DECEMBER 8 • 2022 | 55

SPIRIT

To Search Within
T

hree times each day, we 
begin the Amidah prayer 
with the words, “Blessed 
are You, Hashem, our God and 
God of our ancestors, the God 
of Abraham, the God 
of Isaac and the God 
of Jacob …
” Why the 
apparent repetition 
in addressing the 
Almighty? Why do we 
not simply say, “Blessed 
are You, Hashem, our 
God …
”?
Rabbi Yisrael Ba’al 
Shem Tov, founder 
of the Chasidic tradi-
tion, explained that 
it is appropriate for a 
person to attempt to 
discover God on one’s 
own and to establish a personal 
relationship with Him. At the 
same time, however, one should 
also relate to God as did our 

ancestors.
The search for God is the 
underlying theme of Jacob’s life. 
Most importantly, Jacob had to 
feel worthy of God’s “friendship” 
to enter a fellowship with 
the Divine. First, he must 
first come to grips with his 
own personality flaws, with 
his own inner and truest self 
and identity, and with the 
image of God within himself. 
That would require a 
fateful confrontation with 
his arch-nemesis and twin 
brother, Esau. He must atone 
for his sin of having stolen 
the “blessings” away from 
Esau; he can then meet God 
with a clear conscience. Only 
after Jacob can successfully 
separate himself from Esau will 
he be able to confront his own 
God.
On the night before he is 

to meet his brother after a 
20-year estrangement, the Torah 
records how Jacob wrestled 
with an unidentified stranger 
over whom he prevailed. Rabbi 
Samson Raphael Hirsch suggests 
that it may have been the Esau 
within Jacob who is haunting 
the patriarch with guilt and 
jealousy.
Jacob receives the victory 
name Yisrael (Israel) from 
the stranger; he has prevailed 
against men and God. He has 
confronted the twin personality 
within himself: the grasping, 
cheating Esau he desired to 
become to obtain his father’s 
favor and achieve momentary 
materialistic enjoyment, and the 
Esau from within himself.
After his mastery over the 
angel of Esau, Jacob calls the 
place of the encounter Peniel, 
“because I have seen the Lord 

face-to- face, and my soul has 
been saved.
” The true Jacob has 
triumphed over himself and has 
become “Isra-el.
”
He erects an altar to his own 
God, calling it Kel Elokei Yisrael, 
“God, the God of Israel.
” Finally, 
God is not only the God of his 
grandfather and of his father, but 
also the God of Israel, the God 
of the “complete” Jacob, his own 
personal God, discovered after 
many travails and much pain.
Because of his search, we 
pray in the Amidah to God 
as encountered by each of our 
patriarchs, reminding us of our 
need to pursue our own per-
sonal discoveries of ourselves 
and then of our own personal 
God. 

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is chancellor 

of Ohr Torah Stone and chief rabbi of 

Efrat, Israel.

TORAH PORTION

Rabbi 
Shlomo 
Riskin

Parshat 

Vayishlach: 

Genesis 

32:4-36:43; 

Obediah 

1:1-21.

