torah are diverse and uncanny – all of which points to the preciousness of Talmud Torah, and the struggle to overcome the magnetic pull of the world of physical pleasures.
We all have the ability and multiple opportunities for Talmud Torah – the only question is do we have the desire and the will? We can eschew mindless entertainment, make one less phone call, have one fewer inane conversation, and especially wrestle with Eisav’s angel when he comes dressed in fatigue – and instead strive to enter a different realm, challenge our minds, cultivate our souls, go to a shiur (Torah class), open a sefer (Torah book), and connect with generations of Jews past and present.
That is why the angel attacked Yaakov’s hip socket – the supporters and lovers of Torah. We are admonished by the great Hillel “never to say ‘I will learn when I have the time’; perhaps we will never have the time” (Avot 2:5). The opportunities today are literally limitless; through the Internet, one can learn Torah from teachers across the globe and around the clock (not to mention attend a local class taking place live).
