I had a tough conversation earlier this week. A pastor from a local church asked to meet with me to gain some insight on a passage of the Bible, from the Jewish perspective, that he was preaching on. So we met, and we spoke about the passage (it was the Priestly Blessing), and then we got to talking about other elements of our faith. And then we got to the hard part. We spoke, quite respectfully, about his belief that all people should believe in Jesus, and that it comes from a place of care and love. I spoke about how no matter the intention, it feels disrespectful to wish that I believed something other than what I do, that somehow someone else knows better about my religious life.
I'm glad we had the conversation and we ended with a friendly tone. And one of the last things he said struck me so profoundly. He told me that he has such certainty about God and who God has been and the role that God plays in his life and the lives of others, that he can’t help but want others to want to feel that exact same version of God that he knows, objectively to be True.
And I immediately thought about our name as a people of Yisrael, the name that comes from this week’s parsha. Just before reuniting with his brother Esav, after decades of fraught separation, Jacob lays down for the night. And in those dark hours, he encounters a man (maybe an angel?) and they wrestle. The Torah indicates that he struggled with something that embodies the Divine. Jacob asks his opponent for a blessing, and in return, he receives a new name - Yisrael - meaning one who struggles with God. His new name, and the one that defines our people, embodies a sense of struggle with Divinity. Notably, the name is offered as a blessing, not a curse! It’s not a bad thing to grapple with the Divine, it’s a blessing that we inherit, individually and as a people. The struggle is part of the deep engagement, and it’s something to strive for. Wrestling with God is the opposite of apathy; it is rich, sought-after connection.
After my conversation with the pastor, and thinking about this week’s parsha, I thought about how beautiful this part of our tradition is, how much pride I have in our willingness - and the invitation - to struggle. Perhaps, that is something unique about us, something I love about us. I think it creates such a richness to our faith that we invite in the struggle. I think it is the foundation of deeply meaningful conversations when we invite questions of all kinds without judgment or shame for not knowing. We are allowed to change the way that we believe in God, to change our relationship with God, and to allow our life stories to push us in that relationship.
I hope that you, too, feel a sense of pride in our name as a people and all that it embodies. I hope that you, too, lean into questions and embrace the struggle. And I hope that you, too, feel that your relationship with God can be beautiful and complex, even as we wrestle.
