How Jacob and I became defenders of Human Rights

I was originally asked to speak about how I came to become an activist for human rights, as part of our anniversary celebration. Knowing myself, if I were to give you my journey, we would never have time for lunch or to hear from our Human Rights panel. So I have decided that what really matters is not how I got here, but where I stand today.

In July of 2018, when I was on sabbatical, I had a dramatic encounter with a human rights activist from Guatemala while we drank coffee at JP Licks on a hot summer day. Having spent four hours every day at BU in an intensive Spanish course, I was excited to practice my new skills and eager to prepare for my upcoming visit to Guatemala with the American Jewish World Service (AJWS) Rabbinic Global Justice Fellows. But my conversation with Claudia Virginia Samayoa (in English) taught me more than I learned in the classroom. I learned about the internal armed struggle in Guatemala. I learned about the oppression of indigenous peoples in Latin America that began with Cortez and continues today. And I learned that what defines the life of a human rights defender, above all, is not fighting our enemies, but wrestling with our own conscience.

Wrestling is a time-honored Jewish practice. Not many of Jews are wrestling on mats or in public arenas. Our wrestling is different. Internal. And we owe it all to Jacob.

At the beginning of this week’s portion, we read about Jacob’s dark night of the soul, when he wrestled with some unnamed figure, just before he gathered his courage to meet his long-lost brother, Esau, his rival, a man he had tricked and a man whom he feared so much that he fled to a foreign land where he married, raised a family, and remained for over twenty years. I would argue that the time Jacob spent in Haran contributed to a deep transformation that culminated in that night of struggle.

According to two contemporary commentators, Yossi Quint and Ariel Mayse, “Jacob’s internal wrestling match has changed him, preparing him to meet Esau in a new way. He has tended and healed the long-ignored scars of his past, and can make amends for an altercation from which he fled decades before. Indeed, since Jacob has struggled with the divine element within him and come to recognize that the same spark lives in others, he can greet Esau as a fellow traveler and not an adversary. Jacob is now ready to acknowledge that Esau’s face is also ‘the face of God’.”

In other words, Jacob changes from a selfish, cowardly creature who lives by avoidance and deception to become a defender of human rights.

Why would I call Jacob, Yisrael, the one who wrestles with God, a human rights defender? I draw on a rabbinic midrash (as Rabbi Shoshana Friedman explains, midrash is rabbinic fan fiction) based on the first verse that follows immediately after Jacob reconciles with his brother:

(יח) וַיָּבֹא יַעֲקֹב שָׁלֵם עִיר שְׁכֶם אֲשֶׁר בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנַעַן בְּבֹאוֹ מִפַּדַּן אֲרָם וַיִּחַן אֶת פְּנֵי הָעִיר:

"Jacob arrived safe in the city of Shechem which is in the land of Canaan-having come thus from Paddan-aram-and he encamped before the city" (Gen. 33:18)

In the Talmud, the rabbis imagine that וַיִּחַן “he encamped before the city” really means "He was gracious to the city." What could Jacob have done for the city of Shechem that was gracious? Rav said: He instituted coinage for them. Samuel said: He established markets for them; R. Yohanan said: He established baths for them" (Shabbat 33b).

This may sound like Jacob was a colonizer, taking over the city and creating his own institutions. The key to understanding what Jacob did is found in the Hebrew word, here translated as “instituted” or “established.” That word is tiken (as in Tikkun Olam): repaired. A Hasidic commentary points out that what Jacob did was not to create something, but to repair it. Because Jacob is associated with the quality of "truth," he restored integrity to a world that had been filled with lies and deception. He “repaired the coinage” meaning he regulated the financial system to rid it of dishonesty. He “repaired the markets,” meaning he restored integrity to commerce. And he “repaired the baths” not merely to ensure public health, but more importantly, that the people might cleanse themselves of their wicked ways.

Jacob not only changed his ways, but he saw beyond his own needs. He did not impose his will on others, but worked within the system as an ally: to restore honesty, integrity, and accountability to society. Because he had wrestled with his own fears and failings, Jacob began to see others, friend or foe, as fragile human beings, like himself. In that moment, he became a defender of human rights.

Meanwhile back at JP Licks, I was mesmerized by the wrestling of a very impressive human rights defender from Guatemala, Claudia Virginia Samayoa. Claudia had risked her life as a leader of UDEFEGUA, La Unidad de Protección a Defensoras y Defensores de Derechos Humanos, Guatemala (Unit for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders in Guatemala). Claudia had dedicated her life to protecting other human rights activists: the brave journalists, lawyers, judges, and grassroots organizers who had dared to stand up to the corrupt government of Guatemala and even put some of them in prison. Just as their lives were in danger, so was Claudia’s.

And now she was spending her summer in the US, as a student of Theology and Divinity at Boston College. While escaping the existential threat and the overwhelming stress of working in Guatemala, Claudia was taking time for her own internal struggle, specifically wrestling with questions of sin and forgiveness. What shook me up most about her story was the question she was studying: Does God punish sin or does God seek justice as a force for liberation? Just as Jacob had sought a blessing from his unnamed night messenger, Claudia seemed to be seeking my blessing, as she asked me directly and painfully,

“Can you call a soldier sinful if being a soldier is the only way he has to feed his family?”

Claudia was wrestling with the root causes of the civil war that had ravaged Guatemala for over forty years. Her approach to human rights work was grounded in moral courage. And at the same time, her vision of justice required seeing her enemy, the soldiers who violated her people, as human beings as well. Like Jacob, she was facing her Esau as a whole person, a person worthy of redemption, rather than punishment. Claudia sought to do tikkun, repair, for all the citizens of her country, to bring honesty and integrity to her land.

Though I have done my best to speak out against injustice and to defend marginal and invisible people in society, including tomato pickers in Florida, hotel housekeepers in Boston, dining hall workers on college campuses, or migrant workers on dairy farms in Vermont, I know that I am no human rights hero. Claudia, and many others like her I met last January in Guatemala, risk their lives in daily struggles to restore human rights in their country. And they do it with the understanding that for human rights to endure, our efforts must include compassion for every human, including those we fear. For it is only by facing the humanity within our enemies and oppressors, by recognizing their desire to live with honesty and integrity, that we have any hope of bringing lasting tikkun to our world. And that is a struggle not of one dark night, but a life-long quest that we move forward every day. May we all be worthy to be called Yisrael, those who struggle with beings human and divine, and may we ultimately prevail.

Rabbi Barbara Penzner

Shabbat Vayishlach

Human Rights Shabbat at Temple Hillel B’nai Torah

December 14, 2019