Self-Guided Torah Study - Vayishlach

The painting is Jacob and Esau, there are dark hills and a sky of deep blues behind them, but the majority of the frame is the two embraced figures. Their faces are in one another's shoulders. The one behind has darker brown hair, short in back, his neck is exposed, his skin is a light peach/beige. He's wearing a teal blue tunic awith no sleeves nd his left, muscular arm is wrapped around the other figure's neck. The other figure is wearing deep, rusty orange tunic with sleeves and leaning. The face is not visible, but the reddish facial hair is. There are vein lines in the neck. The left hand of each figure is holding onto the back of the other's neck in this embrace. 

I created a self-guided Torah study for this week’s parsha: Vayishlach.

Yesterday when I lead Morning Minyan for IKAR - as I do most Sundays as a volunteer I had about 5 minutes to share a little drash. Now, here's the problem, the drash I woke up with wasn't really a little drash.

IKAR had a community day yesterday, in LA, and three weeks ago I reached out to the folks organizing it and offered to help create a parallel online experience for folks like me - people who either or both aren't in LA and are immunocompromised/can’t physically attend such events. The community day's purpose was both for folks to come together and also to be a fundraiser for Minyan Tzedek, the group of folks focused on justice action in the local community. They do truly great stuff.

I was told there was already an experience for folks like me, we could donate to the fundraiser.

For me this is evidence that even places and people we love and appreciate can profoundly not get what we are saying, no matter how often or in how many ways we say it. For three weeks, in anticipation of the community day, I realized yesterday morning that I've felt alienated from the community. And not only this specific community, but that sense of alienation was poking at all of my other tender spots.

The parsha this week, Vayishlach, includes the reconciliation of Jacob and Esau, but it's imperfect. Jacob may no longer fear for his life, but he is also still disconnected from Esau. Esau may no longer blame his brother for his life, but there is no indication that he trusts him - and lots of evidence that he doesn't. Just before this moment, Jacob wrestles with and is forever marked by a Divine Being of some sort - typically named an angel. God gives him the additional new name (unlike Abraham and Sarah, this new name isn't instead of his original name, but another name by which he is also known) Israel, one who wrestles with God.

I woke up thinking about how tzedek, justice, in Judaism is more about balance and restoration than it is about giving - even though in practice we don't often experience it that way. If someone needs, then there is an imbalance. If someone has excess, then there is an imbalance. Restoring the balance isn't a gift of generosity, it is recognition and resolution. If our excess never actually belongs to us and we only hold it in trust until its rightful owner appears, then while we can desire appreciation for being good trustees, those who receive what we transfer back to them owe us nothing. And if we are in need and someone restores to our what they have held in trust, we need not be beholden to them.

Not when it's resources like food or shelter.
Not when it's dignity.
Not when it's belonging.

Informed by Jacob and Esau, I'm finding these ideas of tzedek even more provocative.

After the resolution, Jacob builds an altar. A mizbei'ach.
That and a painting I love of Jacob and Esau are at the center of the self-guided study I put together to accompany my 5 minutes of teaching.

My teaching was flawed. It was too much for the time we had.
I'm sure the study is flawed, too. These are new-to-me ideas I'm wrestling with. I haven't put Jacob and Esau and Tzedek and Psalm 118 together before.

I would love to know what you think if you choose to engage with it.