Parashat Vayishlach

SERMON   PARASHAT VAYISHLACH         December 5, 2025

Rabbi David Edleson   Temple Sinai   South Burlington  Vermont  

And Jacob was Left Alone. 

And Jacob was left alone. And a divine agent wrestled with him until the break of dawn.  (Gen 32:25)

Jacob was at a crossroads, a ford in the river, and a fork in his life.  He had spent his entire adult life with is inlaws, 20 years.  His children were born there.  His two marriages were there.  His career.  But he knew it was time to go home.  It was time to move again.   He had sent his family and his furniture ahead and so Jacob was left alone.

I imagine him all alone, on a sandbar that extended into the river, the water flowing by, the wind blowing through the rushes and trees along the river, the moon shining above, the deep red mountains of Jordan behind him. But instead of drinking in the beauty, all he can do is worry and think.  Jacob is left alone with time to think and a lot of anxiety.   

He wrestles with his past;  he didn’t expect his life to land him here in this situation.  

He wrestles with his relationships, with his family, his parents, his brother with whom he has a complicated relationship.

He wrestles with his fears, with his sense that he will be attacked at any moment,  or his children will be.

And he wrestles with a shadowy figure that is more than human.

We are all Jacob.  We are all always at a crossing of a river.  We never know what is coming next.  Things fall apart.  What once we thought we knew is now a huge existential question mark.  Our sacred texts capture this profoundly human moment.  How complicated it is to be a human.   

Jacob grabs the messenger and refuses to let it go until it gives him a blessing. 

Isn’t that who we all are?  People at a crossroads, confused and disoriented by the world around, unsure of what might be coming but we know we need a blessing. 

Jacob’s blessing in part came in the form of a new name:  Israel. 

In that name is all that is in that moment of Jacob’s life.  The moon, the river, the beauty and the fear.  The in-between-ness.  The angel.  The blessing.   It is our name.  Am Yisrael, and part of us is always on that sand bar next to river under the moon worried about our future and asking for a blessing.   As we do tonight.

Shabbat Shalom.