Wrestling with Two Texts: A Post-Shoah Encounter: A Midrash on Genesis 32:22-33 and Matthew 26:36-46

54 SHOFAR Fall 1996 Vol. 15, No. 1 WRESTLING WITH two TEXTS: A POST-SHOAH ENCOUNTER A Midrash on Genesis 32:22-33 and Matthew 26:36-46 by Henry F. Knight Henry Knight is University Chaplain and Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Tulsa. A graduate of the University of Alabama (in English literature) and Emory University's Candler School ofTheology, where he concentrated in Pastoral Theology, he teaches regularly in the Tulsa Curriculum and specializes in post-Shoah Christian Theology (Holocaust Studies). An active participant in the Annual Scholars' Conference on the Holocaust and German Church Struggle, Hank chaired that group's March 1993 meeting which he convened in Tulsa. MEETING JACOB AT THE JABBOK1 Introduction What might Jews and Christians discover if they met over a shared biblical text in an honest and forthright attempt to interpret a text each honored as the Word of God? What might they discover if they moved to more problematic ground, namely, a text which for one was sacred and paradigmatic and for the other historically and existentially problematic. The following essay examines these interrelated questions by focusing on iAn earlier version of the first part of this essay has been published as "Meeting Jacob at the Jabbok: Wrestling With A Text," Journal ofEcumenical Studies, Vol. 29, No; 3 & 4 (Summer-Fall, 1992), pp. 451-460. It is used here with permission. Wrestling with Two Texts 55 two key biblical texts. In the first case (Gen. 32:22-33), Abraham's grandchildren, Jacob and Esau, are preparing to meet in the context of a twenty-year estrangement. Jacob has displaced his older, twin sibling, taking his birthright and blessing. The night before their historic encounter , Jacob wrestles with a mysterious, unnamed figure.2 Reflecting on this text, theJabbok story is re-entered and the dynamics which Jacob faced are explored. In the second case, the story of Gethsemane (Matt. 26:36-46) is explored, focusing on Jesus' night of wrestling and its meaning for contemporary Christians and Jews as they ask how this central story for Christians has been affected by what happened in yet another night, the long night of destruction called the Shoah. What follows is written in a single voice in this encounter-a Christian one-and is offered where it begins, at the threshold of the Jabbok, self-consciously on the post-Shoah side of the history ofJewish-Christian relations. Facing the Text Who was the ish, the one with whom Jacob wrestled during the night at the Jabbok? With whom (or what) did Jacob wrestle on the banks of the Jabbok? Was it the guardian angel of Esau, as the sage, R. Hama b. R. Hanina, has suggested?3 Was it Esau, the estranged brother, sneaking into the camp under the cover ofdarkness? Was it fear personified? Was it guilt? Was the stranger the haunting and stalking shadow ofJacob's father, Isaac? Was the stranger God? Was the ish Jacob himself, that is, the other side or sides ofJacob?4 Who was encountered that night? What was encountered that night? At the Jabbok, Jacob prepared for meeting his estranged brother on the following day. He sent his family across the river, out of harm's way, and prepared to wait and rest. But nightfall brought no rest. Instead it brought struggle. An unnamed stranger, an ish (literally, a man), came and 2Alan Segal, in his historical study ofthe birth ofJudaism and Christianity, has developed a more direct metaphorical identification ofJudaism and Christianity with Esau and Jacob. Citing Genesis 25:23-24, he contends that rabbinic Judaism and Christianity both grew out of the faith world of Israel's Second Commonwealth as critical transformations of Hebraic life and culture. Consequently, he argues, it is appropriate to equate Judaism and Christianity as "twin religions." See Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World (Cambridg~,MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 1-3, 142-18l. 3See H. Freedman, trans., Midrash Rabbah: Genesis, vol. II, LXXVII: III (London: The Soncino Press, 1939), p. 711. 'Elie Wiesel, Messengers ofGod (New York: Random House) 1976, p. 123f. 56 SHOFAR Fall 1996 Vol. 15, No. 1 wrestled with Jacob through...