Timeless Torah

In the still of the night, with his family on the other side of the river, Jacob remained alone on the far banks of the Yabbok. Suddenly he encountered a man who engaged him in a wrestling match. According to our Sages, the man was no ordinary human being, he was an angel. Even more interesting, he was no ordinary angel, he was Samael, the guardian angel of Eisav. Our Rabbis teach us that Samael represents evil as no other celestial being. Powerful as he was however, the angel could not overcome Jacob and at the break of day pleaded to be let go. The Patriarch realized that he had the upper hand and negotiated a blessing and thus received the additional name of Israel. But Jacob was not yet satisfied. There was still one unanswered question. Who was this adversary that had struck so suddenly and without warning? And so Jacob queried, “Divulge if you please your name?” The Torah is silent as to the identity of our forefather’s opponent. It only records the angel’s cryptic reply, “Why then do you inquire?” Rashi, the French medieval commentary, elucidates: Angels have no set names. It all depends upon the mission they are sent on. Thus they may have more than one nom de guerre. This of course raises the obvious question, how could Rashi identify the angel unequivocally as Samael when the angel himself declared that his name was not permanent? The answer may be found in a discussion that takes place in the Talmud. According to Rabbi Shmuel Bar Nachmeini the angel appeared to Jacob in the guise of an idolater, while according to Rava Bar Ulla he came dressed as a Torah scholar.
Without question the struggle between Jacob and Eisav carried within it the seeds of the millennia-long battle between the forces of good and evil. The two viewpoints in the Talmud that paint the archangel of evil as an idolater or a scholar, although different are truly not in conflict. Evil has many masks. At times it appears in the form of an idolater seeking to attack everything holy. There were blood soaked eras of Jewish history, when evil bared its fangs as a bitter enemy seeking to uproot all of Israel’s values, as Rome did in the days of Rabbi Akiva or the Inquisition in Spain, like the Czar in Russia or the Nazi war machine in Germany.
At other times the angel of evil realizes that in order to convince Israel to neglect its mission he should approach us with a smile and a kiss as Eisav himself would do in this week’s Torah portion. Historically this has been the stance taken by many nations starting from the prince of Shechem to the Statue of Liberty. Their enticing message of, “Come join us. Tear down your ghetto walls. Our schools should educate your children with our relativist morality. Marry our daughters.” All of this is no less destructive than the first method employed. Only its honey-coated embrace seems safe at first glance. Hence the name, as told to us by Rashi, of Eisav’s angel. The title Samael alludes to this dual identity, this face of good and evil. For Samael is a combination of two Hebrew words, poison and G-dly angel.
At times, evil wears his heart on his sleeve for all to see. His breath is noxious, his fumes are poison and his attack is direct. On other occasions, evil is disguised as holy, as G-dly, even as a Biblical scholar that utilizes Talmudic logic, “Don’t be so different. You will only stick out like a sore thumb. You wouldn’t want to be the cause of more anti-Semitism.” So while evil may possess two faces, he has only one heart. On second thought, perhaps he has no heart at all.