Yaakov's Fear and the Power of Trust

1a“Yaakov was very afraid and was distressed” [Bereishis 32:8]. … “And You have said: I will surely do good with you” [Bereishis 32:13]. My father and teacher, R' Yechiel of Alexander, zt"l, spoke about a question raised in the Midrash Rabbah [cf. Bereishis Rabbah 76:1–2] and by the commentators on the Torah. Why was Yaakov Avinu afraid, after Hashem had promised him, “Behold, I am with you, and I will guard you” [Bereishis 28:15]? The answer is that Yaakov understood Hashem's words “I will be with you” along the lines of the verse “Hashem is with you while you are with Him” (Divrei HaYamim II 15:2). Hashem's promise, “Behold, I am with you,” carried a condition: if you cleave to Me, then I will be with you to guard you. That is what Yaakov feared. Once he saw that fear had come over him, the fear itself frightened him. This is the meaning of “he was afraid and was distressed”: he was afraid because he was afraid, and that distressed him.

1bAs the Chovos HaLevavos explains (Sha'ar Ahavas Hashem, ch. 6), one who truly cleaves to Hashem is afraid of nothing. It tells of a chassid who was sleeping in the wilderness, in a place of wild beasts. An armed caravan passed by and asked him, “How are you not afraid for your life, lodging in the shadow of death?” He answered that it would be a disgrace for him to fear anything but Hashem. That was Yaakov's fear. Once he saw that he was afraid, he understood that he was not truly cleaving to Hashem, and for such a state he had been given no promise. So he began to pray: “I have become small through all the kindnesses” [Bereishis 32:11], “Rescue me, please” [Bereishis 32:12]. Within his prayer he also justified the very fact that he was praying. He had no choice but to pray. True, he feared that perhaps sin had cost him the promise [cf. Berachos 4a], and he was soiled with sins. Even so, he had no other recourse but prayer. He could not wait until he had repaired his sins and transgressions through fasts and penances. For if he did not pray, he feared “lest he come and strike me, mother together with children” [Bereishis 32:12].

1cThe holy books explain this with a parable. A man is in battle, and his enemy rises against him to kill him and wounds him in one of his limbs. He must not stop right there among his enemies to bandage his wound, for meanwhile his enemy will overpower him and strike him a mortal blow. Instead he must escape “like a bird from the fowler's snare” [cf. Tehillim 124:7], paying no attention to his grievous wounds and not stopping to bind them, until he reaches a place safe from his enemies. And “the deeds of the fathers are a sign for the children.” His descendants should do the same. When they are, Heaven forbid, soiled with sins and transgressions, they should pray and cry out to Hashem, and He will answer them. Their prayer should be like Yaakov's plea, “And You have said”: act for the sake of Your Name, for You promised us. Those were my father's holy words.

2We will walk in his footsteps and explain his words. When a person sees that his deeds give him no right to ask Hashem for anything good, he should simply trust in Hashem. This is how Rashi explains “In Hashem my soul will glory” (Tehillim 34:3): I glory in having such a Patron to protect and to save me. The Midrash Shocher Tov on “In You I have trusted; let me not be put to shame” (Tehillim 25:2) also fits our words: “I trust in the kindness of the Most High, and in the Creator's greatness, which has no end or limit. In proportion to His vast exaltedness and His great compassion, He will help even me, the lowliest of the low.” And the same appears in the Midrash Rabbah on Bereishis, Parshas Vayeitzei.

3aThis explains the verse later in the parshah: “He bowed to the ground seven times, until he drew near to his brother” [Bereishis 33:3]. The Midrash Rabbah [Bereishis Rabbah 78:8] asks: Why seven times? Because “a tzaddik falls seven times and rises” [Mishlei 24:16]. The Yefeh To'ar explains that Yaakov was hinting to Esav that although he was bowing before him, he trusted in Hashem, who “from seven troubles” would rescue him [cf. Iyov 5:19]. The Midrash offers another reading: Why seven? Yaakov was telling Esav, “Picture yourself seated behind the seven railings of a judge's bench, judging, while I stand before you to be judged, and you are filled with mercy toward me.” R' Chanina bar Yitzchak said: He kept bowing again and again, until he brought the attribute of judgment into the attribute of mercy.

3bThe Midrash and the Yefeh To'ar mean what we have been saying, and this is the meaning of the seven railings and of “a tzaddik falls seven times and rises.” Yaakov pleaded: “I know in my heart that by the measure of my deeds nothing at all is due to me. Such is the way of tzaddikim, who claim nothing from their Creator (cf. Devarim Rabbah 2:1). All seven orders of the heavens, and in the language of Kabbalah the seven middos, the seven Divine attributes through which Hashem runs the world, require at least some arousal from below, some initiative from man, so that something is due to him. But nothing at all is due to me, and I have no path to salvation. Yet I know that ‘One higher than the high watches over them’ [Koheles 5:7], and that Hashem's ways are exceedingly high [cf. Yeshayahu 55:9]. I have trusted in His great kindness, that He will have mercy on me in His abundant mercy from a lofty place where there is no harsh judgment at all and no foreign hand can touch, as it is written, ‘evil shall not dwell with You’ [Tehillim 5:5]. From there He will arouse His abundant mercy upon me, through the trust I have placed in Him. ‘And I have trusted in Your kindness’ [Tehillim 13:6]; through this I hope that ‘my heart will rejoice in Your salvation’ [ibid.].”

