In this week’s Torah portion of Vayishlach, the epic battle between Yaacov, Jacob and the guardian angel of Eisav, Esau takes place. This fateful occurrence led to Jacob receiving the name Yisrael, Israel, the name that the Jewish people have been identified under since its inception to this very day.
According to the Ramban, Nachmanides, the fight between Jacob and the guardian angel of Eisav alludes to the current exile facing the Jewish people.
And this is where we can learn a lovely message. Ya’acov was wounded from the battle, which caused the commandment forbidding the gid hanasheh, a specific of an animal being eaten, as this was the part of his body that was wounded.
However later on, Yaacov was healed from his injury. So why do we still have the prohibition of consuming the “Gid Hanasheh”?
This is to remind us, that all the pain and suffering we face in exile; every persecution of the Jewish people, will soon be over. Indeed if one looks at any nation in history that have persecuted the Jews, none are around today but we are. The romans came and went, as did the Babylonians and the Greeks. The Egyptian nation, the most powerful at the time, was left crippled after the Jewish people left. The Cossacks, Communists and the Nazis have all disappeared as well.
The Jewish people survived them all, whilst they exist only in violent and bitter memories of the past.
And this is what we learnt. We still have the prohibition of the Gid HaNasheh. This is the positive aspect of the battle. The prohibition isn’t for the fact that Yaacov was wounded. The prohibition is because Yaacov wasn’t killed!
A story is told of Simon Wiesenthal, the famous Nazi hunter, Ob”m, whilst he was in a concentration camp. During the Holocaust, he was once speaking to a certain leading Rabbi, and complained of an incident that happened in the barracks in the hell-on-earth that was. An observant Jew had smuggled in a Siddur, a Jewish prayer book, into the barracks. However, the price for 10 minutes with the book was half the daily ration of food.
Notwithstanding the minimal amount of “food” they got, the waiting list for use of the prayer book was never-ending. One day, the owner of the prayer book passed away, for his stomach couldn’t take the vast amounts of food he was receiving. Simon Wiesenthal couldn’t believe this apparent cruelty and lack of humanity that had become this Jew to take food away from others in exchange for use of his prayer book.
The Rabbi answered – “Don’t focus on the fact he took the food from his fellow Jews; focus on the fact they gave half their food in those absolutely terrible conditions in order to pray”
One can always look at a glass as being half-full or half-empty. The Gid HaNashe teaches us that the glass is never half-empty. It is always half full.
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