In Parashat Vayishlach (Gen.32:4-36:43), we read, “Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.” Jacob survives the all-night struggle with either a man or an angel. Like the infant who held onto his brother's heel, he does not let go until his adversary confirms Jacob’s ownership of the birthright and the royal title: Israel. It’s a name that can be rendered as "upright with God" or "man struggling with God," revealing the sacred mechanism by which we shape our souls, via the experiences sent to us by a loving God, as well as His desire for a true partnership in building the world.
Jacob calls the place of this struggle Peniel, exclaiming that he had, “Seen Elohim face to face but my life was saved!” Jacob fully grasped that every encounter in life, whether man or angel, good or evil—every living experience—is placed before us by the Creator. More importantly, he saw the span of history and the mission of his descendants who, like the ladder in a previous dream, would bring heaven and earth together. Wrestling alone with a man is a prophetic hint of the Jewish experience through the ages as “a people who dwell alone among the nations.” They have struggled to be a model nation, keeping alive the knowledge of the One True God. A life lived in this manner is a vibrant testament to the Torah values of Jacob that rejects the humanism of Esav.
According to Seder Olam, Esav and Jacob will meet the day after Jacob's transformative wrestling match, on the 9th of Av, a tragic date for the Jewish People, beginning with the Sin of the Spies and later, the destruction of the First and Second Temple. When Jacob and Esav meet, the latter appears to let bygones be bygones. Esav invites Jacob travel with him to his home in Seir. But, Jacob urges Esav to proceed ahead of him:
"Let my lord, I pray thee, pass over before his servant: and I move on softly, according as the cattle that goeth before me and the children be able to endure, until I come unto my lord unto Seir." - Genesis 33:14
Jacob’s entreaty to Esav to,"go ahead", rings with prophecy, hinting that Esav and his descendants (known collectively as Edom) will take precedence in terms of political leadership. This is in contrast to God's plan for leadership unfolds more slowly, via different means, eventually culminating in a kingdom that is not merely political, but one with a special covenantal relationship with God. It could also be seen as a foreshadowing of a broader theme: though Esau's line may have dominance for a time, it is Israel that ultimately receives the promises of a kingship that is divinely ordained, within the idealized reign of David and the future messianic hope.
At the beginning of the thirty-sixth chapter of Genesis, the royal roll call of Esav's descendants takes a curious turn at verse thirty-one; the names of the rulers are not from Edom—they are foreigners. According to the commentary Me’Am Lo’ez,, the Edomites were unable to find anyone among their ranks that they trusted or even capable of ruling them, so they sought foreigners to install as their monarchs. In Genesis 36:32, we learn that Bela, son of Beor was the first foreigner to reign over Edom.
Sefer HaYashar (a book referenced in Joshua 10:13 and 2 Samuel 1:18) records that Bela came from Dinhabah, a province on the coast of North Africa where he befriended a ruler, known as Angeas. The latter may be an historical figure alternately called Aneas, who would become one of the founders of Rome:
“Therefore the sons of Esav swore, saying, from that day forward they would not choose a king from their brethren, but one from a strange land unto this day. And there was a man there from the people of Angeas king of Dinhabah; his name was Bela the son of Beor, who was a very valiant man, beautiful and comely and wise in all wisdom, and a man of sense and counsel; and there was none of the people of Angeas like unto him. And all the children of Esav took him and anointed him, and they crowned him for a king…. And the people of Angeas took their hire for their battle from the children of Esav, and they went and returned at that time to their master in Dinhabah.” — Sefer HaYashar 57:40-44
Apparently, the clans of Edom hired Angeas and his army to serve as mercenaries. Edom’s political connections with Angeas/Aneas, his people, and Bela is one of many threads that connect Edom to the origins of Rome. Yet another link can be traced directly to Esav’s family through a grandson named Zepho. In the 61st chapter of Sefer HaYashar, verses 24-25 state that Zepho became a leader of the people called Kittim:
“And the children of Kittim saw the valor of Zepho…and they made Zepho king over them…they built him a very large palace for his royal habitation and made a large throne for him, and Zepho reigned over the whole land of Kittim and over the land of Italia fifty years.”
Well-known Jewish commentators reveal that the Kittim (sometimes called “Chittim) was another name for Rome. For example, Numbers 24:24, mentions “Ships from the land of Kittim” elecits the following opinon from Rashi:
“the people of Kittim — these are the Romans — will pass over in big ships against Assyria.”
The Ramban references Genesis 14:1 and has this to say:
“Goiim, the last of the four kings mentioned here], ruled over various nations that had made him their head and leader, is an allusion to the king of Rome who ruled over a city comprised of many peoples called Kittim.”
In the Talmud, Sanhedrin 106a, we read:
“With regard to the verse: “And ships come from the coast of Kittim” (Numbers 24:24), Rav says: This is the Roman legion.”
