Caleb Brommer – Senior Sermon (RS ’24)

Nov 30, 2023 By JTS Senior Sermon | Commentary | Senior Sermon | Short Video | Vayishlah

Vayishlah All the Class of 2024 Senior Sermons

Remember Dinah; Listen to Women

Dec 1, 2023 By Rabbi Ayelet Cohen | Commentary | Vayishlah

Dinah’s story is often overlooked in a parashah rich with other narratives that are easier and more pleasant to explore. But this is not a time to shy away from difficult stories or avoid stories of sexual violence. Shabbat Vayishlah can be an opportunity for our communities to center the stories of women and girls in their fullness and explore the ways our communities can become communities of support.

Can We Be Empowered by Patriarchal Texts?

Dec 9, 2022 By Alison L. Joseph | Commentary | Vayishlah

I have long been bothered by the story of Dinah in Genesis 34. This narrative, often referred to as the “Rape of Dinah,” is difficult to read, not only because sexual violence against a young woman is employed as a plot device, but also because I’m not sure why the story is included in the Torah in the first place. My concern with the story is more acute when I read it within our liturgical calendar as just another episode in the Jacob cycle (Gen. 25–35).

Facing Our Fears

Nov 19, 2021 By Walter Herzberg | Commentary | Vayishlah

Soon after leaving Aram, the home of Laban his father-in-law, along with his wives, children, and possessions, Jacob instructed messengers to go to his brother Esau in Edom and say: “Thus says your servant Jacob: With Laban I have sojourned and I tarried till now. And I have gotten oxen and donkeys and sheep and male and female slaves, and I send ahead to tell my lord, to find favor in your eyes” (Gen. 32:5–6). Upon returning, the messengers relate that Esau himself is coming to meet Jacob and bringing four hundred men! 

Having It All

Dec 4, 2020 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Vayishlah

After twenty years of estrangement, Jacob and Esau encounter one another yet again. Time has somewhat softened the bitterness and pain of the injustice done to Esau in Jacob’s theft of the blessing. And Esau has come to his senses, realizing that the murder of his brother will not right the wrong committed under the aegis of his scheming mother. Still, at the beginning of our parashah, Jacob is so uncertain and fearful of the encounter between him and his brother that he plans for the worst—dividing his family into two camps (lest one be destroyed, the other half will survive) and wrestling with the mysterious assailant (which portends his coming to terms with the misstep he committed so many years prior). Clearly, given what Jacob experienced in Laban’s home, the blessing received from Isaac has yet to come to fruition.

Wrestling for Blessing

Dec 13, 2019 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Vayishlah

On the eve of his dreaded reunion with Esau, Jacob remained alone in the dark, and “a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.” The mysterious assailant injured Jacob, dislocating his thigh, but Jacob refused to let go, so the man pleaded with him, saying: “Let me go, for dawn is breaking!” Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The assailant asked for Jacob’s name, and conferred a new one, Israel, “for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed” (Gen. 32:25-29).

Wrestling the Angels and the Demons within Us

Dec 1, 2017 By Jonathan Milgram | Commentary | Vayishlah

In this week’s Torah reading, Parashat Vayishlah, we read of the patriarch Jacob’s journey home with his family after freeing himself and his entire clan from his father-in-law, Laban’s, control. Along the route, Jacob prepares himself for his eventual reunion with his older twin brother Esau, whom he fears to be vengeful. Right in the middle of the parashah, in between the description of Jacob’s preparations and his actual meeting with Esau, Jacob is involved in a transformative experience: a physical struggle with a stranger.

Words of Peace?

Dec 16, 2016 By Avi Garelick | Commentary | Vayishlah

Words of peace,
But no treaty,
Are a sign
Of a plot.

—Sun-Tzu, The Art of War