4This is also the meaning of “until he drew near ad his brother.” Correct Hebrew would say “el his brother,” to his brother. The word ad hints that he approached his brother with the middah of bitachon, trust in Hashem. The holy Name of trust is formed from the letters that come just before the letters of the Name Elokim, the Name associated with judgment. Its numerical value is seventy-four, the value of ad. The Arizal explains this in the kavanos of Pesach on the verse “Trust in Hashem forever, adei ad” [Yeshayahu 26:4]. This is also the meaning of “For therefore I have seen your face, like seeing the face of Elokim” [Bereishis 33:10]. Through this Name I saw your face: “like seeing Elokim” means through the letters that precede Elokim, אכדט"ם. For the heart of trust is trust in the hour of distress, as the Zohar explains (Va'eira), and the Ohr HaChamah (ch. 7). So Yaakov was telling Esav: As soon as I saw your face, I trusted mightily in Hashem. I had already brought the attribute of judgment into the attribute of mercy, as the Midrash said above. Through the letters that precede the Name, I sweetened the harsh judgments alluded to in Elokim, and through my trust they have already become kindnesses.

5All this was intended and guided by the Cause of all causes. Such fear fell on Yaakov, our elder father, a complete tzaddik whose fear of Heaven was perfect and whose image is engraved on the Throne of Glory [cf. Bereishis Rabbah 68:12; Chullin 91b], so that he would trust in Hashem in this way and pray this kind of prayer, as one with no merit of his own. It would then be a good sign for his children, at a time when they would truly be in a low state. They would recognize their true standing, that they cannot even raise their heads. Then, to pray, they should “trust in the Name of Hashem and lean upon their God” [cf. Yeshayahu 50:10], as Yaakov did. Through that trust they will be saved with a complete salvation. As the Midrash Rabbah on this parshah explains on the verse “and put a space between drove and drove” [Bereishis 32:17] [cf. Bereishis Rabbah 75:13], Yaakov said, “When troubles come upon my children, do not bring them one right after another.” At that moment Yaakov lifted his eyes and saw Esav coming from afar. He raised his eyes on high, wept and begged Hashem for mercy. Hashem heard his prayer and promised to save his children from all their troubles in the merit of Yaakov, as it says, “May Hashem answer you on the day of distress; may the Name of the God of Yaakov fortify you” [Tehillim 20:2].

6aMy father and teacher, zt"l, also explained that Yaakov saw Esav coming “from afar”: Esav would not come to harm his children soon, Heaven forbid, but only after many days. Those were his holy words. That is, Esav would come at a time when Yaakov's children would be, Heaven forbid, “far” from Hashem and not “near,” in the sense of Chazal's teaching on “Peace, peace to the far and to the near” [Yeshayahu 57:19] (Berachos 34b). Then, Heaven forbid, Esav would have power to harm them. That is what Yaakov prayed about when he raised his eyes “on high,” la'marom. He asked that Hashem have mercy at that time for the sake of the glory of His exalted Name, ha'marom, so that it not be profaned, Heaven forbid. For “man sees what is before his eyes, but Hashem sees into the heart” [Shmuel I 16:7]. “Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’” [Tehillim 79:10]. Not knowing of his children's sins, they would lay the failing at Hashem's door, and Hashem's Name would be desecrated, Heaven forbid. Yaakov so stripped himself of physicality that he did not pray for himself and his children the way a father begs mercy for his children. He felt no personal concern for them at all. It was as if he were a stranger with no connection to the treasured people, praying only for the sake of Hashem's Name. He prayed this way so fully that Hashem promised to save them “in the merit of Yaakov.”

6bBut Hashem was speaking to Yaakov himself, so He should have said “in your merit,” as the commentators ask. The answer is that Yaakov was so free of any personal interest, any trace of a father's compassion for his children, that it was as if someone else were speaking, not Yaakov. So when Hashem promised to save them in his merit, He said “in the merit of Yaakov,” as though another person had prayed for them. This fits what the holy books explain on “Whoever prays for his fellow while he himself needs the same thing is answered first” (Bava Kamma 92a). Yaakov's prayer was for this very time, when it seems, Heaven forbid, that we are “far”: that the merit of Yaakov Avinu's prayer would stand by us, and that in the merit of the portion of Yaakov within every single Jew, Hashem would have mercy on us. This is “may the Name of the God of Yaakov fortify you” [Tehillim 20:2]: He will redeem us in the merit of the portion of Yaakov within us. May Hashem have mercy on us speedily, for the sake of the glory of His great Name. This is where we draw our strength. May we be able to strengthen ourselves and truly trust in Hashem. Then Hashem will shine for us and be “an everlasting light” [cf. Yeshayahu 60:19–20], now, in this time of darkness, for “at evening time there shall be light” [Zechariah 14:7]. (From the author's handwritten manuscript.)