God in Disguise

Written by Rabbi Elliott Karstadt — 3 December 2023

This week we come to one of the most iconic – but also most enigmatic – episodes in the Torah. Jacob, about to cross the river Jabbok in order to be reunited with his brother, wrestles with a man until the break of dawn. He and this figure strive all night with each other, and neither can overcome the other. The tussle ends when the other man, seeming to fear the coming of the dawn, demands that Jacob release him. In exchange, Jacob demands a blessing.

Who this figure actually is has been the subject of much religious and academic debate through the centuries. The Jewish Publication Society translation that we turn to often as an authority, avoids translating the Hebrew ish as ‘man’ – preferring to refer instead to a ‘figure’ – as the translators know the many later interpretations that turn this man into an angel, or even God.

Many modern commentators focus on the psychological aspect of Jacob’s wrestling, preferring to think of the struggle as one with Jacob’s inner demons. But what if we want to stay physical – to think about who this other person might actually have been?

Some argue that it is some sort of night demon, who is worried as the sun comes up because he has some kind of aversion to its light. A kind of troll or billy-goat gruff guarding the river crossing.

The most prevalent image throughout the centuries has been of the figure as an angel – or some kind of divine being. And if we look to artistic representations of the episode in paint and sculpture, we usually see a man with big white wings.

The idea that the figure is an angel perhaps comes from the fact that, when Jacob insists on receiving a blessing, the man renames him Israel and says ‘you have striven with God and man, and prevailed’. And later, when he finally comes face-to-face with his brother Esau, Jacob says, ‘to look at you is to look upon the face of God’ – leading the rabbis of the midrash to suggest that the wrestling figure was the guardian angel of Esau, sent out in advance to challenge Jacob before they met.

The targum, the Aramaic translation of the Torah, says v’itchatash mal’acha imei bidmoot gever – ‘an angel contended with him in the guise of a man’. At first, he thought he was entangled with a human being, but it turned out that this was no man, but godly being in disguise.

How would it change our encounter with the fellow human beings with whom we come into contact every day – whether it is our friends at school, our colleagues at work, our brothers, sisters, the bus driver, the shopper in front of us in the queue at the supermarket, the stranger sitting next to us at shul – if we approach that person as thought they might – just in fact – be God in disguise?

Especially for the people we wrestle with – the people we find difficult – the people who are unlike us and make us feel uncomfortable.

Although Jacob’s encounter begins with strife and violence, it ends with his opponent leaving him with a blessing. In the words of Rabbi Bradley Artson: ‘Just as God asks not to be approached empty-handed, so too, human beings should be approached with offerings of respect, affection and marvel. Each human being offers a unique embodiment of the godly and the mysterious. We, like Jacob, can make that comparison explicit, by training ourselves to encounter God in everyone we meet.’

Shabbat Shalom