Shabbat Reflection: Finding Hesed After a Restless Night

I didn’t sleep well last Friday night. I’m not sure exactly why. It could have had something to do with the fact that the room I was staying in, at the beautiful apartment of friends in New York, was too warm (in the way New York apartments in the winter can be), and it took me a while to realize I should open the window to cool it down. It could have been a little bit of nerves, as Friday was the first of five intensive days with our board, major donors, and staff, which led off with a Shabbat experience that evening. It could have been because of a conversation I had with one of the participants over dinner, which challenged me (in a good way) and left me asking some important questions about my own leadership. Whatever it was, I didn’t sleep well.

The next morning, I struggled through the opening meditation sit of our Shabbaton. Even though it was skillfully and beautifully led by my colleague Rebecca Schisler, I just couldn’t quite settle. My restlessness continued through the opening of our Shabbat morning service, led by another colleague and dear friend, Rabbi Miriam Margles. Again, I just couldn’t quite find my groove.?

But then, Miriam invited us to practice with the prayer that comes about midway through the morning service, known in Hebrew as?Nishmat Kol Chai.?This is one of my favorite pieces in the liturgy, full of poetry about the ways the Divine generously and lovingly engages with the natural world. Miriam’s invitation was to read the prayer out loud at our own pace, and to linger over a word or phrase if we were so moved. I read the prayer in Hebrew, and soon found myself savoring the words,?hamenaheg olamo b’chesed u’vriotav b’racahamim,?a description of “the Creator as One who guides the universe in?hesed/loving connection, and Its creations with compassion.” The words seemed to reach out to me, beckoning me to spend time with them. I closed my eyes and repeated them to myself, and began to experience a sense of relief, recentering, reconnecting, feeling a Divine embrace. Within moments, I dozed off—not from boredom, but from a profound feeling of comfort. I slept for what felt like minutes but could really only have been 30 seconds. I opened my eyes and felt restored. Something had clicked.

A striking element of the story of Jacob’s meeting with Esau is the sense of division that permeates the narrative. Jacob divides his camp. He stands at a boundary, the Yabbok river, and references another, the Jordan. His life is clearly at a point of demarcation: this encounter will mark the boundary between before and after. That sense of division also comes through in more subtle ways. The account in chapter 32 is full of seemingly superfluous words: “And Jacob sent messengers before him to his brother, Esau.” (32:4) Did we not already know that Esau and Jacob were brothers???“And he instructed them, saying, ‘Thus shall you say to my master, to Esau.” (32:5) Again, why “my master?” Why not merely “Esau”? “And the messengers returned to Jacob and said, ‘We came to your brother, to Esau…’” (32:7). By now, surely, we know the relation between these two. Why the repetition of these unnecessary descriptors?

Rashi gestures towards an answer, drawn from the Midrash, which interprets the messengers’ words: “‘We came to your brother, to Esau’— to him of whom you said he is my brother, yet he behaves towards you as Esau, the wicked — he is still harboring hatred.” (Rashi 32:7) The messengers pick up on the misalignment: This is not how brothers should behave. The terms do not reflect the reality. Something is off—as it has been ever since Jacob told his father, “I am Esau your firstborn” (27:19). Names and roles, reality and aspiration, are out of sync. In ways both overt and subtle, the Torah deepens our awareness of Jacob’s divided self.?

Jacob’s sleepless night reaches its climax, of course, when he is “left alone,” only to be confronted by a mysterious man—perhaps an angel, perhaps himself. He emerges from that encounter both wounded and renewed: wounded in his leg, renewed with a new name. And ultimately, after the whole encounter with Esau concludes and they go their separate ways, the Torah tells us, “Jacob arrived whole?(shalem)?at the city of Shechem” (33:18).?

What enables Jacob to make it through the night? I would suggest the first hint of an answer comes at the beginning of the narrative, in the opening words of Jacob’s prayer to the Holy One: “I am unworthy of all the acts of?hesed?and?emet?(loving connection and truth)” you have exhibited toward me (32:10). The only other time Jacob mentions?hesed?is on his deathbed (Gen. 47:29). In this moment he likewise confronts his mortality, and in the process re-grounds his relationship with the Divine and the world in?hesed,?the loving connection that animates the Creator’s ongoing sustenance of the universe. Something in Jacob clicks in this moment, enabling him to re-center himself, confront the truth of his relationship with his brother (and, by extension, his parents), and continue on his journey.?

Like you—like all of us—I can see the truth of my own experience reflected and refracted through Jacob's story. For me on Shabbat morning, after a restless night, a re-grounding in?hesed?was restorative. In many ways,?hesed?is the touchstone of our spiritual practice, the place within us to which we need to continually return. Just as we say the Holy One constantly “guides the world through?hesed,”?we engage in our practice to help us continually tap into that same?hesed—not only so that we can rest, but, just as important, so that we can confront our challenges with clarity and strength, and that we can continue on our journey.