Parshat Vayishlach - the Divine Within

I gave this shiur last night in Jerusalem. Happy Birthday Michael and thank you for hosting the shiur.

This shiur is in part a continuation of last week's shiur on angels. Only this time we examine 'Who is G-d'?

Who did Yaakov wrestle with? All the Rishonim (without exception as far as I could tell) say it was an angel. Yet this appears to contradict the simple reading of the Chumash, and ignores several Midrashim.

Is there a p'shat reading of the text? How are we to understand the statements of Chazal that equate Yaakov/Yisrael/Yeshurun with G-d?

I also bring two kabbalistic Rishonim (there are not so many Rishonim who wrote on kabbalah). However I completely failed to understand what they said, so even though I think the message is valid, profound and true, please ignore my misinterpretation of the Recanati and Avodat HaKodesh. I will try to have a better understanding before my shiur tonight on WebYeshiva.


I look forward to your comments.

Here is the audio shiur (and the pdf sheets to download if you want).

Parshat Vayishlach - The Divine Within

(Right click and then 'download as')

Parshat Vayishlach - The Divine Within - source sheet

Your feedback is welcome and appreciated. I would love to continue giving a shiur to this group on a weekly basis, but to do that I would need some kind of sponsorship. If anyone is interested in sponsoring a shiur (either l'ilui nishmat someone, or just for no reason) please contact me.