Parashat Vayishlach
December 2, 2025
Rabbi Abby Sosland, Morah Ruchanit and Talmud Department Chair
What do our dreams have to teach us? According to classic Jungian philosophy, every person we encounter in a dream represents an aspect of ourselves. Have a dream about participating in a game show? You are actually represented by each member of the game. They are all parts of you: the winner, the loser, the host.
For the great rationalist Maimonides, all the “angels” in the Torah are actually just parts of the characters’ dreams. So when our ancestor Jacob wrestles with an “ish” (a man, often understood as an angel) in this week’s parashah, Maimonides would say that the Torah is simply relaying a dream sequence. In the Jungian model, both Jacob and the ish (the “man”) with whom he wrestles are aspects of Jacob’s personality. He is represented by both sides of the struggle; he is both the winner of the fight and its loser, the one who walks away with a limp and the one who asks for a blessing. The pronouns keep switching back and forth, so it isn’t clear in the first place who is doing what, but if it is a dream, then the pronouns don’t matter; Jacob is all of the things at once.
In her book Genesis: The Beginning of Desire, Biblical scholar Aviva Zornberg names Parshat Vayishlach “The Quest for Wholeness.” She points to a key verse that describes Jacob’s journey to Shechem just after his wrestle. “Vayavo Yaakov shalem ir Shechem.” “And Jacob arrived whole (shalem) to the city of Shechem” (33:18). For her, this word shalem is the apotheosis of Jacob’s story.
“…Jacob must expose himself to fear, to face-to-face encounter with what he most dreads, … and the mirror identity of the face of his dread. He comes to know his courage and his vulnerability, simultaneously… what he has gained is… a strong goodness—a paradoxical, “whole” condition.”
Maybe it is this wholeness, knowing that he is more than one thing and that he “contains multitudes,” which allows Jacob to meet his brother Esav in a more open and loving way. When we understand ourselves as being multifaceted, we can accept that those around us might have more than one side to them, as well. Our thinking becomes less black and white, as we know that very few of us are just one thing, good or evil. When we see that everyone is multilayered, we can start to see the world with more generous, compassionate eyes.
What if we were to imagine all of Jacob’s children – all of Bnei Yisrael – as being represented in this moment of wholeness built of complexity? We could see that all of us have both courage and vulnerability, blessing and limp. We could wrestle less, bless more, and create a world that is worthy of our greatest dreams.
Shabbat Shalom.