There is a joke about a driver who received a frantic call from his wife on his commute home from work. “Dave,” she said, “A reporter on the radio just warned that a car on the very highway you are on is driving full speed in the wrong direction — please, be careful!” “Oh,” Dave answered, “it is much worse than that. It’s not one car, but hundreds of them!”
We all make wrong turns. We all make mistakes. And like Dave, it is almost always easier to react by looking outside our windows and saying it is others who are mistaken, rather than turning the mirror on ourselves. A psychological reading of this week’s parsha provides inspiration for changing course after a mistake by courageously driving introspective change.
In Parshat Vayishlach, as Jacob runs away from his uncle, Laban, he prepares to see his brother Esau for the first time since Jacob deceived their father into giving him Esau’s blessing, more than 20 years prior. Jacob then finds himself alone, at night, wrestling with an angel. At daybreak, the angel wounds Jacob in the leg and prevails upon Jacob to let him go.
