"And Jacob sent messengers ahead of him" (Genesis 32:4). On the surface, Jacob is preparing to meet his brother Esau. Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk, reading Parashat Vayishlach, sees something else entirely: a manual for how prayer transforms enemies into allies.
The tzaddik (a righteous person)'s essential work is devekut—clinging to God, binding the soul to its root beneath the Throne of Glory. The body, purified of external desires, joins this attachment. This is the meaning of tefilah (prayer), which comes from the same root as naftulei—"wrestlings" (Genesis 30:8), meaning connection, not combat. The tzaddik connects to God through clear, lucid prayer emerging from pure thought.
"He sent" (vayishlach) can also mean "he accompanied"—as in "Pharaoh commanded men and they accompanied him" (Genesis 12:20). The words that leave the tzaddik's mouth create angels. The clean body helps these angels ascend. "Ahead of him to Esau his brother"—through this spiritual work, Esau literally becomes a brother. Even the angelic deputy of Edom shifts allegiance.
Rebbe Elimelech draws a practical lesson from the prophet Jeremiah's command: "Do not bring out burdens from your houses on the day of Shabbat (the Sabbath)" (Jeremiah 17:22). A person's behavior during the week determines the quality of their Shabbat. Clean thoughts during weekday prayers bring an extra surge of holiness on Shabbat. But impure thoughts during the week—"strange and disorganized thoughts"—block the gates of prayer on Shabbat, standing at the higher gates and preventing Israel's prayers from entering.
(1) And Yaakov sent messengers ahead of him (Gen. 32:4) - this is explained in the way of hint [remez]. Behold the work of the tzadik is to be clinging to the Blessed and Elevated One, to cling his soul under the Throne of Glory, the place of his root, and the tzadik purifies and cleanses himself from all external desires - and then his cleansed body too clings to the Blessed One. And this is the expression "tefilah" [prayer], that is, clinging, like "the wrestlings [naftulei] of Elokim etc" (Gen. 30:8) [meaning] that the tzadik clings to the Blessed One through the clear and lucid prayers from/in pure thoughts. And this is "and he sent", an expression of accompanying [levayah] as in "Pharaoh commanded men and they accompanied him" (Gen. 12:20), and the Targum: "they led him" [v'a'l'viy'u] (Targum Jonathan on Genesis 12:20), meaning that the tzadik accompanies the messengers that go before him, that is, the words that come out of the mouth of the tzadik create angels from themselves, and the same happens with his clean body which helps his angels to go upward, "ahead of him to Esav his brother"- meaning, through this he causes Esac to become his brother. "Towards the land of Seir" - meaning, that he becomes his brother on below, this is the hint of "field of Edom", the angel-deputy of Edom also becomes his brother. (2) "And he commanded them saying" (Gen. 32:5) - the explanation of "commanded" is that it is an expression of alacrity, as in "The expression of command always implies alacrity" (Rashi on Lev. 6:2 and Kiddushin 29a:13) meaning, that the tzadik brings out his words from his holy mouth in holiness and alacrity, to such a degree that they become so strong [that] "to say" meaning that this thing will be said immediately, that Esav will have a turn about [and become] his brother, because obviously it is not appropriate to make this thing the essence of tefilah. Only through the Clinging that exists in the rest of the tzadik's tefilah, and the tzadik's words from the clean and lucid thoughts, immediately this word comes to fruition, that [the tzadik's] enemies make peace. (3) And this is the hint [in] the prophet Yermiahu's command "do not bring out burdens from your houses on the day of Shabbat" (Jer. 17:22), look at this: according to one's behavior all the days of the week, in [having] clean thoughts during prayer, is the addition of extra holiness that Shabbat brings to one. And so to the opposite, God forbid, if one naughtily follows the ways of one's heart, in strange and disorganized thoughts, then on Shabbat all the thoughts of the days of the week, the extraneous and disgusting thoughts, God forbid, they close the gates of lucid prayers, the prayers of Israel, that is, they stand on the Higher gates and prevent the prayers [from entering] the gate of Israel. And this is what the prophet warned against: "do not bring out your burdens on the day of Shabbat", meaning, the strange thoughts that are like an enormous burden and are pass before the person on the day of Shabbat due to the fact that one thought about them in the days of the week and "passed them through the gates of Jerusalem", meaning, do not pass these prayers, marred with disgusting strange thoughts through the Higher gates, that they stand on the entrance of the gate and prevent the prayers of Israel to go up through the pathways of the gates. And how wouldn't one feel awe and great trembling in one's heart, being that one is a lowly human, [seeing] what one's transgression can cause to oneself and others! (4) "Thus you will say to my master, Esav" (Genesis 32:5) - behold the holy Torah teaches us how to behave in this bitter exile in which we are under the hand of the nations, and we are compelled to accept the exile with love until Hashem will have compassion towards us and redeems us in a complete redemption, soon. And while we are in the bitter exile we are compelled