We are often our worst nemesis

Jacob met a man, clouded in mystery, who came to do battle with him. Failing to overpower him, he ultimately changed his name, changing the destiny of the Jewish people. 

This type of story seems bizarre to the core. 

Who was this man? What did he represent? When Jacob asks for his name, he says, "Why are you asking for my name?" leading some to say that that was indeed his name. 

Very infrequently do we have similar episodes in the Tanach where man meets angel; the two worlds meet, one ethereal, one very much grounded in reality, and a hidden message, once ensconced, becomes apparent. 

This encounter speaks heavily to Hashem's choice of mankind over angel, harking to the famous midrashim about Hashem choosing to overrule angelic beings and indeed create man, against their fiercest objections. Jacob is not left unscathed from the encounter, explaining why - forever more - Jews are forbidden from eating the sciatic nerve. Though the sages teach that Jacob's wound healed fully, he limped away from the encounter, seemingly with permanent damage. 

I believe there are multiple messages we can take from this encounter, but one is, that inside of ourselves - each and every one of us - we have certain things we have to clarify, things that are obfuscated until we are willing to fully grapple with them. This inconstruable angel, nameless, and unidentifiable can perhaps be found in each and every one of us. My father likes to quote Nietzsche who said, "Become who you are." In essence, through Jacob's struggle, he becomes who he is, receiving a new name, a new destiny, and in many ways, making him the father who exemplified the integration of what is known in Kabbalah as tiferet, Abraham's kindness and Isaac's valor, fused into one. 

Secondly, it's important to recall that at the end of the day, when the two were pitted against each other, the angel, and all he represents - a world of absolute truth - didn't vanquish Jacob, because peace - or the harmony of the worlds of his fathers, Abraham and Isaac, wins out in the pursuit of absolute truth. Peace is greater than adhering to the truth in its most empirical form, peace being Hashem's very name on which the world is founded, not an angelic vision that doesn't leave room for life in its simplest most human form. 


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