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Parashat
VaYishlah
Translated
from Hebrew by S. NAthan
l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
The Borders
of Evil
Esav’s hatred for Yaakov is a given, in the reality of good and evil.
“And his hand was grasping Esav’s heel.” Hate and love came down to this
world bound together.
It begs explanation: On the one hand, they strive to eliminate each
other. On the other hand, they never reach their goal, and it is decreed
that they are never to be separated from each other. It seems we must
examine existence’s possibilites as they occur among both of these fierce
opponents.
If Yaakov has been forbidden to use Esav’s tools of war, and must make
use of his own quality only, for that in itself is sufficient to quell
Esav, nevertheless this is only one perspective.
Reality has a variety of perspectives. For example: “If someone comes to
kill you, rise earlier and kill him.” Where do we find here a prohibition
against making use of evil’s power?
However, for self-defense only, it is permitted. As the Ramban says:
“There is here another hint, for all generations. Because everything that
occurred to our father with Esav his brother, will occur to us constantly
with the children of Esav. And it is fitting that we hold on to the way
of the tsadik: That we prepare ourselves for the three things for
which he prepared himself. For prayer, for gifts, and for rescue by
way of war, to escape and to be saved.”
The Ramban changes the words of Hazal: “For gifts, for prayer, and for
war.” He also adds a complex interpretation to the concept of war with
Esav. This is to teach you that there is no obligation, and indeed even a
certain reluctance, and perhaps even a prohibition against taking hold of
the tools of that wicked one’s craft.
Nevertheless, we do go out against the enemy,
and even over arkita dimesani, “a shoelace,” and as mentioned,
“when someone comes to kill you, rise earlier and kill him.”
Perhaps one must interpret the Ramban as
meaning that one must do everything possible to be saved without having to
do battle on the front of war, as much as possible, yet there is no
absolute prohibition here against making war when conditions warrant it.
It would appear that when there is an element
of deterrence involved, there is mitsva in war, in order to deter the
enemy from believing that the blood of Israel is free for the taking.
This is as far as a practical perspective
goes. However, we must look more deeply at the concept of a defensive
war, and where its boundaries lie.
Evil and good are as shadow and light, to
sharpen and to emphasize one another, to serve as one another’s
yardstick. Neighborliness – yes. Mingling and uniting – no. Beside
each other, but not with each other.
…until good attains the ability to draw from
its own sources, the sources of love and truth. Until this stage of
perfection is attained, good must immunize itself through stimulations
from the outside. The job of these stimulations is to serve as a
motivator and as a source of energy for good’s efforts of
self-actualization. Good must pass through the tunnel of evil, of
suffering, in order to immunize itself by hatred’s fire.
Good’s power, and its maximizing itself,
depends on its ability to draw from evil, through resistance, in order to
attain self-awareness by comparing itself with its opponent. Love born of
free choice must pass through hatred’s obstacle course.
In a place that is empty of love, hate
develops. Love is the expression of the self who has found an address to
identify with, and from which to receive a response that is after its own
heart.
Hatred expresses the defense response of the
self, under conditions that threaten its quality, and under conditions in
which it lacks the ability to express what is unique in it. The
survival mechanism is the source of hatred, and it supplies hatred
with content and with the means to react to the hated one.
Hatred cannot penetrate into the region of the
self. It is halted by ego’s roadblock, which is the self-preservation
mechanism. From here we see that overcoming hatred that has no
justification, on condition that it does not threaten one’s
self-preservation, is feasible through relating personally, as a private
person; one’s own self seeks to find the self of the hated other.
We see here that a person or a situation that
threatens self-preservation, or the self’s quality, or its principles or
values, takes on the form of legitimate hatred. “Your haters, God, I
shall hate.” There is no hatred of the wicked unless the wicked person
threatens the self – its quality and its values.
Esav’s hatred for Yaakov has its source in the
fact that Yaakov is the negation of the image of Esav, which represents
values that are diametrically opposed to the values Yaakov represents. It
is not a direct, personal hatred, and therefore the brothers refrain from
a military confrontation at their meeting. It suffices for Esav that he
is represented by his representative angel, who does not express any
personal aspect, but only a value-based aspect.
As opposed to Esav, Lavan’s and his sons’
hatred for Yaakov is a personal hatred – jealousy. It is not
value-based. Personal hatred has certain advantages and certain
disadvatages over value-based hatred.
Advantages: Distance. Barrier. Gilad: “If I
will not cross this mound to come to you, and if you will not cross this
mound and this monument to come to me, to do harm…”
All the values of kith and kin – “you did not
leave me to kiss my daughters” – disappear without a trace. The personal
hatred is exposed, and it is based wholly on envy.
Disadvantages: There is no logic, and no
method to personal hatred. As long as the existential/personal exists,
kina, ta’ava, and kavod mingle with and nourish the hatred.
Everything that the enemy represents encounters a hatred and a hostility
that makes no distinctions based on values, no separation between good and
evil.
In contrast, Esav’s hatred of the values that
Yaakov represents undergoes changes and upheavals according to the
conflict of values between them, depending upon the condition of each
side’s values. As their distance and opposition (based on values) grows
smaller, so does hatred decrease between Esav and Yaakov, to the point
that Yaakov risks being influenced by Esav, seduced by Esav, and drawn
toward what Esav represents.
Thus does modern liberalism – which blurs
values and uniqueness – constitute a threat to the values held by Yaakov,
who is seduced into adopting liberalism as a value, forgetting that
liberalism is no value but rather a blurring and a lessening of values, a
breaking of the boundaries of values in favor of wanton abandon.
Liberalism – wicked Esav’s sweet revenge.
Just as one must not see in the effort of
subduing one’s yetser a central path in God’s service (as does
Christianity) so one must not see hatred – not even hatred of evil – as a
positive approach, but rather only love.
The dangerous element in Esav’s hatred was
that he raised hatred to the level of a moral value, that he raised it up
as a banner. Hatred as an ideology raises itself above all conditions of
space and time. It is not personal, and not ephemeral, but rather exists
in its own right.
As opposed to Christianity – which made of
Jew-hatred a moral principle, a banner, the victory of the physical over
the spiritual (not to be confused with its hypocritical hatred of the
physical, masked as enlightenment, such as scientific objectivity,
critical thinking, and external politeness) – Islam belongs more precisely
to the hatred of Lavan. Islam’s hatred arises out of kina, ta’ava, and
kavod, “envy, lust, and pride,” since Islam does not preach
principles, and is devoid of spirituality and ideals.
It would be interesting to investigate the
question of who belongs to the brothers’ hatred for Yosef.
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