VaYishlach

It would be an exo c moment

without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.
--Pablo Neruda, “Keeping Quiet”

There’s a book of poetry that lays on my husband’s night table. It is called Together in a
Sudden Strangeness. Edited by Alice Quinn, it is an anthology of American poets’
responses to the pandemic. Every poem meditates on the grief, disloca on, instability,
and some mes beauty of our covid mes. They try to make sense of the rupture that we
have all experienced and to o er solidarity, if not healing. But it is the tle itself, drawn
from Pablo Neruda’s wri ngs, that has been my balm as I reckon with it all. Before I close
my eyes at night, I look at that book and I think about how my partner and I, my family
and I, my world and I are so very much “together in a sudden strangeness.”

Indeed, strangeness feels like just the right word to describe these mes. It connotes
unfamiliarity, surprise, confusion. We’ve been thrown into unknowns, pushed o
balance and out of rou ne. In ways literal and metaphorical, we’ve been exiled from
places that used to feel like home.

This week’s teaching ponders what might happen spiritually when we feel “together in a
sudden strangeness.”

Experiencing Aliena on
Vayishlach begins with Jacob’s anxious prepara ons to meet his brother Esau a er
decades apart. Recall that Jacob had le Haran, his home, to escape the murderous rage
of Esau whose blessing he had stolen through decep on. As he readies himself for this
reunion, Jacob sends messengers ahead to smooth the way.

‫וַּיִׁשְלַ֨ח יַעֲֹק֤ב מַלְאָכִים֙ לְפָנָ֔יו אֶל־עֵׂשָ֖ו אָחִ֑יו אְַ֥רצָה ׂשֵעִ֖יר ׂשְֵד֥ה אֱדֹֽום׃ וַיְצַ֤ו אֹתָם֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר ּכֹ֣ה‬
‫תֹאמְרּ֔ון לַֽאֹדנִ֖י לְעֵׂשָ֑ו ּכֹ֤ה אָמַר֙ עַבְּדְָ֣ יַעֲֹק֔ב עִם־לָבָ֣ן ּגְַ֔רּתִי וָאֵחַ֖ר עַד־עָּֽתָה׃ וַֽיְהִי־לִי֙ ׁשֹ֣ור‬
(‫ ד–ו‬:‫וַחֲמֹ֔ור צֹ֖אן וְעֶ֣בֶד וְׁשִפְחָ֑ה וָֽאֶׁשְלְחָה֙ לְהַּגִ֣יד לַֽאֹדנִ֔י לִמְצֹא־חֵ֖ן ּבְעֵינֶֽיָ׃ )בראשית לב‬

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 (4) Jacob sent messengers ahead to his brother Esau in the land of Seir, the
country of Edom, (5) and instructed them as follows, “Thus you shall say to my
lord Esau, ‘Thus says your servant Jacob: I stayed with (gar ) Laban and
remained un l now; (6) I have acquired ca le, asses, sheep, and male and
female slaves; and I send this message to my lord in the hope of gaining your
favor.’” (Genesis 32: 4-6).

Jacob is clear. His aim is to regain his brother’s favor by o ering honor and riches. He
presents himself (by proxy) as Esau’s servant and o ers him gi s, hoping to quiet
whatever ill-will lingers between them.

For the Sefat Emet, Jacob’s self-presenta on was of a very par cular, instruc ve sort.
What is there to say a er 20 plus years apart? How does Jacob re-introduce himself to
his long-estranged brother? He shares only one detail of his life from the intervening
years, presumably a detail of great signi cance: the person with whom he lived. “‫עם לבן‬
‫“ ”גרתי‬I sojourned with (gar ) Laban.”

Rashi understands this statement in two ways:

‫ אֵינְָ ּכְַדאי לִׂשְנֹא אֹותִי עַל ּבְִרּכַת אָבִיָ ׁשֶּבְֵרכַנִי הֱוֵה‬,‫ ֹלא נַעֲׂשֵיתִי ׂשַר וְחָׁשּוב אֶּלָא ּגֵר‬.‫גרתי‬
‫ עִם לָבָן ּגְַרּתִי‬,‫ ּכְלֹומַר‬,‫ ּדָ"אַ ּגְַרּתִי ּבְגִימַטְִרּיָא תרי"ג‬.‫ ׁשֶהֲֵרי ֹלא נִתְַקּיְמָה בִי‬,ָ‫גְבִיר לְאַחֶי‬
(‫ ה‬:‫ )רש"י על בראשית ל״ב‬:‫וְתְַריַ"ג מִצְֹות ׁשָמְַרּתִי וְֹלא לָמְַדּתִי מִּמַעֲׂשָיו הָָרעִים‬