to be submissive to them and call them 'masters'. And this is "thus you will say to my master, to Esav" - meaning, call him master when you talk to him, and then he will continue to do evil to you, through taxes and forced contributions - they will be charged with stealing, and through this Hashem will have compassion on us, since it is enough that we should be submissive to them and give them honor. (5) "I lived with Lavan and remained until now" (Genesis 32:5) - that behold, LaVaN has the same letters as scoundrel (NaVaL), which is the impulse to evil that is called scoundrel. And after a person merits to work on their two impulses, as it is said "with all your hearts - with both your impulses" then the impulse to evil is transformed into white [lavan] that is, Higher Whiteness [Loven HaElyon, keter]. And how can a person merit this? The essence is through submission, that one should hold oneself in this world as a resident alien [ger] and this is "with Lavan", meaning, that I merited that the impulse to evil was transformed from scoundrel to white. And there is a reason for that: "I lived" [garti], which is an expression for 'gerut'/conversion, meaning, I strengthened myself as a ger/convert with a great submission, and because of that it was not given to me to stay there for a few days, but "I was delayed/acher until now", meaning, I delayed in this work day after/achar day and year after year, and this is what I said (Mishnah Yoma 20:2) "and he already said 'Answer Hashem" and his voice was heard", meaning, that for a long time a person needs to cry out "answer Hashem, help me so I will merit to serve You in truth", and then, one's voice will be heard, but this does not happen quickly, in a short period of time. (6) And should you say - and from where comes the livelihood of a person (that spends a long time praying)? To that question the text says "and I have ox and donkey" (Genesis 32:6) meaning, livelihood comes automatically if we do the will of the Place. "I send this message to my lord in the hope of gaining your favor" (Genesis 32:6) - meaning, this is the way of the nations of the world, when they see the honor and riches of Israel, then they love Israel, and then they favor Israel, even if they do not enjoy Israel, in any instance they give favor. "And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying: we came to your brother etc" (Genesis 32:7) - meaning, the hint is that the words of the tzadik are effective and enter in the heart of Esav, transforming him in a brother, as we explained above, however, "he also comes to meet you", meaning, even though he behaves and comes to meet you, his deeds are the opposite of your good deeds. "And four hundred men with him" hints that even though he does all sorts of evil deeds, he still says that he has a place in the world to come, that he has 400 hidden worlds, and this is "with him", that he says that with him there are 400, hinting to 400 worlds, as we explained. (1) Or one could also say - "I have oxen and donkeys" (Genesis 32:6) that behold it is written "and E-lohim said 'let the waters swarm with living soul [nefesh chayah], and let birds fly over the earth'" (Genesis 1:20). We can read this through hints: through the Torah, which is called 'water', a person merits [to become] 'living soul', which is the higher soul. "And let the birds fly over the earth" meaning, that a person may fly through their thoughts to the higher worlds. "And E-lohim created the great lizards" (Genesis 1:21) and see Rashi's explanation: and the words of the aggadah (Baba Batra 74b:6) - 'this is Leviathan, created both male and female' (Rashi on Genesis 1:21:1). One could say that Rashi z"l hints with his words [that it is necessary] to respond the the language of the Text "and He created" which at a first glance looks superfluous. Also, to the the change in the language, as it should say "and [God] said 'may there be great lizards etc'". However, according to the issue pointed out above, it will be explained that this is a hint to the tzadik who clings to the Blessed One, who is called 'Leviathan', an expression for accompanying [leviyah] and clinging to the Exalted Blessed Name. It is impossible that a person would come to this level without being with the Holy Blessed Name, since at the outset the Holy Blessed Name commanded that a person should work alone regarding this level, to merit a soul, and therefor it is written "and He said etc". But regarding the second level, which is to merit clinging to the Blessed One, called by the name Leviathan, which is to be in such clinging as to almost be disconnected from reality, until the Holy Blessed Name cools the person - and this is "cooled the male" [Ed - the original text Bava Batra 74b:7 is 'cooled the female'], meaning that in this clinging the Holy Blessed Name cools the person so as not to uproot them from reality, "male" is a hint to clinging. "Killed the female" is a hint to such a tzadik, whose female side is the yetzer hara, and the tzadik killed it, completely. "And salted [her] for the tzadikim in the world that is coming" (Bava Batra 74b:6) is a hint for the tzadikim that come after, that will be easy for them to serve the Blessed Name through what the tzadik caused to be, with their deeds, as above. "Salted" is an expression of sweetening, since the salt sweetens the meat, and so too the tzadik sweetens the yetzer hara [impulse to evil] until it is easy for the tzadikim that are coming in the future to serve the Holy