Blessing

I have found yet another new 'favorite' blog: thevelveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog

I encourage you to head over and read it yourself, and I know that I will be sharing a great deal of Rachel's work. She is a rabbinic student, mother, and beautiful writer.

I am intrigued by the beauty of Jewish literature, mysticism, and history--the simple presence of the Torah among every day thoughts, events, and images. Rachel, in her writings and poetry, captures this beautifully.

She writes today about the struggle of Jacob and the manifestation of his story in her life. The story comes from Genesis 32: 22-30:

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

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.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

This wrestling comes after Jacob has yet again realized the weight of suffering he has caused his family after stealing Esau's birthright. And this is where Rachel, author or The Velveteen Rabbi, challenges everything I have ever thought about this story:

"With whom did he wrestle? The text tells us that he was alone, and that he wrestled with a man. Jacob wrestled with himself: with the part of him that regretted cheating his brother, with the part of him that missed having a relationship with his twin, with the part of him that wanted a different ending to their story...In facing his own family story, and his role within the dynamics of his family of origin, Jacob saw the face of God. When we are willing and able to look with clear eyes into our sometimes-tangled, sometimes-difficult family stories, God's presence looks back out at us...Sometimes I wonder whether, like Jacob, I might have hurt my family when I flew the coop. Can I bless myself with the deep awareness that I've made good choices? With the ability to trust that my family will meet me not with resentment but with love and compassion?"

Being in the midst of trying to untangle my own identity and grown-up relationship with my family, this humbles me. Brings me to tears. Puts words to the emotions I didn't know how to identify. As I look into the next few weeks with my family--Thanksgiving and Christmas--I realize I am both powerless to rewrite the past and full of power to intentionally step into the future.

Rachel's epiphany helped me to see that I am reaching daybreak. The wrestling may end, but the remnants will remain. Finding the face of God might very well be looking with confidence at my own image. The blessings and forgiveness I long for need to be wrested from my own caged heart.

For me, the challenge is living as Israel, and not Jacob: moving out of the tent, away from the wrestling match, and into the morning light.