Home for the Holidays? A Lesson from Feuding Brothers

“There’s no place like home for the holidays.”

Sometimes “home” is the last place you’d rather be. Since Election 2016, many folks are finding themselves in the queer position of feeling conflicted about returning to spend Thanksgiving with their families of origin. From racial biases rising to the surface to newly-heightened political differences, the holiday dinner table can be a minefield of tension, rejection, judgment, and conflict.

This Thanksgiving week, we read of Jacob’s flight from his family of origin, where his twin brother plots to kill him for stealing a blessing. We read of his antics in the household of Laban, a shepherd whose two daughters Jacob will marry. There’s deception and more running away into the night to escape the consequences of both his questionable choices and his unfortunate circumstances. And then there’s next week’s Torah portion.

After more than a decade, Jacob finally decides to go home. Where his brother still lives. His brother, who probably still wants to kill him.

Talk about tension at the family dinner table!

Jacob approaches the impending reunion with trepidation and cunning, sending ahead messengers to divine Esau’s mood.

Will my brother make a snide remark about Black Lives Matter? Will my mother ask yet again why I don’t have a boyfriend? Can I listen to a rant about immigrants without getting into a heated screaming match with my uncle?

The reports Jacob receives aren’t terribly encouraging: “Your brother himself is coming to meet you. And he’s got 400 men with him” (Genesis 34:7).

We’re not surprised that Jacob responds with both fear and anxiety, dividing his family and possessions, hoping that his strategy might protect at least some of them from his brother’s wrath. He prepares abundant gifts. He’s ready, it seems, to face the family dinner table.

It’s just one night. I’ve got plans to meet local friends for breakfast tomorrow. Four of my cousins recently saw the same superhero movie — There’s plenty to talk about besides politics!

Esau stands across the terrain from Jacob. Jacob creeps forward slowly, stooping to bow seven times.

Blend in. Don’t push buttons. Don’t rise to their bait.

Esau simply runs.

“Esau ran to greet him. He embraced him and, falling on his neck, he kissed him; and they wept” (Genesis 35:4).

From this dramatic reunion follows a convoluted conversation during which neither brother acknowledges their feud. Esau offers over and over again to accompany Jacob, to slow his traveling pace to match the flocks and servants and wives and children with his brother, but Jacob rejects all these attempts. They go their separate ways. The next, and apparently the last, time the brothers interact is to bury their father (Genesis 35:29).

What about that kiss?

In the Torah, each letter of the word “and he kissed him” is embellished with a dot. Our tradition invites us to examine this word very, very carefully: “and he kissed him.”

In Hebrew, a neshikah is a kiss. But a neshek is a weapon. Same linguistic root. Two very different meanings.

Did Esau kiss his brother? Or strike him? Affection, or aggression?

We might find ourselves asking the same question at our Thanksgiving tables this year. Do they accept me as I really am?

Whether a gesture crosses over from affection (even if misguided, even if partial, even if conditional) into aggression or abuse is contextual: Only you can truly know your boundaries and limits, and you have every right to assert them.

But, for those folks whose conflict with their families of origin is ambiguous, or new, or limited, how do we respond to attempts to cross the great divide that the election of 2016 seems to have opened in many American families?

Some of us react by turning our family members into caricatures, letting this particular conflict color everything we have ever felt toward or about them. Just like some of our classical Torah commentators, who make much of the fact that Esau is called both his name and his title, “his brother, Esau.” A reminder, they say, of the ways Esau utterly fails as a brother, as in You may think he’s your brother, who would love you unconditionally, but really he’s just the same old Esau, who harbors nothing but hatred and vitriol for you (e.g. Rashi’s commentary to this Torah portion).

Some of us may have the resources, the patience, the strength, the generosity, the privilege, and the safety to view our interactions with the Esaus at our table in a broader light. For example, many of these same commentators refuse to see mischief in Esau’s kiss. Despite his baser instincts, in that moment, Esau embraces his brother wholeheartedly.

For those folks fleeing political conflict within their family of origin, perhaps the Thanksgiving table can be a moment of embrace — for just a moment.

The Torah leaves room for ambiguity: Jacob and Esau, after all their careful attempts at reconciliation, ultimately go their separate ways. The kiss is but a momentary respite in a longer string of complex family dynamics and great pain. After the tryptophane-induced naps have long ended, after the football game’s results have been reviewed and replayed, as the leftover stuffing languishes in the fridge, we still lead our separate lives. How we handle the kiss is up to us.

By Rabbi Nikki Lyn DeBlosi, PhD @RavNikki /ravnikkid