"I Have Plenty!"

Parashat Vayishlach, Genesis 32:4-36:43

Russ Resnik, UMJC Rabbinic Counsel

Gratitude is a powerful antidote to the virus of gloom and anxiety that afflicts us today. Jewish tradition recommends a daily dose to be taken before we even get out of bed:

Modeh ani l’fanecha—I thank you, living and eternal King,

for giving me back my soul in mercy.

Great is your faithfulness. (Koren Siddur)

When we wake up, we don’t know what lies ahead in the day that has just begun, but we can give thanks to the King for life itself. We can affirm simply being alive as a gift from God that reflects his mercy and faithfulness. A good start for the day!

This prayer also provides insight into the nature of gratitude, which can help us make a habit of it. One Hebrew term for gratitude is hakarat ha-tov, “recognizing the good.” The good is always there, and our task is to see it, amidst the disappointments, discouragements, and distractions that inevitably beset us. To see the good and then say it: “I thank you, living and eternal King, for giving me back my soul in mercy.” I thank you for this home in which I dwell, for the day ahead, for the opportunity to serve you and to serve those around me. And so on. But my examples here are rather generic, and the power of hakarat ha-tov is enhanced by specificity. I thank you for this bed in which I’m lying, warm and sheltered from the cold around me. I thank you for the day ahead in which I’ll have the opportunity to hang out with my wife (or husband) and kids. Or in which I’ll have a chance to be productive in that meeting with my supervisor and teammates. Or in which I’ll be going to that really tough class that gives me the opportunity to stretch my capacities and learn something new. And so on—I thank you for all these things that you give me in mercy and faithfulness.

Gratitude shows up in a surprising way in this week’s Torah reading when Esau, of all people, models it for us.

We’ve been following the story of Jacob, who had to flee his home in the land of Canaan to escape the wrath of his brother Esau. The two are twins, but Esau is the first-born and Jacob, at the direction of his mother, Rebekah, had succeeded in getting his father, Isaac, to speak the blessing of the first-born over him instead of Esau. Esau vows to get even and Jacob flees to his mother’s homeland far to the northeast. Now, after twenty long years in exile, Jacob is about to return to the land of Canaan, and he learns that Esau is coming to meet him with a menacing entourage of 400 men. But when Esau actually sees Jacob, he runs to embrace him and to weep together with him at their reunion (Gen 33:1–4).

Now, remember, this is the Esau who had vowed to murder Jacob in retribution for “stealing” his blessing (27:41–42). But now we see a different side of Esau. After he embraces Jacob, he asks about the droves of livestock that Jacob had sent to him to precede his own arrival: “What do you mean by this whole caravan that I’ve met?”

So Jacob said, “To find favor in your eyes, my lord.”

But Esau said, “I have plenty! O my brother, do keep all that belongs to you.” (Gen. 33:8–9)

The Jewish sages tend to distrust Esau’s generous words here, and suspect that he’s up to no good, but I disagree. Esau is an impulsive, passionate man. That character trait leads to his failings, especially his greatest failing, when he despised his own birthright and sold it on the spot to Jacob for the privilege of gulping down a bowl of stew (Gen. 25:34). Later, his passion was again evident in his cries to Isaac when he realized that Jacob had received the blessing intended for him: “Bless me, me too, my father!” And then this skilled hunter and man of the field “lifted up his voice and wept” (Gen 27:34, 38). Soon after, this same passion had made his threat to kill Jacob all too believable.

But now, at Esau’s reunion with Jacob, his passion is transformed into a nobility of character as he welcomes his brother with a kiss and weeping, and refuses his gift of appeasement. What transforms Esau’s response? Three words in Hebrew—yesh li rav, “I have plenty”—which make up the basic cry of gratitude. When Esau utters these words he rises above his own sorry role in the saga of Genesis. For the moment, at least, he forgets all that Jacob has taken from him, all that he has lost, and declares, “I have plenty, I have enough.”

Jacob insists on Esau accepting his extravagant gift, “because God has been gracious to me, and because I have everything—Yesh li kol, literally, ‘I have it all’” (Gen 33:11).

I’m going to resist the temptation to wonder whether Jacob is trying to one-up Esau here: “You have a lot, but I have it all!” Instead, let’s see him building on Esau’s expression of gratitude. Just as Esau doesn’t focus on what he doesn’t have, the birthright and blessing that Jacob took from him, so Jacob doesn’t focus on the twenty years of exile and contention with Uncle Laban he’s just left behind, or on the vast expense he’s just incurred for Esau’s gift, a gift representing a major transfer of wealth in the currency of those times. “I may be down 200 female goats, 20 billy goats, 200 ewes, 20 rams, 30 milking camels with their young, 40 cows, 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys (Gen 32:15–16), but I have it all!”

In this scene, both twins, despite their deep differences of character, recognize the good and acknowledge it in gratitude.

It’s customary, not long after saying Modeh ani and getting out of bed, to recite the daily Shema, including the great commandment, “V’ahavta, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” When I’m wholehearted in my love for God, it doesn’t leave much room for worrying and kvetching. I realize that these are really just different forms of ingratitude—lamenting what I’ve lost, or never had, or might not have much longer, instead of being thankful for what I do have. Gratitude is part of wholehearted love for God, as Paul instructs us, “In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Messiah Yeshua” (1 Thess. 5:18).

In everything give thanks: We don’t know whether Esau maintained the habit of saying yesh li rav, but we can make it part of our daily practice of gratitude. If we are really walking with Messiah, no matter what else we may have or not have, we can always say, Yesh li rav—I have plenty!