Jacob the Sojourner
In one of the most dramatic scenes in the Torah we read about the emotional reunion of Esau and Jacob. After stealing the blessings that were designated for Esau, Jacob fled to the land of Charan and remained there for twenty years. Finally, in this week’s Parsha, we read about Jacob preparing for and eventually meeting his brother Esau. They embraced, kissed and wept.
Reading this story the question arises: why was the reunion between the brothers short lived? A few verses after the emotional meeting, we read about Esau heading back to the land of Seir, where he had settled, while Jacob remained in Canaan, the land of his ancestors. If the brothers were so moved by their meeting why did they part ways so quickly?
Another point to ponder: In this story, Esau undergoes an extreme transformation. Initially plotting to kill his brother Jacob, he ends up embracing and crying on his shoulder. What exactly caused the change in Esau’s heart? Why did he no longer begrudge Jacob for stealing his blessing? Which one of the gifts and words of appeasement that Jacob sent to his brother was the one that was effective in penetrating Esau’s heart?
The key to understand these questions lies in the very first statement Jacob sent to his brother at the opening of the Parsha. Jacob sends messengers to his brother:
And he commanded them, saying, "So shall you say to my master to Esau, 'Thus said your servant Jacob, "I have sojourned with Laban, and I have tarried until now.[1]
Jacob chose his words deliberately. The phrase “I have sojourned”, is what would affect Esau to forego on the stolen blessing and allow him to forgive his brother Jacob.[2]
What image did the word sojourn evoke for Esaus? Where had Esau heard this word before?
G-d promised Abraham the land of Canaan, yet the promise came with a heavy price. G-d told Abraham:
"You shall surely know that your seed will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will enslave them and oppress them, for four hundred years.[3]
Jacob was telling Esau that although Jacob received the blessing, he was also forced to pay the price for Abraham’s legacy. Jacob told Esau, I indeed was blessed, but I am also the sojourner who will suffer for many years before ultimately returning to the land.
Esau, well aware of the condition of slavery that was tied to inheriting the land promised to Abraham, decided that he had no interest in paying the price for the land. He therefore, willingly chose to migrate to the land of Seir, which although was not the land promised to Abraham, was a land for which one did not have to pay for with four hundred years of sojourning. In Esau’s cost benefit analysis, being a sojourner, was too high a price to pay for the land.
Thus, when Jacob told Esau “I have sojourned”, he was reminding him of the price to be paid for the blessing of their father Isaac. To receive the legacy of Abraham, Jacob reminded Esau, was a great spiritual destiny, but it also demanded a willingness to sacrifice. Esau listened. He understood that indeed the blessings were not for him. They were not the future he envisioned for himself. Thus, he was able to forgive Jacob for stealing the now undesired blessings, and therefore he parted from Jacob, traveled back to Seir. He did so in order to separate himself from having to pay the price of bearing the legacy of Abraham.[4]
Being a sojourner has a spiritual connotation as well.[5] A sojourner who is in a specific place may be tremendously successful, yet he is a sojourner because his stay is but temporary. Jacob and his descendants are sojourners, because to us material blessing is but temporary. It does not capture our true identity. We engage in the physical world, as visitors, because at our core, we are truly at home when we connect to the spiritual.
To carry the legacy of Abraham Isaac and Jacob is to understand that while we are blessed with physical blessings, those blessings do not define our identity. While Esau refused to be a sojourner in the material world, Jacob and his descendants embrace our destiny. We understand that while we seek to prosper and find success, in order to allow us to carry out our mission on this planet, we remember that holiness is our native land, and spirituality is our mother tongue.
[1] Genesis 32:5.
[2] See Panim Yafot on our Parsha.
[3] Genesis 15:13.
[4] See Rashi on Genesis 36:6: “because of his brother Jacob,” [as follows:] Because of the note of obligation of the decree: “that your seed will be strangers” (Gen. 15: 13), which was put upon the descendants of Isaac. He (Esau) said, “I will get out of here. I have neither a share in the gift-for the land has been given to him-nor in the payment of the debt.
[5] See Lekutey Sichos, Vayishlach Vol. 1.