The Blessing in the Name

November 23, 2007
Rabbi Seymour Rossel

Jacob received a blessing after wrestling all night. He was given a new name, Israel, and the Torah states, ki sarita im Elohim v'im anashim vatuchal. We hardly know where to begin when we have to translate this little sentence. The first word, ki, can mean "because" or "since." The word sarita is obviously connected with the name Yisrael, but it could come from any number of root words, so we have to guess its meaning. The best guess is that it comes from the word to "strive" or "struggle." Since Jacob has just wrestled all night, we probably should choose this meaning. So Jacob is named Israel "because you struggled..."

Now comes an interesting pairing of words. Im Elohim v'im anashim. The word anashim simply means "men" or in its generic sense "human beings," since women are included by implication in any indefinite male plural. The other word is Elohim which we would normally translate as God. This word is always plural, but it is a special kind of plural. The word for gods would normally be eilim, not Elohim. But Elohim is in the plural in the sense of standing for "all gods," as if to say "the One God is all gods." So now we can translate most of the sentence fairly well. Jacob is named Israel "because you struggled with God (or all gods) and people..."

The last word is vatuchal, from the word for "can," "to be capable," or "to be able." In this particular declension, the verb should mean something like "you were capable" or "you prevailed." So Jacob is named Israel "because you struggled with God (or all gods) and people and prevailed." The new JPS translation states, "for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed."

Now that we know, pretty much, what the name Israel means, let's take a step back to the exchange that resulted in this name being given to Jacob. After wrestling all night, the match is a draw, and Jacob's opponent says, "Let me go, for dawn is breaking." Jacob answers, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." The opponent says, "What is your name?" Jacob replies, "Jacob." The opponent says, "Your name shall no longer be Jacob but Israel..."

Jacob asks for a blessing and receives a name, but we do not usually think that a person is blessed by undergoing a name change, so what is going on here? I think there is a subtle message being taught that we really need to learn.

In his book about growing up, A Day of Pleasure, Isaac Bashevis Singer tells about Jewish life in Warsaw. His family was poor since his father was a rabbi. There was no running water in his building and the outhouse was literally out in the courtyard. So his mother saved her groschen so that she could pay a washerwoman to do the family laundry. The washerwoman she loved the most was a Gentile in her late seventies or early eighties. The Gentile would come to the door and her mother would invite her in for a glass of tea. Then, Singer says, they would all watch in awe as the woman slung two weeks' worth of the family's laundry in a sack upon her bent and aged back and leave to go across town to where she lived. She would reappear in two or three weeks with all the family laundry. It took that long because she had no running water in her apartment either. She had to bring water up from the pump, she had to scrub each piece of laundry in a washtub, she had to hang it in the attic to dry (since any laundry hung outside on lines would immediately disappear), then she had to fold or iron each piece. In winter in Warsaw, she had to take special care, since wash that dried in the attic could get so cold that the moisture in it would freeze and the laundry would literally break into pieces in your hands when you touched it.

One winter, the washerwoman came for a new load of laundry and she looked too fragile for words. Singer almost gasped when she raised the bundle of laundry across her shoulders and the woman herself seemed to disappear beneath the bundle. But somehow she managed to straighten herself enough to walk, a proud woman, one who would rather work than take charity.

But now three weeks passed and then five weeks passed, and Singer's mother had to find some old shirts and old towels and launder them and had to keep turning the few linens they had from one side to another. When Singer asked about the laundry, his mother said, "I knew she was too fragile. We will probably never see our clothing again." They did not even know exactly where the Gentile washerwoman lived. They could make no enquiries.

But in the seventh week, there was a knock on the door and the bundle of laundry suddenly appeared, and when it was lowered to the floor, Singer could see the old washerwoman looking like a twig bent in the wind. His mother gave the woman tea and they exchanged some words, using the small amount of Polish that his mother knew. She had been sick, very sick. They had called the doctor and the doctor had sent for the priest and the priest had given her last rites. But she was not finished, she told them. There was laundry from three families and it was waiting for her. Slowly she gained enough health to finish her task and now she was delivering the last of the loads. She smiled and said, "In two weeks, I will return for more laundry."

But she never returned. There was little doubt that she had died. And his mother told Singer that the woman had risen from her deathbed just to complete the tasks that she had left unfinished. To do the laundry and return the laundry to three families that had trusted in her. As Singer said, he could conceive of no heaven without that Gentile washerwoman, for she had been faithful to the last ounce of her energy, to the last ounce and beyond.

Jacob struggled and the washerwoman struggled. Both of them struggled to the last ounce of their energy. Even wounded, they each continued to fight with the faith they could prevail. So the new name that Jacob received was a name that Jacob earned. His old name was one that was given to him, but his new name was the result of his struggle. This was the blessing. Not to win. Jacob, after all, was fought to a standstill and the old washerwoman died after completing her rounds. No one can win. But you can become blessed by doing what you know should be done, by doing the best that you can. You can earn your place both in heaven and among the recollections of the people around you by doing what you can, the best that is in you, by struggling to finish even what can never ever be finished. The blessing is in the struggle and, afterward, the blessing is in the way we are remembered by those who knew us and loved us.

All his life, Jacob won one thing after another by tricking the people around him. But now, as the struggle of his lifetime ended, he stopped wrestling only when he knew he had earned the blessing for himself. And the washerwoman also stopped wrestling when she knew she had earned the blessing for herself. And so may you and I learn to struggle until we have earned the blessing for ourselves, then people will know us by our new name, as a person who struggled for family, for justice, for art, for mercy for others, for a better world. Let us be like Jacob and the washerwoman and all our ancestors who struggled. None of them ever won, nor will we win, but many of them found a way to prevail, and those who found the way to prevail, they are blessed in our memories. And let us say: Amen.