The Great Kiss/Bite
With Thanksgiving on the immediate horizon and the rest of the winter holidays on the farther horizon, family reunions are on our minds. In normal times, amid all the love and happiness, there’s always great potential for tension because, you know, the people we love the most often drive us up the wall the most. This year, with pandemic malaise still very much a thing and differing public health practices across family units, the tension might be a bit higher.
It’s fitting then that we find ourselves reading about another massively tense family reunion between Jacob and Esav. Last we heard from Esav, he was promising to kill his brother once their father died. A whole bunch of narrative takes place in the interim and then this week, we find ourselves back on the precipice of their reunion. After much trepidation on behalf of Jacob, they have a cathartic embrace and cry, or at least that’s what the plain reading of the text
tells us.וַיָּ֨רׇץ עֵשָׂ֤ו לִקְרָאתוֹ֙ וַֽיְחַבְּקֵ֔הוּ וַיִּפֹּ֥ל עַל־צַוָּארָ֖ו וַׄיִּׄשָּׁׄקֵ֑ׄהׄוּׄ וַיִּבְכּֽוּ׃
Esau ran to greet him. He embraced him and, falling on his neck, he kissed him; and they wept.
Notice how the penultimate word of the verse, “and he kissed him” has dots over it. There are a number of instances throughout the Torah where such dots appear. They seem to be a fairly ancient editorial device. Often times they are used to hint to the reader that a word’s origins may be dubious. Other times, it is to signal to the reader to read more closely.
This case seems to be an example of the latter. The signal could be, according to the Midrash in Bereshit Rabbah (78:9-10) that it means he gave him an authentic kiss. The dots would then mean “I know you don’t really believe they both fully changed, but really it’s true.” The other opinion from this Midrash goes the opposite direction. Don’t read it as “kiss.” Rather, understand that Esav tried to bite Jacob (a creative read on the fact that linguistically in Hebrew, bite and kiss are very similar). As an extension of God’s protection over Jacob, his neck turned to marble and they both cried, Jacob in sadness and Esav in pain.
It’s a wonderfully creative read but one that I think feels too simplistic. Either they both had a full reversal of feelings or they reverted back to their enmity for one another. Especially since they seemed to be somewhat reconciled at the end of the story but do go their separate ways, a more nuanced reading feels more realistic. We get that from the Chasidic Rabbi Chayim Tyer of Tchernovitz, known as the Be’er Mayyim Chayyim.
As Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said, “it’s known that Esav hated Yaakov but his compassion was stirred in this moment so he kissed him with all of his heart.” After he saw all that transpired, Esav couldn’t move because now that he felt love for him, he ran to him. He said to himself, it’s clearly God’s desire to bring goodness to Yaakov so he embraced him.
His argument here is not that there was a wholesale change in perpetuity. Rather, for this moment in time, Esav found something within himself to embrace his brother authentically for the monumental shifts that had taken place over time. It wasn’t a full reconciliation that glossed over their whole past for we know they later separate. But for this gathering, with Jacob present with his family and Esav having amassed a great fortune, they could just be in their love for one another.
I am holding on to this teaching and its potential for our own gatherings to come. We all hold so much hope that our families won’t disappoint us or cause us pain. But they do and we do to them because we’re all human. Sometimes though, it behooves us to recalibrate our expectations.
For this meal, for this moment, or for this couple of hours, can I find some goodness in this person? Can I find a reason to embrace them? That to me is what it means to live in the spirit of this story. Within those small little dots, there exists real potential for harmony, even if it is ever fleeting.
Genesis 33:4
Be'er Mayim Chaim, Genesis 33:4:1-Ukraine-1760-1816