10 Dec VAYISHLACH: WHEN YOU ENCOUNTER A LOST SOUL, HOW DO YOU REACT? A TALE OF TWO ANGELS

Brother’s Keeper
One day the
zookeeper noticed
that the orangutan
was reading two
books, the Bible and
Darwin’s Origin of

Species.
Surprised, he asked the ape, “Why are you
reading both those books?”
“Well,” said the orangutan, “I just wanted
to know if I was my brother’s keeper, or my
keeper’s brother.”
The Contrast
Sometimes, the contrast is too conspicuous
to ignore. In both stories, the Torah employs
the same term: “Ish,” which means, a man.
(The term is already used in Bereishis, to
describe the first man, Adam.) In two
consecutive parshiot, Vayishlach and
Vayeishev, the same term is used. Yet
Rashi, based on the tradition of our sages,
changes his commentary from one extreme
to the other.
In parshat Vayishlach, we find the term
“ish,” a man.

And Yaakov was left alone, and a man
wrestled with him until the break of dawn.
Rashi explains that this “man” was the
spiritual angel of Esav. In other words, this
battle in the middle of the night between
Yaakov and this mysterious “man,” was
part of the ongoing struggle between
Yaakov and his brother Esav.
Yet, in Vayeishev, we have the same exact
term used. But there everything changes.
Yosef was sent by his father Yaakov, to go
visit his brothers and seek their welfare.
Despite his brothers loathing him, Yosef
embarked on the journey and he got lost on
the way. The Torah tells us:
Then a man found him, and behold, he was
straying in the field, and the man asked
him, “What are you looking for?”
And he said, “I am looking for my brothers.
Tell me now, where are they pasturing?”
Who was this mysterious man, “ish,” who
encountered Yosef at that vulnerable
moment?
Rashi says it was Malach Gavriel, who we
see is defined elsewhere in Scriptures as
Ish.
Strange. In
Vayishlach it says
that Yaakov
remained alone,
and a man
wrestled with
him. In Vayeishev,
Yosef is alone,
lost in the field,
and, again, a man
encounters him
and asks him what
he is searching
for. The same
exact word is used in both cases to describe
this person: Ish. Yet in Vayeishev, Rashi
sees him as Malach Gavriel, and in
Vayishlach as Esav’s angel?
A Tale of Two Men
The Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum
(1887-1979), shared the following
explanation in the name of Rabbi Chaim
Halberstam, the Divrei Chaim of Tzanz
(1793-1876).
Context is always the key. The word may
be the same, “ish,” but the question is
what does this “ish,” this man, do?
In both stories, there is a person who is
vulnerable. In Vayishlach, “Yaakov
remains alone,” in the middle of the night.
He has been away from home for 34

years, and has been dealing with a world-
class crook. In Vayeishev, Yosef, a young

17-year-old lad, is also lost and vulnerable.
He has left his father, he was an orphan
from his mother, and how he was on the
way to brothers who despised him. He
does not know it, but this journey would
take him to slavery, prison, and complete
alienation from his family.
In both stories, two people are deeply
vulnerable. Father and son. Yaakov and
Yosef. Both of them meet a stranger. A
man who appears out of the blue.
The question is what does this “ish,” this
man, do?
Here is the difference. In Yaakov’s case,
the man sees a lonely man in the middle
of the night and pounces on him. There is
lonely Yaakov in the middle of the night?
Let me attack him.
What about in the second story? Here too
Yosef is alone. And a man encounters
him. But what does the man say and do?
“Then a man found him, and behold, he
was straying in the field, and the man
asked him, saying, “What are you looking
for?”

Do you see the difference? He does not
pounce on Yaakov. He does not exploit his
vulnerability, manipulate his moment of
weakness toward his own goals. Instead, he
sees it as an opportunity to help. He asks
the young lad: What are you looking for?
You are a dreamer. I see you are searching
for something. What is it that you seek?
How can I help you?
And Yosef tells him: “I am searching for
my brothers!”
I want a relationship. I am searching for
love. For belonging. For understanding.
For comradery. For attachment.
So Rashi is simply mirroring the context of
the narrative. When a man, encountering a
vulnerable person, seizes the opportunity to
attack him, that man, Rashi says, is an angel
of Esav. But when a man, encountering a
vulnerable person, seizes the opportunity to
offer a loving hand, a guiding heart, to see
how he can be here for you in your search
for love and family, this person, Rashi says,
must be Malach Gavriel!
The Lesson
We all encounter a person, a child, a teen,
an adult, who is “alone,” vulnerable, lonely,
lost, confused, bewildered, pained.
We see them in their vulnerability. And we
make a choice.
Some of us seize the opportunity to use
exploit them. Some people even utilize the
opportunity to use them in immoral ways,
to abuse them, to pounce on them, to attack
them, to hurt them, willingly or unwillingly.
Even just to judge them.
But some of us encounter the same
vulnerable people. And our response is: My
dear boy, my dear girl, my dear friend, tell
me what are you looking for? Let me find
out what you are searching for, what you
yearn for.
We each have to make a choice about what
type of “man” we will be. I can either
become a force of Esav, or I can become
Malach Gavriel.