Originally given as a senior sermon at JTS.
Growing up, saying the bedtime Shema with my parents, we would always add on a personal prayer that would end with, “praised be God when we lie down and praised be God when we wake up and say good morning sunshine – boker tov.” Adorable, right? But, also, a bit aspirational. How often do we really wake up and say “good morning sunshine” as if there are no problems weighing down on us? Though, it’s as if our tefillot are actually encouraging us to have this mentality, as every morning we read, אַשְׁרֵֽינוּ מַה־טּוֹב חֶלְקֵֽנוּ, our joy, how great is our portion. No matter what else is on our minds, going on in our lives, or in the world, we take a moment to say, “good morning sunshine, it’s great to be here.” Though the nightly ritual for Cowan children is aspirational, and the davening mentality encourages gratitude, Esav’s journey back to Jacob in Vayishlach offers us a guide for how to truly appreciate what we have.
While the rabbis are quick to describe Esav’s demeanor as hostile, the Esav that reunites with Jacob is anything but. He’s not vengeful. He’s not prepared to kill Jacob as he said he would the last time they saw each other just a couple parshiyot ago. The Esav we find, is, in some ways, antithetical to the rabbinically constructed Esav. He is sensitive, compassionate, humble. Turning down Jacob’s generous gift of over 580 animals, Esav tells Jacob respectfully, “יֶשׁ־לִ֣י רָ֑ב אָחִ֕י יְהִ֥י לְךָ֖ אֲשֶׁר־לָֽךְ” “I have much, my brother; let what you have remain yours.” Where is the anger, the hatred, the vengeance?
After so much time apart, it’s as if Esav is, emotionally, a whole new man. And the three parts of his response illustrate the personal work that it takes to grow emotionally, to be able to see a path forward in the face of hardship.
First, יֶשׁ־לִ֣י רָ֑ב – I have much. In contrast to Jacob, who just two verses later will say “יֶשׁ־לִי־כֹ֑ל”, I have everything, Esav doesn’t need to have everything to be content. The Netziv suggests that he is content with his רב, with what he has, and dismisses Jacob’s gift, saying, אנני נצרך, I don’t need it, because I have enough. Esav may not have everything like Jacob, but he doesn’t need to have everything to be happy, he needs enough.
Second, אָחִ֕י – my brother. Esav sees Jacob not as his adversary, but as the other half of a relationship that endures despite their divisions, as his brother. It’s remarkable that this brotherhood, that was built upon such division and competition, was able to prevail after so much time apart. This moment is not foreign to us – siblings, maybe estranged, maybe harboring intense negative feelings towards each other, having not seen each other in a long time, dread the moment where they will have to eventually confront each other. But in that moment, when they finally meet and lock eyes, like Esav, they run towards each other, they hug, they kiss, they cry. For the first time in a long time, they feel the simultaneous pain and joy at this moment of reunion. What else could you do in such a moment but look at your other side and say, אחי “my brother”? “My brother, I don’t care about what you have. I don’t care about what I don’t have. I want you to know that I see you as my brother.” The relationships that we have, that we can have, are more valuable than what either of us may possess.
And third, “יְהִ֥י לְךָ֖ אֲשֶׁר־לָֽךְ” “let what you have remain yours.” Referring to Bereshit Rabbah, Rashi says that it is in this moment that Esav fully waived his claim to the blessings. The blessings that Jacob took from him no longer weighed on his shoulders. He no longer harbored the pain over what he lost. He no longer harbored jealousy, imagining the life that he could have lived if he never gave up his birthright and blessings. He instead, accepted the reality of the life that he was living, and was able to see a path forward. A new path where he could love his brother and not forget what was lost, but move forward from it. As Norman Cohen writes, we can only reconcile with what looms over us, with our shadows, if we are willing to embrace them.
Of Esav’s three elements of reconciliation, this third element, embracing and accepting our shadows, is perhaps the most challenging to face. For Esav, his shadows were his blessings, his birthright, and, arguably, his tattered relationship with Jacob. Our shadows may be different. The world, our lives, our families, might not be what we expected them to be. Life got in the way, the world got in the way, we may have gotten in our own way. But we cannot move forward and grow if we are stuck focusing on what could have been, on the lives we could have lived.
In the short life I have lived, I have been confronted by enough shadows. My new life and job in Hungary were upended by Covid, I spent the year studying in Israel on October 7th, and my mother passed away towards the end of my second year of rabbinical school. These shadows, as difficult as they were and are to bear, are pieces of my story – I have accepted that those experiences, those people, are gone, but I continue to carry them with me. In remembering what we lost and accepting that it is gone, we are able to transform what is heavy on our hearts into an embrace that guides us forward. But how do we make this transformation, how do we find the strength to move forward in the face of painful loss?
Instinctively, we may resort to the classic idiom of “forgive and forget.” But forgiving, or coming to terms with our losses and then forgetting they ever happened does a disservice to the significance of that which we lost. If something is so important to us that its loss sits with us so profoundly, we don’t necessarily want to forget. Instead, we should adopt what Reverend Donald Shriver describes the idiom’s opposite – “remember and forgive.” In remembering what we lost, and forgiving, accepting that it is gone, we are able to hold onto it as we move forward in life. For Esav, he remembered the trickery of his brother, his stolen birthright and blessings, but was able to gaze upon the family, the life he built for himself in spite of what he lost. In remembering what he had, in recognizing what he has, he found the power to forgive Jacob. So too Esav remembered his harsh sentiments towards Jacob and realized that he too erred in their relationship, and found the strength to forgive himself so that he could move forward. To “remember and forget” is to allow us to fully reconcile with where we fell short – with others, and with ourselves. Coming to terms with our losses, reconciling with our pain allows us to find the strength to live our lives to the fullest – to find true contentment in the lives that we can live.
To truly be content, we must adopt each of the three pieces of Esav’s simple, but deep wisdom. “יֶשׁ־לִ֣י רָ֑ב” – I have enough. I am grateful for what I have. “אָחִ֕י”- my brother. I value our relationship more than our differences. “יְהִ֥י לְךָ֖ אֲשֶׁר־לָֽךְ” “let what you have remain yours.” What I have lost will not hold me back. Esav here embodies the adage that we learn in Pirkei Avot, אֵיזֶהוּ עָשִׁיר? הַשָּׂמֵחַ בְּחֶלְקוֹ – “who is it that is rich? He who is happy with his portion, who is happy with what he has.” I believe that in this moment of reconciliation, Esav was rich – maybe the richest man in the biblical land – not because he possessed the most sheep, nor had the most silver or gold or wives or children, but because he was truly at peace with what he had given up, with what he had lost, and was grateful for all that he still had.
Like Esav, I am so grateful for the wonderful life that I have gotten to live thus far – I have come to terms with but still hold the shadows, the losses that life has dealt me, and I am excited for all that is to come in my future. May we all be so blessed, like Esav, to be able to find this true contentment in life. Where we feel that we lack nothing, that our relationships are valuable, and that we are at peace with what we’ve lost. That our portion, whatever it may be, fills us with joy, and we can wake up every day and mean it when we say, אַשְׁרֵֽינוּ מַה־טּוֹב חֶלְקֵֽנוּ, our joy, how great is our portion, “good morning sunshine, boker tov.”
