Ok, let’s face it. Jacob suffered from an Edifice Complex. One of the patriarch’s most endearing qualities was how he constantly recognized significant events in his life by renaming the location where they occurred, creating a monument, or both. There are at least half a dozen examples in this parsha alone, not counting the previous locations to which he returns. Fittingly, Jacob himself will be renamed Israel twice in this parsha; first after struggling with the angel, and then again by G-d Himself. Ironically, we learn from the commentary (Rashi and others) that the angels themselves are nameless; they are identified by their heavenly tasks. When Jacob asks his adversary for his name, he is rebuffed. Later on, in the book of Judges, Manoach asks the same question of the angel who had presaged the birth of Samson, and is told that his angelic name is “unknowable.” Conferring a new name and its inherent significance to a particular time and place is a very human, and a very Jewish, pursuit. Lighting the candles and saying a blessing turns an ordinary weekday into the holiness of Shabbat. Gathering together with at least 9 others to pray sanctifies an ordinary room as a place for us to talk to G-d. Naming a child after a relative who has passed grants them a measure of immortality. May we all learn from Jacob; and never forget that one of our greatest blessings is the ability to assign meaning and significance to time and space. So much so that it lifts us above the angels.
Shabbat ShalomRabbi/Hazzan David B. Sislen
Shabbat ShalomRabbi/Hazzan David B. Sislen
