Yes to the Dress? (Vayishlach)

I went wedding dress shopping with my older daughter yesterday. We went to one of the fanciest stores in New York City, Kleinfeld Bridal, made famous by the reality TV show, “Say Yes to the Dress.”

She wanted the whole “experience.”

The whole time leading up to it and at the store, so many thoughts were running through my head: Am I going to cry? Should I cry—like in the show (which I’ve never seen). What if I do? What if I don’t? What does that say about me as her mother either way? How much do these dresses cost? Am I allowed to ask, or will I embarrass her? What if she falls in love with a dress that costs…I don’t even know…? How do I be there for her in the way she wants me to be? How does she want me to be?

So much pressure! So many expectations! Oy! I literally got dizzy at one point while looking at her in one of the beautiful dresses, trying to suppress all these feelings swirling around inside me and just be “normal” for her.

I didn’t know until later that she’d never intended to buy anything there. I didn’t even know how the whole thing worked—that you give them a budget, show them examples of what you like. And I’m so afraid of stepping on her toes and pressuring her in any way. I know what mothers can be like (I had one!), and I’m consciously participating in changing old patterns mothers have followed for generations by backing off.

Still, I want her to be happy, and the dress is really all she cares about in terms of the wedding!

So I’m left to my imagination and my own conclusions, which is way scarier than the reality. In the end, she just appreciated my being there and supporting her, and she actually wants more guidance from me!

This week in Torah, Jacob is returning “home” after many years of living with his father-in-law. Like me, I imagine he has so many thoughts and emotions. Mostly we just know that he is terrified to see his twin brother, whose birthright and blessing he stole many years ago, causing Jacob to run for his life because Esau probably would have killed him—though we don’t really know that for a fact.

On Jacob’s journey home, he prepares for the worst possible outcome: that Esau still wants to kill him.

He divides up his entourage so as to protect his wives and children in various ways, chooses gifts for Esau of various types, and sends messengers ahead.

At night, Jacob separates himself from his caravan and sleeps alone by the river where he dreams and has his famous wrestling match with an angel who refuses to tell Jacob his name, demands a blessing (?), and changes Jacob’s name to Israel—meaning God Wrestler.

The angel seems to be saying, “It’s time to change your old patterns.”

The next day, limping from the wrestling match as he goes to meet his brother with great trepidation, none of his fears come true.

Esau runs to him with deep emotion, embracing and kissing him and crying on his shoulder. Esau is over it. He’s healed from the traumatic events of their youth and just wants re-connection and peace with Jacob.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that, later in the parsha, something truly horrendous does happen, but not between the brothers; this time it’s Dina, one of Jacob’s daughters, and she is raped. Her only “crime” is to “go out” to visit the daughters of the town. Women, as we know, were not to go out alone, and she is subtly blamed for what happens to her, not unlike what still happens today—very often not so subtly.

But her brothers are there to avenge her, and they slaughter and plunder an entire town. It’s quite gruesome, and much has been written about it.

Truly horrendous things are happening in the world, and they don’t involve wedding dresses.

The COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow that ended last week left disappointing—no, terrifying—results for now and our future as a world.

We need to keep doing the work that will effect positive change in the world. A big part of that work is changing how we approach the work that needs doing; if we approach it with fear and terror, then we are missing the holiness in the world.

The Piaseczno Rebbe, a Hassidic Polish rabbi who was murdered by the Nazis, wrote about our perceptions and how important it is to train the mind to see the holiness in the world. For him, it was all about our relationships—with each other and the earth. With this, he says, we will create more holiness (it’s not just Buddhists who talk about training the mind!).

Rabbi Shefa Gold and people like her would call that “raising the vibration,” or walking in the world from a higher place, a more divine place.

I don’t know what the Piaseczno Rebbe would say today, but I bet he would still say that if we all strove to live more from a place of love and holiness rather than hatred, fear and anger, the world would be a better place.

Let us try.

And let us say Amen.