I HAVE SOJOURNED (gar ) — I have become neither a prince nor other person
of importance but merely a sojourner (ger).1 It is not worth your while to hate
me on account of the blessing of your father who blessed me (27:29) “Be
master over thy brethren”, for it has not been ful lled in me (Tanchuma Yashan
1:8:5). Another explana on: The word ‫ גרתי‬has the numerical value of 613 -
‫ תרי״ג‬- it is as much as to say, “Though I have sojourned with Laban, the
wicked, I have observed the ‫תרי״ג מצות‬, the 613 Divine Commandments, and
I have learned naught of his evil ways. (Rashi on Genesis 32:5).

Strangers in the World

The signi cance of Jacob’s sojourns with Laban is that it tes es to either a) his lowliness
or b) his piety. He is merely a “sojourner,” not a person of import or power. The blessing
of Isaac, which privileged Jacob over Esau, has seemingly not come true. Fear not, says
Jacob to Esau. I am no threat to you. Alterna vely, Jacob presents himself as a person of
moral integrity who stuck to his principles even in the midst of evil. He has not been
corrupted by Laban, he tells Esau. He is s ll a child of their shared home--and is thus not
a threat.

1The Hebrew word ger has mul ple meanings which the Sefat Emet plays with, as we’ll see below. It can
mean sojourner, stranger, foreigner, other, or convert.

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 But the Sefat Emet sees something else in Rashi’s words. Jacob’s representa on of
himself as a ger re ects an essen al insight into the nature of at-home-ness. As Jacob
leaves one temporary home (with Laban) and journeys back toward his ancestral home,
he contemplates the spiritual power of rootlessness or stranger-ness. To be a ger is to be
on the outside looking in; to inhabit the margins of society; to not be at home in the
world. A ger is a newcomer, a passer-through, an unintegrated group member. It is one
who is not quite at ease, not se led in their body or in their space.

The Sefat Emet picks up on this. When Jacob wants to communicate to his brother who
he has become, he chooses one core feature of his being: He is a ger.

Why is this so elemental? Why is this self-concept so signi cant? For the Sefat Emet, it is
because this uncomfortable liminality is cons tu ve of the spiritual life itself. It is the
condi on for and also the aim of mitzvot, those ac ons that bind Jacob, and us, to the
Divine and through which we make the Shechina, the Divine presence, recognizable in
the world.

‫נראה שזה תכלית המצות שהם מכוונים לאברים וגידים של האדם כי הגוף הוא מלבוש‬
(‫ וישלח תרנ"ד‬,‫ )שפת אמת‬.‫הנפש והנשמה והאדם צריך לידע כי הוא גר בעוה"ז‬

It seems that this is the purpose of mitzvot: to direct the organs and the
tendons of a person--because the body is a garment for the soul and spirit,
and a person must know that they are a foreigner (ger) in this world. (Sefat
Emet, Vayishlach, 1893)

Se ng aside for a moment the body-soul dualism of this statement, the Sefat Emet is
gesturing at something much richer: We humans are complex beings, comprised of body
and soul, material concerns and transcendent aspira ons, physical needs and spiritual
hungers. We live in this earthly world (‫)בעולם הזה‬, but are enlivened by higher worlds
of supernal consciousness (‫)עולם העליון‬. We live between states, with our feet on the
ground and our heads in the heavens, so to speak,2 rendering us full residents (‫)תושבים‬
of neither. The Sefat Emet suggests that we ought to keep this tension alive. We ought to
stay mindful of ourselves as foreigners, gerim, neither here nor there.

God as Ger
The essen al spiritual importance of this stranger-consciousness is ar culated
beau fully by another Hasidic thinker, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim of Sudlikov
(1748-1800), the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov. In his work, Degel Machane Ephraim,
he comments on a verse from Levi cus 25:23:

2See Genesis 28:12: “[Jacob] had a dream; a ladder was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky,
and angels of God were going up and down on it.” The Sefat Emet suggests that the ladder was Jacob
himself--or perhaps human beings themselves--who stand on the ground reaching heavenward, ac ng as
a channel for divine energies traveling up and down.
(‫ וישלח תרמ’ה‬,‫’’והוא הסולם שעולים ויורדים בו כחות אלוקות שנקראו מלאכים” )שפת אמת‬

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 ‫וְהָאֶָ֗רץ ֹל֤א תִּמָכֵר֙ לִצְמִתֻ֔ת ּכִי־לִ֖י הָאֶָ֑רץ ּכִֽי־גִֵר֧ים וְתֹוׁשָבִ֛ים אַּתֶ֖ם עִּמִָדֽי׃‬

But the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are
but strangers (gerim) resident (toshavim) with Me (imadi).

