Tears of angels
To love our children is to perceive their soul prints, to see them in their unique, infinite beauty
Greek historian Thucydides writes somewhere "When words lose their meaning culture collapses". In our modern state of Israel words have in so many ways lost their meaning.
To regain the vitality and depth of our spiritual culture we need to reclaim the significance of the familiar words whose depth and texture has been long forgotten. It is such an act of reclaiming spirit to which this week's discussion is dedicated.
The simple example of words which have lost their meaning which I will focus on is familiar to all; three words; Tears of Angels. We all know the song. We can all hum it, most of us know the words. Something moves in us when we sing them but we are not quite sure what they mean. Let us in an act of cultural and spiritual courage – reclaim the great teaching of tears of angels.
The chapter in this weeks Parsha which tells the story of Jacob's stealing the blessing of Esav from his father Isaac begins with the following phrase; “Isaac was old and his eyes were dimmed, he could not see".
The reason Isaac’s eyesight went bad, explain the midrash is that in his youth, when his father attempted to sacrifice him to God; as he lay on his back facing heaven waiting to have his throat slit "tears of angels fell in his eyes". And these tears of angels gave him bad vision in his old age. A beautiful poetic image. The question however is "Who cares? What in the world does it mean to you? Why is it vitally important to the way you live your life.
A deeper meaning
The deeper meaning of tears of angels begins to become clear when we realize that Isaac does not cry during the entire course of his trauma. Angels cry for us when we are unable to cry our own tears. When the pain becomes so overwhelming that we are afraid that if we let the tears fall they will drown us, we do not let ourselves cry. But the universe demands some recognition of the pain. It cannot pass without acknowledgement. And so, the angels cry for us. This is the hidden deep meaning of the image of tears of angels.
The text now becomes enormously important because there is a central underlying theme which is being implicitly treated by this midrashic read of the story.
When is it important to cry my tears of angels, and when should I just let them go and leave them alone? This is probably the most important question for any person who has been in therapy or has even considered whether to do some kind of formal psychological work.
When is it enormously important to go and dig up the past; to access all your early traumas; to cry the tears that you never cried before? Framed slightly differently, when is it vital to connect deeply with your tears of angels and when is it better to just let them go?
When is therapy a holy and sacred process and when is it just a disguised form of egoism which allows you wallow in your favorite subject- yourself! The great teaching of the text; there are some things you can do very well even if you have not cried your tears of angels; however there are other critical things you simply cannot do in the right way until you have gone back and done the work; until you have cried your "tears of angels".
To unstop the wells
Isaac leaves Mount Moriah – the scene of his childhood trauma, the tears of angels are unconscious in his eyes. He does not look back. Biblical text records that Abraham returns home after the Binding of Isaac story. But there is no mention of Isaac. Where had he gone? Apparently he has gone his own way seeking his destiny far from his father. On the one hand he is successful. He marries Rebecca, has children – Esau and Jacob – and builds a successful business. “Isaac prospered and grew in great wealth,” the Biblical text tells us.
And yet, underneath, all is not quite right. The archetypal story describes Isaac trying to re-dig the wells that his father dug. This is certainly hinting to some unexcavated depths in his relationship to his father. Without digging into these depths, Isaac’s life will lack a certain flow. But these wells are stopped up by the Pelishtim.
The word “Pelishtim” means that which encroaches or invades turf that is not its place. There is something invasive about his father, and his father’s heritage. As much as he runs, his father’s shadow is always lurking, spilling into his reality. And even with his congested wells, Isaac seems to have things under control on the surface.
That is, until the story with which we began, chapter 27 of the book of Genesis. “Isaac is old and he cannot see; his eyes are dimmed.” Here, Isaac is portrayed as old, lacking vision. Lack of vision means here as it does throughout the book of Genesis- blurred perception. He cannot see. And what does he so desperately need to see?
The blessing of the children
This sentence opens the chapter which revolves around the issue of Isaac blessing his sons. In the literary symbolism of the book of Genesis, giving blessing is about loving and perception.
To give blessing is to see and understand my children. It is to love my children, not in a general and sterile sort of way, but from the inside. Isaac, though, does not understand his children. Love is a form of perception and Isaac lacks perception. And so his love is flawed as well. He needs to pick which of his children will inherit the blessing of Abraham. He picks Esau, but the divine narrator of the story tells us that Esau is the wrong choice. Without a doubt, that is the greatest flaw in vision: To be unable to see that you cannot see.
To be unable to see the blurred lines of your very own perception; to think you are seeing clearly when in fact all your images are distorted. Isaac is making fateful decisions which will define his family for generations based on distorted images which he thinks are perfectly clear. Why? Explains the Midrash in an elliptical, understated, yet brilliant insight, Isaac cannot see because “many years ago, tears of Angels fell in his eyes.”
He has not yet worked out the pain of his youthful trauma. His unresolved relation with the archetype patriarch father Abraham makes him unable to father his children with the loving insight needed to transmit blessing to the next generation.
Love is perception. Isaac cannot see – his perception is blurred. We can do many things in life with our love faculty of perception impaired. We can build a business, partner with a reasonable degree of success and navigate much of life successfully. But we cannot give blessing to our children. To love our children is to perceive their soul prints, to see them in their unique and infinite beauty, not as our redeemers but as our sacred trust. We cannot love them unless we are willing to go back and cry our tears of angels.
