In parashat Vayishlah we find Jacob terrified at the prospect of meeting his brother Esau. In anticipation of that moment, he prays: “Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; else, I fear, he may come and strike me down, mothers and children alike (Genesis 32:12). Esau, who plotted “Let but the mourning period of my father come, and I will kill my brother Jacob” (27:41), was approaching with four hundred men. And then: “Esau ran to greet him. He embraced him and, falling on his neck, he k*i*s*s*e*d* him; and they wept” (33:4). How are we to understand this meeting?
Midrash Bereshit Rabba (78) expresses the ambiguity thus:
It shows that he displayed compassion and kissed him wholeheartedly. R. Yanai said: If so, why is the word dotted [the letters of the word “kissed” are dotted in the Masoretic text]? It shows us that he did not intend to kiss him but rather to bite him, and Jacob’s neck became marble and broke Esau’s teeth. And what is meant by “they wept”? One wept on his neck, and one wept on his teeth.
Similarly, Midrash Sifrei (69) states: “He kissed him is dotted because he did not kiss him wholeheartedly. R. Shimon b. Yohai says, it is a known fact that Esau hates Jacob, but at that moment he became compassionate and kissed him wholeheartedly.” And so, in the tractate Avot de-Rabbi Nathan (ver. B, 37) we find: “’kissed’ is dotted, perhaps because it was a kiss of love. R. Shimon b. Eleazer says, all of Esau’s actions originated in hatred, except for this one which was one of love.”
As opposed to all of these, biblical commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra (Spain, 1097-1167) wrote: “The commentary on the dots is pap. The plain meaning is that Esau had no intention of harming his brother, as is attested by the word ‘wept’ – like Joseph did with his brothers.”
Dr. Pnina Galpaz-Feller (lecturer in Bible at the Schechter Institute) writes:
Esau runs toward Jacob, hugs him and kisses him. Overcome, the brothers weep, and twenty years of tension is released. Esau’sensitivity is revealed. His mother knew her eldest son’s stormy temper, quick to anger but quick to forget: “Stay with him a while, until your brother's fury subsides.” After twenty years, Esau had forgotten his anger. Spontaneously, he runs toward his brother and hugs and kisses him” (Pnina Galpaz-Feller, A Drasha for Every Portion (Hebrew), (TALI Education Fund: 2007), 43).
1. Which interpretation of Esau’s conduct better reflects the biblical narrative, the positive or the negative? Or is the text neutral? What presuppositions underlie the approaches of the various commentators?
2. What significance, if any, should we attach to the fact that Esau calls Jacob “my brother,” while Jacob refers to Esau as “my lord”?
3. The biblical commentator Benno Jacob (Germany, England, 1862-1945) is suspicious of Esau’s behaviour. He notes that among all the descriptions of meetings in the Bible, none is so full of symbols of affection as this one, not even the reunion of Joseph and Jacob after years of tragic separation. Here we have running, and embracing, and falling on the neck and crying. Benno Jacob asks if it isn’t all a bit too much. Isn’t it suspicious? Benno Jacob points to that first meeting between Joseph and Jacob, but what about the last: “Joseph flung himself upon his father’s face and wept over him and kissed him” (Genesis 50:1). Is this also a bit too much? Is this also suspicious?
4. Did Jacob miss an opportunity for reconciliation or was his suspicion justified? Would the rest of the parasha have been different had Jacob accepted his brother’s invitation to travel together, or had he not rejected the offer of an escort?