He writes:

(‫יט‬:‫יש לומר בזה בדרך רמז להבין זה על פי ששמעתי מחכם אחד על פסוק )תהילים קיט‬
‫" כי ידוע מן איכות טבע העולם כי מי שהוא גר‬.‫"גר אנוכי בארץ אל תסתר ממני מצותיך‬
‫איו לו עם מי לדבק ולקרב עצמו ולספר לו כל מאורעותיו וכל לבו שאין לו חבר לא ישראל‬
‫ולא גוים אך כשרואה חבירו הגר אזי מספר כל אחד בפני חבירו כל מאורעותיו‬.
‫ שאין לו על מי להשרות שכינת כבודו יתברך כי‬,‫וידוע הקב"ה הוא כמו גר בעולם הזה‬
‫ והוא שהתפלל דוד המלך ע"ה "גר אנוכי בארץ" היינו אני גם כן איני‬.‫זעירין אינון וכו‬
"‫ ולכן "אל תסתר ממני מצותיך‬.‫רוצה להיות תושב בעולם הזה ואני רק כגר בעולם הזה‬
‫כמו גר אחד בפני חבירו שמספר לו כל לבו‬.
‫" כשתהיו בבחינת גר בעולם הזה ותושב‬.‫וזה יש לומר הרמז בפסוק "כי גרים ותושבים‬
‫ אז אתם עמדי כי אני גם כן גר בעולם הזה כנ"ל וממילא אל אסתיר מכם‬,‫בעולם הבא‬
(‫ פרשת בהר‬,‫ )דגל מחנה אפריים‬.‫מצותי כנ"ל והבן‬

In this there is a hint to a teaching I heard from a wise man on a verse from
Psalms (119:19): “I am a ger in the land, do not hide Your commands from
me.” It is a known feature of this world that one who is a ger does not have
anyone to be close to and to draw near to and to tell about all that happened
to him, and what is in his heart, since he does not have a friend, neither in
Israel, nor among the na ons. But when he sees a fellow ger, then each one
can tell the other all that has happened.
And it is known that the Holy Blessed One is like a ger in this world, because
the Divine does not have anyone upon whom to rest the Divine presence,
since we [humans] are limited. This is the meaning of David’s prayer, “I am a
ger in the land” – I too do not want to be a resident in this world, I am also just
a ger in it. Therefore, “Do not hide your commands from me,” like one ger to
another who tells him everything in his heart.
This is the meaning of the verse [in Levi cus], “You are but strangers and
residents with Me.” When you are a ger in this world and a resident in the
next, then you are with Me, because I too am a ger in this world and therefore
will not hide from you My commandments. (Degel Machane Ephraim, Parshat
Behar)

In contrast to the simple reading of the word "imadi," “with me,” in Lev. 25:23 which
takes our lot to be strangers rela ve to God, the Degel Machane Ephraim renders the
phrase to mean together with God. We are strangers (gerim) and residents together with
God, just like God. For God is the ul mate ger, the ul mate stranger in this world.

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 In what sense might this be true? The Sefat Emet says:

‫שקדושתו ית' בעוה"ז אינו בקביעות‬.

The holiness of the Divine is not permanently established in this world.

God is alien to the world in the sense that the full immanence of the Holy One cannot
rest here all the me. Or, God is radically other--transcendent, u erly dis nct,
incomprehensible.

,"‫"ּכִי ֹלא מַחְׁשְבֹותַי מַחְׁשְבֹותֵיכֶם וְֹלא ַדְרכֵיכֶם ּדְָרכָי‬

says Isaiah 55:8. "My thoughts are not your thoughts and My ways are not your ways."
The gap between the Creator and human beings is vast and seemingly unbridgeable. Our
categories of understanding are simply incommensurable, and hence not relatable. God
is therefore a stranger who sits on the sidelines of the world, unable to fully enter--
rootless, unanchored to a place, unbound to the physical world. And so, says the Degel,
the Divine is alienated from the very beings and things It created--alone, vulnerable, and
misunderstood. In an act of subversive irony, God's in nite greatness becomes the
source of God's in nite loneliness.

