Love Combines the Letters: Yaakov's Love for Esav

30aOr we may say that “And Yaakov sent …,” read together with the verse “And a man wrestled (vaye'avek) with him …,” speaks of the love that makes a tzaddik's prayer work. On “wrestled,” Rashi explains that they were raising dust (avak).¹ And the Gemara says of that man: “One said, he appeared to him as a gentile; and one said, he appeared to him as a sage.”² At first glance the two opinions are far apart. It seems we can explain this by first explaining the verse “Your word is very tzerufah, and Your servant loves it.”³ Tzerufah means “refined,” but here it is read as “combined,” from tziruf, the joining of letters. When a tzaddik prays for a sick person or the like, his prayer is answered. Yet this would seem to mean a change in the Creator, Who is simple and true, Heaven forbid. But the root of it is this. Hashem, blessed be He, created the letters, and they exist in potential with the Creator. The tzaddik combines these letters so that they read as he wishes: the prayer he prays is made of combinations of letters that he joins together. So there is no change in Him at all. The letters were there from the start; the tzaddik only combines them.

30bYou may ask: why is it specifically the tzaddik whose prayer is answered, as Chazal said, “Whoever has a sick person in his house should go to a sage and pray”?⁴ Why can't any person pray, and the letters be combined? The reason is that the holy Torah was created with love, as we say in the blessing, “Who chooses His people Israel with love.”⁵ The tzaddik, too, loves Hashem and every person in the world. As R' Yochanan said, “No one ever greeted me first in the marketplace, not even a gentile.”⁶ That is not the trait of every person, and so the letters too combine only through the tzaddik who loves everyone. This is “Your word is very tzerufah, combined”: the higher letters are already combined in potential, and through the tzaddik who loves everyone they combine in actual fact. And this is “and Your servant loves it.”

31aThis is “And Yaakov sent angels”: what Yaakov sent were the letters and the words, for letters and words are called angels, as we said when we read this verse as Yaakov mending the exile through speech: the words of the tzaddik are called malachim. “Before him” (lefanav) means that these letters were with the Creator lefanim, beforehand, in potential, and Yaakov combined them because of his love, for he loved everyone. That is “to Esav his brother”: even Esav was at peace with him like a brother, in the spirit of “not even a gentile in the marketplace.”

31bThis is “And a man wrestled (vaye'avek) with him”: vaye'avek is read like avak ribbis, the “dust of interest,” a faint trace of forbidden interest.⁷ Certainly not all loves are equal, as though love for a Jew and love for a gentile were the same. Love for a Jew is complete love. Love for a gentile is not complete: because he is a gentile, it keeps a “dust,” a faint trace like the dust of interest. This is the view that “he appeared to him as a gentile,” and so “vaye'avek with him”: Yaakov's love for him was like dust. The other said, “he appeared to him as a sage.” Even so, Yaakov's love for him was not complete, for Yaakov perceived that he was not yet whole in his middos, his character traits. Yaakov did love him; only because of those shortcomings his love for him was not complete. This is “and a man wrestled with him until the rising of the dawn”: shachar (שחר), dawn, is read as shacharuris (שחרורית), blackness. The wrestling lasts until the blackness in him is removed, and then Yaakov's love will be complete. So the two opinions are not far apart. Each one comes to teach us Yaakov's greatness, how complete his love was with every person, lacking only where the other himself fell short. This is easy to understand.