Vayshlach 5773 - English

By Rabbi Gustavo Kraselnik
Kol Shearith Israel Congregation, Panama

Volver con la frente marchita, las nieves del tiempo, platearon mi sien.

Sentir que es un soplo la vida, que veinte años no es nada…

(To come back with a withered forehead,

the snows of time have silver-plated my temple.

To feel that life is a puff of wind,  that twenty years are nothing…)

The tango “Volver”, beautifully interpreted by the immortal Carlos Gardel, constitutes one of the classics of the genre, to the point that a neophyte in the subject (as I am) knows its chorus by memory.  The lyrics, composed by Alfredo Lepera, express the homesickness and restlessness of the people who return, after having been away from their home for a long time.

If we were to ask our patriarch Jacob, it is possible he would not be too enthusiastic about this tango.

He’s returning to Canaan after twenty years at his uncle Laban’s house.  The Torah does not tell us exactly how old he was, but certain information allows us to assume that Jacob was far from having a “withered forehead”.  (By the way, Jacob’s biography includes some complicated elements.)

In addition, reviewing the famous phrase of the tango, “That twenty years are nothing”, Jacob would say that for him, those twenty years were indeed a lot.  He left on his own and with no money (“with my staff alone I crossed this Jordan…” – Gen. 32:11) and he returns with a huge family and abundant wealth (“I have acquired cattle, asses, sheep, and male and female slaves…” – 32:6), to the extent that he has to settle into two camps (32:11).

However, Jacob might think, perhaps, that the tango is not entirely wrong.  The terror he feels before the impending reencounter with his brother, who had sworn to kill him (27:41), makes him go back in time.  At that moment, in the solitude of that hunted night on the crook of the river Jabbok, he would grant us that “twenty years are nothing” when we are dealing with certain feelings.

Less suspicious now of Gardel’s voice, our patriarch would open his eyes wide before the tango’s next lyrics.  And I could almost swear that it was his vigil what served as the source of inspiration for the author, when he wrote the following passage:

Tengo miedo del encuentro con el pasado que vuelve a enfrentarse con mi vida.  

Tengo miedo de las noches que, pobladas de recuerdos, encadenen mi soñar.

(I fear meeting the past, when it comes back to face me.

I fear the memory-filled nights which shackle my dreams.)

Fear of facing the past and fear of the night and its dreams; Jacob’s feelings during that lonely night can be reduced to these two dimensions.  The words of the tango express the same feelings, the same anguish harbored in his heart.  He will have to stand before his brother Esau to succeed at the meeting, and at the same time, the long night, with its dreams and memories, will bring him to wrestle with God’s angel (a version of his own tribulations?).

He will literally risk his life facing his brother; facing God, he will risk his life’s meaning.  He prepares himself for the first encounter, sending messengers with gifts in the hope of gaining Esau’s favor (32:6).  The second confrontation takes him by surprise, or is there any chance to prepare for a confrontation with God?

And all of a sudden, both disputes start to get mixed up.  Jacob cannot face Esau without solving his own disputes beforehand; or isn’t that what the wrestling with the angel is all about?  The fight with the angel turns into a hand-to-hand combat, from which Jacob comes out hurt (32:26) and transformed into Israel (32:29).  However, he is again Jacob the next morning, when he kneels down seven times before his brother and witnesses how he comes forth to greet him (even if the Midrash Bereshit Rabbah 78:9 prefers to read second intentions in Esau’s kiss).  From then on, the return path became more serene.

Jacob/Israel will suffer many more ups and downs throughout his life: Dinah’s rape, Rachel’s death, and the disappearance of Joseph, his favorite son, among others.  What is clear is that this unforgettable journey was what transformed his life and turned him into our third patriarch.

Perhaps it was that same night, on his way back to Canaan after twenty years, on the eve of his reencounter with his brother, after dividing his people into two camps and before being challenged by the divine angel, when the Jabbok river reflected the image of a lone and distressed man who, accompanied by the strumming of a guitar, began to sing out, loud and clear, the tango “Volver”.