וַיֹּ֖אמֶר נִסְעָ֣ה וְנֵלֵ֑כָה וְאֵלְכָ֖ה לְנֶגְדֶּֽךָ׃
And [Esau] said, “Let us start on our journey, and I will proceed at your pace.”
Genesis 33:12 (Revised JPS, 2023)
There is a teaching among the rabbis that when Esau and Jacob separate here, Esau is saying something that should be understood theologically.
“I will proceed at your pace” can mean “I will travel parallel to you.” The Midrash speaks to a division of the world – a picture of this life and the hereafter.
I see it similarly, but within a slightly different framework.
My journey through Genesis has led me to believe strongly in this repeated theme of heaven and earth. Not the “future heaven” of the afterlife (that’s “resurrection”), but in the present spiritual reality of heaven, where God currently dwells. Genesis 1:1 speaks of God creating heaven and earth, and I think this describes “twin realities.” And here in this part of Genesis, we are shown a parallel path for Jacob and Esau. Twins.
The Jewish writings describe Esau as a sort of wickedness and evil incarnate, and point to repeated passages where God has rejected Esau. He appears irredeemable. But maybe the picture isn’t meant to be a picture of “good vs evil,” but rather “spirit vs flesh.” It is our flesh that craves the things of Esau. His stomach, his lust, his desire for blood. In the same way the Flood narrative specifically calls out an end to “all flesh,” I think the text is telling us that the corrupted flesh is dying, and that no flesh will survive. The spirit survives, and longs for a day of resurrection, where all flesh will be made new again.
Adam and Eve, too, are a story of flesh and spirit. Read the text carefully and see where death is assigned, and where life is assigned. It’s a repeated story.
So when Esau says “I will travel at your pace,” we’re being told a plain truth: our spirit and our flesh are twins. They are the same. And this is just like the way Adam and Eve came from the one body, cleaved in two, but are one.
Strangely, Jacob will INSIST on separating from Esau, and the next chapter is the tragedy at Shechem. I think this is related.
We are flesh AND spirit. We are not spirit that happens to inhabit a random body. We are not a body that happens to have a soul. They are linked as one. To try to separate this identity in the present life means to ignore the needs of the present life. The story of Dinah seems linked to a failure to see this.