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Do you ever wonder who you really are? Are you the person your work friends and colleagues know and respect? Or the one your teenager badmouths to their friends? Are you the caring adult child who will drop anything when your parent falls ill? Or the one who complains about what a burden they are and how unreasonably illogical they are becoming in old age? Are you the kind generous soul your obituary will speak of? Or perhaps the harsh critical hoarder who was in fact, quite difficult to love? 

I think we might all have multiple personalities, or at least personas. The professional one who puts on a brave face to face down any obstacle be it at work, the school bully, or the doctor's diagnosis… and then there is the part of us that screams at those we love, or cries in the bathroom or causes harm to ourselves or others to release the pressure of acting brave and professional. Who are we as a whole? Should we even be trying to assimilate these multiple sides into one unified whole? 

Our Torah portion, vayishlach, teaches us of Jacob and his many complicated sides. There is the wealthy man, leaving his father-in-law's house with all the riches he has garnered over years of service (and trickery) of Laban. There is the humble diplomat who understands that he should offer respect and appeasement for Esau, who he will see for the first time in years. There is the father who publicly prioritizes his children and wives; placing his children from his slaves closer to danger, then the children of his wife Leah, and only then Rachel and her son Joseph. There is Jacob who wrestles with a man or an angel of God to the point of near death and then demands a blessing which gives us yet another persona: Yisrael. There is the Jacob of faith who understands this interaction as a spiritual awakening, blessing the land as P’nei El, a place where he saw the face of God. There is humility and humbleness in Jacob that generations of Jews have tried to focus on and emulate in our descriptions of Yisrael. But finally, we have Jacob reunited with his brother, there are tears and kisses and gratitude of forgiveness. There is love and then there is silence.  

Torah reunites these brothers; Esau dismisses Jacobs offered gifts for he has had success as well (though when pressed he does finally accept the gifts). Esau admires the blessings of Jacobs household and offers that they should continue together “Let us start on our way. I will go at your side” Esau says (Gen 33:11). Jacob rejects this togetherness diplomatically saying the young animals need to go at a slower pace but implying they will meet up again near Seir; but they don’t the next thing we know Jacob is building a settlement in the city of Shechem, he and Esau are only described to having seen each other again to burry Isaac some years later (Gen 35:29). Was the reunion a ruse? Was it a diplomatic necessity to reach the land of Canon? Was it forgiveness? Perhaps for the forgiveness to last the relationship between Jacob and Esau had to be separate? 

I don’t have an answer and this part of Torah confuses me. Throughout this parsha, Jacob continues to behave in bewildering and sometimes contradictory ways, being a weak father, or a stern one, being overly harsh with his children or overly forgiving, or simply ignoring their agency and minds as well. Who is the real Jacob and is he a patriarch to be admired? 

I know I haven’t managed to synthesize my personality in such a way that it is always as I wish it would be. Sometimes I lose my temper and the Joanna I wish to put into the world is not the one I am behaving as. Most often, unfortunately, it is my children, those I love most in this world, who experience the least controlled part of me. Everyone knows that children know how to press their families' button so I will forgive myself for being human; but it does make me wonder who am I as a human? Who am I that I can have infinite patience taking in the challenges of a pastoral situation, while losing my temper after 60 seconds of bickering between the children. Which one is the real me? Do I exist in the extremes of those poles or is my true self someone in the middle? We are all Yisrael, wrestling with God, wrestling with our better and worse angels, wrestling with the selves we want to become and the selves we have been since childhood. Overcoming the traumas of our youth and perhaps even the traumas of our past generations. If, like Yisrael, synthesis may not be the point, but the struggle in fact, is where we learn the most, then I ask, how might we embrace our better angels more minutes of the day? How might we let go of the anger, resentment and fear just a bit more? How might we embrace the love, variety, and even the rollercoaster of the unknown with just a bit more patience, a bit more calm, a bit more faith, even if we “fake it till we make it” in our professional personas? 

As Jacob approaches Esau, he has tried to control every angle and every scenario. He has been a PR genius showing his diplomatic gifts, showing the blessing of his wealth but also the strength that goes with it. Showing off his progeny and the beauty of his wives, he hides the personal physical weakness he has just encountered as the angel has wrenched his hip, he hides it in the sea that is all he has attained. He embraces his brother and they kiss, or perhaps they bit each other’s necks, testing the balance of power, testing the bond of blood, testing the lifelong rivalry that only now with a balance of wealth and achievement can be let go of. In this I wonder can we be more like Jacob and Esau? Can we come across our fears and anxieties and decide to let them go? Can we embrace what has caused us pain and anger and hurt and choose in fact to take all we hold precious in our lives and simply walk away leaving the past hurt behind us as we find success down the road, can we in fact overcome our childhood traumas for the promise of a better tomorrow? 

Psychologically speaking, I don’t know. Spiritually speaking, if we could make the choice to confront our past, embrace it with strength and love and weakness all wrapped in one; I think in that moment our many personalities would find some peace with themselves. They may continue to yell into the wind, and cry in the bathroom while also having endless patience, confidence, and fortitude all at the same time. But perhaps we will have more peace with the different corners of ourselves. More able to feel empathy for the part of me that feels weak and scared and more secure in the part of me that feels confident and amazing. Perhaps when we understand that we are in fact all the parts of our personalities, and this too means embracing the whole and totality of other humans’ multiple parts as well. Perhaps then we can be at peace with ourselves and face the world anew this day. 

Temple Talk is a recap of sermons given from the Bimah for those who missed a Sermon or who wanted to revisit the words spoken at a previous sermon.