Pearls of Wisdom from the Parshah
Yaakov asked, saying, “Please now tell your name.” He answered, “Why do you ask about my name?” (Bereishis 32:30)
“Why do you ask” – We [angels] don’t have fixed names. Our names change according to the mitzvah of the service we are sent to perform. (Rashi)
The malachim themselves don’t have fixed, permanent names. However, the malach blessed Yaakov, saying:
לא יעקב יאמר עוד שמך כי אם ישראל –
Your name will no longer be Yaakov, but rather Yisrael.
The angel gives Yaakov a permanent name by which he will be known from now on.
There is a wondrous idea here. The ruling angel of Eisav, who is none other than the Sitra Achara himself, informs Yaakov that he doesn’t possess a name. In other words, his name changes all the time.
There were times when he was called avodah zarah, but the lust and drive for idolatry was “slaughtered” and done away with. Later he was called Philosophy. But this, too, fell out of fashion. Then came a period when he was called Haskalah. Haskalah petered out, and the Sitra Achara got a new name: Communism. His essential name is Samael, but he changes his name now and then, according to the spirit of the times.
Yet, the angel goes on to say that you are called Yaakov and Yisrael. That is what you will be called from now on, forever. Your name will never change.
The Yetzer Hara of nowadays is really the same Yetzer Hara of olden times. Just like the Yetzer Hara wreaked devastation on the Jewish people in the period of the Haskalah, so he seeks to devastate us all today as well. Nowadays the Yetzer Hara just goes by a different name.
The problem is that by the time we figure out the current name of the Sitra Achara, sometimes it is too late; he got us already. The name of the Yetzer Hara cannot be known because his name changes. But his nature remains the same. He is an awful, terrible force that seeks to pull people off the right path, off the path of Torah and mitzvos. We need to be alert to this, and guard ourselves from him.