We too are gerim, just like God. Just like the Creator, we are ul mately rootless. Just like
Divine, we are alienated from one another and from our environment. Just like the
Ine able, we o en sit on the margins, unable to relate even to our own crea ons. Just
like God, we are profoundly vulnerable. And just like God, we can be profoundly lonely.

So the Source of Life comes along--in the face of that unse ling awareness, that
awareness of our essen al unse lement--and says:

‫ּכִי־גִֵרים וְתֹוׁשָבִים אַּתֶם עִּמָדי‬

You are resident aliens with Me.

Together we can commune in our mutual displacement. Precisely through our

consciousness of di erence, we can join in solidarity. Like a person so very isolated in her
unique pain who meets another who shares her story, let us connect in deep empathy.
Let us be friends, whispers God, through shared experience. Let us reside together,
mindful of our mutual marginality.

The Degel Machaneh Ephraim, like the Sefat Emet and Jacob before him, invites us into
an improbable rela onship with the Divine--a Creator who is so essen ally other and
who asks of us to join there, in and through our own experiences of otherness and
aliena on. Gerut, each of our paths of stranger-ness, has the capacity to lead us to the

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 strangest of them all: God the ger. We might nd ourselves, alas, “together in a sudden
strangeness.”

Bifnim/Personal Re ec ons
1. In what ways, if any, do you feel like a ger--in this world, in your community, in
your body? What, if anything, happens to your self-understanding when you try
on di erent meanings of the word ger: stranger, alien, sojourner, other?
2. Have you ever found solidarity when your idiosyncra c “stranger-ness” met
someone else’s? If so, what happened--and what did you no ce about yourself?
If not, what, if anything, do you think might prevent you from having this
experience?
3. The Sefat Emet sets up a strong mind-body divide. Does that resonate with you?
If so, how? If not, why not? In what other ways might you conceptualize in-
between-ness?

B’Avodah-Prac ce by Rabbi Myriam Klotz

In the 11th century piyyut Agadelkha, R. Avraham ibn Ezra writes, “Can a person fathom
the mystery of their crea on?”

It is u er mystery and paradox that we are created beings at once in a body born into
this world, and also soul, something that enlivens “us” and is as in mately within us as
our innermost parts, yet departs from our bodily selves as the last breath takes leave.

Have you been with someone at the moment of their death? I sat beside my mother as
she was dying. I breathed in rhythm with her breath, in, out, in, out, and then--
suddenly--there was no more “in”.

It was so s ll. One instant prior, there was physical life, my mother. One instant later, my
mother’s body was lifeless.

Where did she go? Who was it who le ? And why did I also sense, as I stared into that
chasmic ache of death’s presence, the presence of Love that yet lived?

Maybe you too have had moments, perhaps at mes when you have witnessed a birth
or a death, when you felt present to the fathomless mystery of your own existence as a
created being? Of crea on itself, at once both Eternal and ephemeral?

In this week’s prac ce, we are invited to re ect upon this mysterious paradox that we
are at once “soul” and “body”, never solely one or the other while we are alive. The
Sefat Emet’s teaching ini ates us into the sacred dance between spirit and ma er that
we embody. This mysterious ow is not to be solved. Rather, this mystery is to be
engaged.

Lonely, elusive and unfathomable as it might feel some mes to sojourn in these strange
“lands”, we can build our capacity to abide the fathomless mystery of our embodied

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 soul-- rather than trying to solve, x or nally de ne this sacred paradox of our very
being. This week, then, our prac ce calls us out of the comfort zone of ra onal
cogni on, and into an embodied experien al prac ce of our own sacred dance.

Yedid Nefesh is a piyyut (liturgical poem) tradi onally sung as Shabbat enters on Friday
evening and as it exits late Saturday a ernoon. It is an expression of one’s yearning to
unite with the Beloved of their Soul, God. This piyyut re ects that quality of longing
which we incarnated beings might feel, each in our own ways, to experience the soul
within us. Perhaps, this piyyut might open for you awareness of a state of “being all
together in a sudden strangeness”--soul and body owing, all together, in a dance
manifes ng the moving and sanc ed grace of your existence.

To help us ease ourselves open to this dimension of awareness, our prac ce now focuses
on dropping into sacred dance as we let the music of Yedid Nefesh lead us in an
experience of contempla ve movement. We prac ce, for a few moments, becoming the
dance.