Name, with no effort and no strain, and the two levels spoken above are given to the tzadik by the Blessed Name as a gift. (2) And this is "and I had oxen and donkeys", meaning, that I came to this level automatically, it was given by the Blessed Name, that "oxen" is an expression of observing and seeing, because after the tzadik makes their body merit, then the Blessed Name enables that person to see and observe through God's name, and the name Blessed Havayah goes in front of that person always. And this is "I had oxen", meaning, the higher level explained above came automatically to me, due to God's lovingkindness, may God's name be blessed. "And donkeys" [chamor] is a hint that the physical [chomer] body became thoroughly meritorious. "Sheep, etc" is a hint to all sorts of levels that we mentioned many times. "And I am sending to tell my master" meaning that through this I am acting a continuation, to continue the heart of Esav, "to find favor" in his eyes. "To tell" is an expression of continuation. (3) "And Yaakov was afraid, etc, and in his anxiety" behold, the complete tzadik serves Hashem completely, with all their heart, there is no nation or speech that can reign over the tzadik for evil, God forbid, and when the tzadik sees that they are scared and afraid, then they are "in anxiety", this thing brings suffering to them, and this is "and Yaakov was afraid", meaning, that he was scared and therefore "he suffered", because the way of the tzadik is not to fear or be scared of anything. And what did he do? "Divided the people", meaning, he immediately made teshuvah, and confessed in front of the Blessed One. Behold, in the Confession (Vidui) we say "we and our ancestors sinned", and one needs to give a reason as to why do we recall the sins of our ancestors. And we can answer that even when a person sins, they should not make themselves as a complete wicked in the eyes of the Accuser, they should only see themselves as a little wicked in their own eyes and as a little righteous in their own eyes. And this is why we mention slightly the sin of our ancestors, that is to say that what we sinned was through our ancestors, that did not make us completely aware of holiness, and this is what brought us to sin, and in truth our ancestors are already in Gan Eden, and the Accuser is not able to harm them. We only mention them so as to give a little opening to the Accuser, that we, ourselves, affirm that we are evil, God forbid, and what happens is that through the confession of sins a person becomes a middling [beinoni], and this is "all of us, middlings" (Brachot 61b:3). And this is "and he separated the people" - meaning, that he taught the people that was with him that they should confess their sins and become middlings, as explained, meaning a half here and a half there, since the tzadik themselves cannot make themselves into middlings. And after the confession and the remorse of the tzadik, they return to their original strength, to their holiness and level, to speak and think in holiness, and this is called "two camps", meaning, one camp below which is the speech, and one camp above which is the thought. And this is "if Esav comes to one camp the other will survive". And on the surface the word "remnant" is superfluous, since he could say "the second one survives". (4) And this issue will be explained through the later verses, meaning, that our father Yaakov PBUH began to pray: "I am unworthy of all the kindness etc, with my staff I crossed etc". The hint in "staff" [bemakeli] is that it is an expression of voice [kol], that in the beginning I had only "the voice, is the voice of Yaakov", and I had not merited the world of thought. "And now I am two camps", the hint is as mentioned previously, that I merited at this moment two levels, the level of speech and the level of thought, and therefore I pray "please save me etc lest he comes and attacks me, mother over children" - behold, the tzadik needs to serve the Holy Blessed Name in the general and in the specific. The general is awe, which is the root and is called "mother", and also thought is called "mother", and the mitzvot and speech are called "children", and they are the specifics, since every time one speaks this is specific in itself. And this is "lest he comes and attacks me, mother over children" - meaning, I fear that he would come, God forbid, and muddle my thoughts and my awe, which are the mother over children, as explained. (5) And this is the explanation of the Text above: "if Esav comes onto one of the camps and attacks", meaning, even if he attacks me in one of the camps, that is, thought, that he should confuse me, God forbid, "and the other camp will be left over" it really wants to say that then, in any instance, the other camp, which is speech, will remain for me, and then through speech I will fortify myself and return to my first camp, which is the world of thought. This is "as a remnant פליטה", an expression for a thing that escapes נפלט its swallowing, meaning, through speech one can save לפלוט the first level. And this is the explanation of Rashi z"l: "against his will that I will fight him", meaning, through speech one can fight and strengthen oneself, and return to one's holiness and thoughts as they were in the beginning. And this is the way of behaving of a tzadik. And in any instance, the tzadik always prays that they would not interrupt their holiness and their thoughts being directed to the Higher World. And this is easy to understand.
