Esh Kodesh (Rabbi Kalonymus) Reader

It's one of the most enigmatic scenes in the entire Torah (Genesis 32:24-30), and Jewish tradition has offered some pretty wild interpretations over the centuries.

One compelling idea, found in various midrashim (rabbinic interpretive commentary), is that Jacob wasn't just wrestling any old being. Oh no. It was Esau's guardian angel. And not just any angel, but Samael (the angel of death) himself! Samael is often identified as a powerful, even demonic, figure in Jewish mystical thought.

The Zohar tells us that Samael is a powerful figure with a lot of influence. So what was he doing wrestling Jacob? The idea is that by wearing Jacob down, exhausting him through this all-night struggle, Samael hoped to make him vulnerable for Esau's attack the next day. He wanted to ensure Esau would finally triumph over his brother.

Jacob, stubborn and determined as ever, held on. He didn't let Samael win. And here’s where the story takes another fascinating turn. Before letting the angel go, Jacob demanded a blessing. "Your name shall no longer be Jacob," the angel declared, "but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed" (Genesis 32:29).

Now, why would Jacob insist on a blessing from such a figure?

Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto – may his memory be a blessing – offers a profound and moving insight in Esh Kadosh. He suggests that Jacob wasn't asking for a blessing for himself. He was asking for it on behalf of his descendants, the people of Israel. The blessing from Samael, forced as it was, meant that this powerful adversarial angel couldn't protest when God decided to liberate Israel from oppression in future times. It meant that even Samael had, in a way, given his reluctant assent to the Exodus from Egypt!

As we find in Midrash Rabbah, everything said about Jacob can also apply to the people of Israel, especially after Jacob's name was changed to Israel. It’s all intertwined. This blessing, therefore, wasn't just for one man, but for the entire nation that would spring from him.

This ingenious interpretation casts the whole wrestling match in a new light. It transforms it from a personal struggle into a cosmic battle with implications for generations to come. Even the dark forces of the universe, personified by Samael, could be compelled to serve the ultimate purpose of redemption.

The idea that Jacob wrestled with Esau's guardian angel, Samael, appears again in another myth, "The Magic Flock," found in Tree of Souls (Schwartz). It's a recurring motif, highlighting the ongoing struggle between good and evil, between Israel and its adversaries, a struggle that continues to this day.

So, the next time you read about Jacob's wrestling match, remember it's not just a story about a man wrestling an angel. It’s a story about a nation's destiny, a cosmic battle, and the enduring power of hope, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. What does this story mean for us today, and our own struggles against seemingly insurmountable odds?

Jewish mystical tradition grapples with this very question, offering a powerful, and somewhat unsettling, origin story. It's a story of creation through destruction, a cosmic recycling program, if you will.

The idea is this: at the very beginning, God created worlds, plural. But, according to some accounts, these weren't quite right. They didn't please Him. They were…imperfect. As we find in Genesis Rabbah 3:7 and elsewhere, God destroyed these worlds. Imagine the scale of that!

What happened to them? Were they simply erased?

That's where the really fascinating twist comes in. Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, in his book Esh Kadosh, offers a powerful reinterpretation, linking the idea of destroyed worlds with the teachings of Rabbi Isaac Luria (the Ari) and his myth of Shvirat HaKelim, the Shattering of the Vessels, and Kibbutz HaNitzotzot, the Gathering of the Sparks.

The Ari taught that God's light was originally contained in vessels, but these vessels couldn't hold the immense power, and they shattered, scattering sparks of divine light everywhere. This shattering, this cosmic catastrophe, was actually the prelude to tikkun (spiritual repair) olam, the repair of the world.

Rabbi Shapira takes this a step further. He suggests that those shattered vessels, those destroyed worlds, weren’t just discarded. Instead, they became the very foundation for our present universe, the olam ha-tikkun, the world of repair. He transforms a myth of destruction into a myth of creation. The imperfections, the failures of previous attempts, are built into the very fabric of our reality. It's a profound idea, isn't it?

Essentially, as described in Tree of Souls (Schwartz), Rabbi Shapira created a new myth that doesn’t contradict the Ari’s. The end result of the two versions is the same, even if the path they take to get there is slightly different.

Rabbi Shapira also believed this cosmic shattering could happen again. He even saw the Holocaust, which he experienced firsthand in the Warsaw Ghetto, as a time of the Breaking of the Vessels (Esh Kadosh 122-124). But even in the face of such unimaginable horror, he held onto his belief in renewal and new creation. For him, the primary task was repentance. Only in this way, he argued, could all the worlds be mended.

It's a challenging and ultimately hopeful message. It suggests that even in the darkest of times, even when it feels like everything is falling apart, there is the potential for rebuilding, for repair, for a new beginning.

So, the next time you look around at this world, remember the broken vessels. Remember that even our imperfections, our struggles, and our failures can be the seeds of something new and beautiful. Maybe, just maybe, that's the point.