Vayishlach
How can we find a bit more spaciousness?
Reflection by Rabbi Lauren Tuchman:
"We encounter Yaakov in the opening of our parsha this week preparing for an encounter with his brother, Esav, from whom he’s been estranged for 20 years. Spending the night alone, having sent his family ahead of him, Yaakov has a mysterious and transformational encounter with an angel. This encounter becomes a fundamental aspect of our collective self-understanding. Not only does Yaakov receive a new name—Yisrael—but the physical impact of the encounter, the tearing of bone and flesh that left Yaakov with a permanent limp, becomes integral to the laws of kashrut. To this day, kosher meat cannot include the sciatic nerve, that area torn through struggle.
We can never know what Yaakov felt in the moment of encounter with the angel or the moment of rending of flesh. We will never know if he was able to turn towards this experience with acceptance and equanimity or if he was always aversive towards it.
We do know our own experiences of turning towards and turning away. When we are able to turn towards and encounter what is, even when what is present is profound struggle, we may begin to have a felt sense of presence, ease, and freedom. When I am no longer aversive to the truth of my experience but can actually honor that it is here, I notice a feeling of ease, lightness, even delight. Refraining from eating the sciatic nerve serves this purpose for us collectively. We don’t deny that the rending of flesh happened. We honor and refrain from consuming the place of struggle.
Though I desperately wish that all of the difficulty of this past year, not to mention all of our ongoing personal and collective rending and struggle, had never happened, if I can be with what actually is in this moment and stop resisting all the things I don’t want, I can find a bit more spaciousness. Off the cushion, I can encounter the causes and conditions that arise with less reactivity. May our practice of being with what is here and now lead us to experiencing greater spaciousness in all we do."