Prepare your space so that you have room to move your body freely, whatever that
might mean for you this week.

Sit and se le for a few breaths. Feel your body’s subtle movements as the breath ows
in and out.

When you are ready, play the recording through a device that allows you to “get lost” in
the music. You might listen through head phones, ear buds, or perhaps through external
speakers. The physical prac ce is to drop into your body’s awareness as you explore
movement with the music. There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to move. Allow your
a en on to be placed on your body’s expression in a dance with the sounds of the
words, the voice, the instruments, and whatever arises in you as you give yourself to this
sacred dance. You can come out of movement and when you are ready, begin again.
Take your me. Play Yedid Nefesh more than once if you can. Get curious about how
the dance unfolds di erently each me.

As you dance, you may no ce the mind and its thoughts, opinions and preferences:
I don’t like this music. I like this music! Hmmm...this isn’t the Yedid Nefesh melody that I
know. Oh! What’s that trill? Oy-what do those words mean again? Just kindly no ce
the thoughts that arise, and gently bring your a en on back into the focal point of your
body and the sensory experience. Allow yourself to become absorbed in the sounds.
Return to an inten on of bearing witness to your unique, enlivened movements as
through them you are connec ng to the eternal dance of crea on emerging.

When your dance is complete, return to s llness and awareness of the breath. Listen
with open a en on for what is revealed in the quiet. Welcome whatever subtle
sensa ons that arise and pass through you, as if they were beloved sojourners,
reminding you of what is eternal and ephemeral, near as this breath, and unfathomable
at once.

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 The fuller text of the Sefat Emet is below:

‫ וישלח תרנ"ד‬,‫שפת אמת‬

‫ נראה‬.‫בפסוק עם לבן גרתי פרש"י לא נעשיתי שר וחשוב אלא גר ד"א תרי"ג מצות שמרתי‬
‫שזה תכלית המצות שהם מכוונים לאברים וגידים של האדם כי הגוף הוא מלבוש הנפש‬
‫ ובעצם‬.‫ ובאמת הנשמה במקרה בעוה"ז‬.‫והנשמה והאדם צריך לידע כי הוא גר בעוה"ז‬
‫ ולכן הצדיק שגובר כח‬.‫ והגוף בעצם בעוה"ז ובמקרה בעולם העליון‬.‫בעולם העליון‬
‫ ולהאיר‬.‫ וכל מצוה יש בה ב' הבחי' להכניע הגוף‬.‫הנשמה על הגוף נעשה כגר בעוה"ז‬
‫ וזהו עיקר עבודת האדם לבטל ולהכניע כח הגוף אל הנשמה להיות טפל‬.‫הנשמה והנפש‬
‫ וכמ"ש גר אנכי עמך פי' כמו שקדושתו ית' בעוה"ז אינו בקביעות כך גר‬.‫אל הנשמה‬
...‫אנכי‬

Sefat Emet, Vayishlach, 1893

On the verse, “[Thus shall you say to my lord Esau, thus says your servant Jacob:] I stayed
with (gar ) Laban [and remained un l now]” (Genesis 32:5), Rashi explains: “I have
become neither a prince nor other person of importance but merely a [simple]
sojourner (ger). Alterna vely, [Rashi o ers this explana on]: “I observed the 613
commandments [of the Torah]” [as the le ers in gar amount to 613 in gematria].

It seems that this is the purpose of mitzvot: to direct the organs and the tendons of a
person--because the body is a garment for the soul and spirit, and a person must know
that they are a foreigner (ger) in this world. The truth is that the soul is only accidentally
(or par ally) in this world. It is essen ally in the higher world. The body is essen ally in
this world and accidentally in the higher world. Therefore the righteous person, who
overpowers the body with the soul is like a stranger in this world.

Every mitzvah has within it two purposes: to subdue the body and to light up the soul
and spirit. This is the essence of human devo on: to neutralize and subdue the power of
the body to the soul, so that it will be subordinate to the soul.

The verse [in Psalms] says, “[Hear my prayer, O YHVH; give ear to my cry; do not
disregard my tears; for like all my forebears,] I am an alien (ger), resident with You”
(Psalms 39:13). The meaning is that just as the holiness of the Divine is not permanently
established in this world, so too I am alien [in this world]…

8|S e f a t E m e t o n t h e P a r s h a h — R a b b i D r. E r i n L e i b S m o k l e r
© Institute for Jewish Spirituality 2021
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