Spiritual and physical dangers

The scene is set in this week’s Parsha for Yaakov and Esav’s meeting for the first time since Yaakov received his bracha from Yitzchak. We read the story of Yaakov, preparing with fear and anxiety to deal with Esav by  prayer to G-d:

“Please save me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esav, for I fear him lest he come and strike me down, mother and children [Bereshit 32:12]”.

There is an apparent redundancy in Yaakov’s prayer — “the hand of my brother, the hand of Esav.” Shouldn’t Yaakov have said, “Save me from the hand of my brother, Esav?” The pasuk [verse] seems to indicate being rescued from two different people — from his brother and from Esav. Why did Yaakov Avinu have to pray specifically for salvation “from the hand of Esav“? He had already asked for being saved “from the hand of my brother,” and as he only had one brother, either part of the prayer should have sufficed.  Why repeat things by saying “the hand of my brother” AND “the hand of Esav” ?

These two concepts of ‘Achi’ [brother] and ‘Esav’ represent the two tactics employed against us as individual Jews and as the Jewish people as a whole. Esav can have two faces. He can be the Esav, the classic  anti-Semite, who will kill you, have pogroms against you, try to throw you out of his country and institute Inquisitions against you.  Esav is the enemy who overtly and by force annihilates us (‘Esav’ being the obvious enemy).  We certainly have to be saved from this Esav.

However, there is a disguise that Esav all too often uses . he masquerades as a loving brother. Not the Esav that kills you, but the Esav that loves you. This is when our destruction is caused via nations pretending to be our friends/brothers in behaving liberally to us, leading to assimilation and self-destruction. ‘My brother’ that loves me is sometimes as dangerous as the Esav that will kill. If we have lost hundreds and thousands and even millions of Jews to the Esav that kills us — we our losing hundreds of thousands of Jews to the Esav who ‘loves’ us, the Esav that wants to marry us, marry our sons and daughters, and who offers us “salvation through love.” we have lost many more Jews to ‘Achi’ than ‘Esav’.

Thus, Yaakov was praying to be rescued not only from the physical danger he saw in Esav, but also from the influence of Esav, his brother, should Esav decide to behave ‘kindly’ to him.

There is a tradition not recorded in history books but is related in my family that in the 1840s Nicholas, The Czar of Russia who took stern actions against the Jews met his cousin, the Austro Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph, who emancipated the Jews.  Nicholas expressed his shock ands disgust at Franz Joseph’s liberal attitude to the Jews, saying that he, Nicholas, persecuted and did all that he could possible to stunt their growth and ultimately be rid of them. How could Franz Joseph be kind to them?  Franz Joseph is said to have replied “Let us see who will be more successful”!!!  History has proven Franz Joseph to be correct. The lesson we must learn from this is that just as we face physical dangers, one must not forget to arm ourselves internally to ward off  spiritual dangers too.