Words are marvelous contraptions that can have opposite meanings depending on their context. For example, the word “ruthless” is defined in the dictionary as “having or showing no pity or compassion for others.” This adjective is typically used to describe evile people. But I have a friend who uses the word “ruthless” to describe anyone he greatly admires for their zealousness and passion for their work or ideas. When he says “this guy is ruthless” I know he means “this guy is my example for how to do this activity.” So it’s all about context. In this week’s parsha we learn of the meeting between Yaakov and Eisav. What should have been a reunion between twin brothers who had not seen each other for twenty years was a tension filled standoff, since Eisav was marching towards Yaakov’s family with four hundred men eager to kill. Yaakov averted the danger and Eisav returned home without inflicting any damage but the standoff was the beginning of a long and arduous struggle for the soul of humanity. Yaakov and his offspring, chosen to be G-d’s ambassadors to the world to share the wisdom of Torah are forever challenged by the Eisavs of every generation who aggressively seek world dominion leaving destruction and despair in their wake. The prophet Ovadia was a descendant of Eisav who converted to Judaism and transmitted the prophecy predicting the ultimate victory of Yaakov’s monotheism and morality over Eisav’s egocentric aggressiveness. “And the house of Yaakov shall be fire and the house of Yoseph a flame, and the house of Eisav shall become stubble, and they shall ignite them and consume them, and the house of Eisav shall have no survivors, for the L-rd has spoken.” If G-d wants to express that one day Eisav will be reduced to nothing, it would have been more appropriate to compare Eisav to ashes than to stubble and straw which have value. When the enslaved Israelites were forced to build cities for their Egyptian masters, stubble was the material with which they produced building bricks. Why is Eisav compared to such a valuable commodity? Because the objective here is not to rid the world of Eisav, rather to destroy the evil he represents and harness his ferocious powers for good. The “fire of Yaakov and flame of Yoseph” will eventually burn out the self centeredness and evil within everything in this world and reveal the positive contribution even “ruthlessness” can have in making a more perfect and peaceful world when put in the proper context. This week we experienced a horrifying anti-semitic attack in Jersey City. Heartbroken and outraged at this seemingly never ending madness we must do all we can to stop this chaos. Let us be mindful that instead of investing all our energy into expressing justified rage, we should seek ways to reach every segment of society and share the beauty of Torah to cultivate the inherent goodness every human being possesses. Don’t underestimate the willingness of every person to do another mitzvah. Opportunities abound and we need to seize them properly.
ב"ה