Originally published in the Jewish Journal · Table for Five
ֵשָׂו לִקְרָאתוֹ וַיְחַבְּקֵהוּ וַיִּפֹּל עַל־צַוָּארָו וַיִּשָּׁקֵהוּ וַיִּבְכּוּ׃
“Esau ran to greet him. He embraced him and, falling on his neck, he kissed him; and they wept.” – Gen 33:4 Vayishlach
What kind of a kiss is this? What kind of tears? After all Jacob’s prostrations, after all Esau’s saber rattling, do they really fall on each other’s necks as loving long-lost twins? Are we to believe they truly reconciled here?
Rashi says Esau’s kiss is half-hearted.
Rabbeinu Bachya quotes Proverbs: “Many are the kisses of an enemy.”
Rav Hirsh says “you can fake a kiss, but tears drop from the innermost part of the human soul.”
Radak says they’re sincere, but R’ Yannai claims that Esau meant to bite Jacob’s neck!
The Targum of Jerusalem totally waves off any sentiment: Esau wept because of (metempsychical?) pain in his teeth, and Jacob cries because of pain in his neck.
Luzzatto, citing the analogy of Jacob’s other heartrending reunion – with Joseph in Egypt – says if Esau and Jacob were sincere, they would be too overwhelmed to kiss. I.e., it was all just Middle Eastern kabuki tango.
Kabbalah says poetically, “There are kisses that hate…Like a crocodile, they watered and wept.” Crocodile tears.
I choose to follow the warmhearted Netziv, R’ Berlin: “They wept with sincere passion… Love for Esau awakened in Yaakov.” He sees their reunion as sincere and prophetic. “Whenever Esau’s descendants genuinely acknowledge Yisrael’s greatness, Yisrael reciprocates with feelings of brotherhood.” In them, let’s see hope for a future when Jacob’s long subjugation to Esau – Israel’s exile in Edom – ends in genuine reconciliation and hastens the world’s redemption.
