On the eve of Thanksgiving, we hear
the news each day how difficult travel is for thousands and
thousands who are coming home from some distance. It's not easy to
come home by car with the congestion on the roads and the cost of gas.
It's not easy coming home by plane with the congestion in the skies
and delays in take-offs and landings. It's not easy coming home.
For many, the difficulty of coming
home is not so much in the travel but begins upon walking through the
front door. This part of the difficulty is reported less by the media
but might be even deeper and more troubling than the travel by car and
plane. Many even experience a seasonal depression because of the
unresolved issues that are stirred up during this time of holiday
family reunions.
It's not for Thanksgiving, but Jacob
is coming home this Shabbat too. Jacob's biggest concern in his trek
home was whether the donkeys and camels had enough to eat and would
incur no injuries on the way. The closer he got to being home,
however, the more anxious he became because there were some real
unresolved issues that he left some twenty years earlier. The issues
were so great, he was concerned that his brother Esau might even kill
him and his family upon his arrival.
The night before Jacob's family
reunion with Esau, he is visited by some nocturnal stranger who
assaults him and in the midst of a physical struggle injures Jacob in
the socket of his hip. At dawn, this masked man wants to depart. Jacob
won't let him leave until he can wrestle some blessing from him. This
adversary finally offers Jacob a blessing. He changes Jacob's name
from Ya-akove which means a heel to Yisrael which means one who
wrestles with G-d. We are, of course, the children of Israel. It is
our blessing to wrestle with G-d.
If none of this concern with
family discord relates to you consider yourself even more fortunate
and add another reason to be grateful at this Thanksgiving time. Many
though, like Jacob, have anxious days leading up to holiday family
reunions. They find themselves tied up in knots about what might
transpire when they're home again with family. People in therapy,
doing well in resolving childhood and adolescent issues sometimes
regress as a result of being back at the scene of the conflicts and
then need to recover from the holiday gathering. Therapists expect to
see more bouts of depression at this "happy" time of year. As
difficult as it might be, however, we never lose the hope that somehow
our family might be the source of blessing for us. Not unlike Jacob,
somewhere in our soul and psyche we are saying bless me before the
dawn's sun arrives.
I wish you all a fantastic
Thanksgiving weekend filled with joy and happiness and the celebration
of family together. I wish that every Simcha, Bar and Bat Mitzvah and
wedding were filled with pure joy but from my Rabbinic vantage, I see
that is not the case. There are a myriad of possible issues in
families that too often come to make the Simcha bitter sweet. Those
issues intrude on holiday reunions as well.
We continue to hope however. Perhaps
this will be the year that we can get past all or some of the
troubling issues and find some resolution, healing and calm after the
storm. Jacob does. After all his worry and stress he finally
encounters his brother Esau. He fears this may be his last minute but
instead his brother Esau embraces him. The Torah relates the reunion
"Esau ran to greet him. He embraced him and falling on his neck, he
kissed him and they wept." Rabbi Yannai, in the Midrash B'reisheet
Rabbah, can't stand such a happy ending and he says that Esau really
tried to bite his brother Jacob on the neck. I choose to simply stay
with the kiss as a kiss and reconciliation, at least for the moment of
two brothers.
Even with families with friction and
discord, perhaps this can be the year of a true and loving kiss
whereas in the past it felt more like a bite in the neck. If it seems
like more of a bite once again than a kiss, I wish you the strength
and understanding to get through it.
Whatever our familial situations,
idyllic or troubling, we all have much to be thankful for in life.
Like Jacob received at dawn, I hope we each can find this Thanksgiving
weekend filled with blessing.
Happy Thanksgiving!