Jewish scholar, Abarbanel, makes this same connection, as does Yossipon, a 10th-century chronicle attributed to Joseph ben Gorion, which states that Zepho was crowned king of Kittim by its inhabitants. As we shall see, history, culture and myth will mingle over time so that Zepho morphs into a more familiar personage. If this grandson of Esav became the first king to rule Italy, it would come as no surprise that his subjects would want to know his origins. Zepho likely boasted of divine lineage, explaining how God told his maternal progenitor, Rebecca, that noble leaders were in her womb. He would have revealed that his regal ancestors were twins. All those significant details could have evolved into a saga of twins born of a god and suckled by a she-wolf. This legend may have been influenced by the Hebrew word for wolf, ze’ev, which sounds similar to Zepho. This grandson of Esav would also have inherited his grandfather’s animosity toward Jacob, an attitude absorbed by Zepho’s subjects, ultimately growing into the oppressive power of the Roman Empire.
Another figure found in Esav’s lineage is Magdiel. Midrash Rabbah states this is a prophetic reference to the Emperor Diocletian, a ruler who radically changed the Roman Empire. One of the Amoraim, Rabbi Ammi, had a dream on the day that Diocletian took power. The rabbi told his contemporaries that Magdiel had become king and that there would be one more king over Edom. If one more ruler followed Diocletian, it would mean that his true successor, Constantine the Great, was the “final” king over Edom. Though Rabbi Ammi saw these men as the last rulers of Rome, his prophetic insight may have revealed them as pivotal figures who heralded the end of one version of Rome and the birth of another, newer incarnation of the empire.
Diocletian instituted massive reforms in the economy, the military, and the way Romans were governed, including increasing the army and enlarging the civil service ranks. He was also known for wielding religious rhetoric to establish power. Though historians chart the end of the Roman Empire in the fifth century, it could be argued that it was actually reborn as Europe. Diocletian and Constantine were midwives of that rebirth, credited by contemporary historians for stabilizing Rome while forever changing the empire’s basic nature. Constantine was a benevolent dictator, if there is such a thing. He attempted to meld the Roman idea of conquest and autocratic rule with religion. This effort had been perfected centuries earlier by the true founder of the empire—Zepho, the grandson of Esav. Constantine’s influence was significant, as author James Carroll reveals in his book Constantine’s Sword:
“…Constantine was the instrument of revolution in the religious imagination of the Mediterranean world, and eventually Europe. His political impact on Christianity is widely recognized, but his role as shaper of its central religious idea is insufficiently appreciated.” - Constantine's Sword (page 151)
Author James Carroll likens Constantine’s rule to the "second greatest story ever told" and reminds us that Constantine’s adoption of Christianity led to mass transformation in, “structures of culture, mind, politics, spirituality and even calendar.”
Constantine, like many warlords before and after him. At first, he tolerated other creeds as long as they suited his designs, but his tolerance for the Jews only went so far. As Carroll points out:
“Christianity went from being a private apolitical movement to being a shaper of world politics. The status of Judaism was similarly reversed." (ibid p. 171)
It was, after all, Constantine’s influence that kept alive the libel that the Jews killed Jesus. Historian Michael Grant, in his The Jews in the Roman World quotes a letter written to the churches after the Council of Arelate, Constantine’s warning about consulting the Jewish calendar exudes anti-Semitic bile:
"What right opinions can they have who, after the murder of the Lord, went out of their minds…" (p.284)
Constantine’s eventually recast Rome as the new Jerusalem thanks to the growing power of the Catholic Church. The Vatican would exert influence through the many permutations of the Roman Empire. Centuries later, the new incarnation of Rome would emerge in the same locale where Constantine began his ascent to power: the Roman province of Germania.
From the time of Diocletian and Constantine until the formal disappearance of Roman power in the West in 476 CE, two rising institutions gradually took control of the western Mediterranean world. These new forces were the Christian Church and the German tribes, who organized the kingdoms that inherited the western empire. Professor Carroll Quigley, who trained diplomats and world leaders at the Foreign Service School at Georgetown University, wrote that the rise of Hitler in Germany was made possible because the German people of that day were still under the influence of Rome. As Quigley remarked:
“The German continued to dream of that role down to 1943. Thus, to understand the career of Hitler and Germany’s role in the 20th century, one must begin at the beginning, with the German entry into the Roman Empire, and with the ideas they got there.”
The initial acceptance of Hitler's Germany was made possible by a materialistic, militarized political philosophy shared by key European leaders of Hitler's day. Their worldview was nurtured and sustained from the time of Esau, later the Roman Empire and eventually Europe and now fuels much of contemporary Western thought. And it all began with twins wrestling in their mother's womb. The reader will recall that Esav was considered the older brother, since he emerged from his mother's womb first. We can take comfort by recalling the words of Creator regarding the destiny of Rebecca's twins:
"And the LORD said to her: “Two nations are in your womb, Two peoples shall be separated from your body; One people shall be stronger than the other, And the older shall serve the younger.” - Genesis 25:23
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