How are we changed by our pain?

What is it about stories of trauma and pain- and maybe specifically about the Holocaust, that are enough to sell out a movie theater on an 11 degree night in December? Last night, I had the privilege of sharing some reactions and reflections about the movie “A Real Pain” at the Triplex here in Great Barrington. The film, written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, really stood out to me as not only interesting, but important— marking what feels like the beginning of the next era in storytelling about the Holocaust. Different from the movies like Schindler’s List or Life is Beautiful which tell a story from the perspective of someone living through it, or from a survivor—- A Real Pain hones in on the stories that can be told of the generations to come; specifically the story of two millennial Jewish grandchildren of Grandma Dori, who (as David says in one memorable scene) survived because of a “thousand miracles”. 

One thing I keep thinking about is the title of the movie A Real Pain—not THE Real Pain. When we talk about pain and trauma— who does it belong to? Can I inherit pain from an experience that I didn’t live through, and can that pain be real? 

Our Torah portion this week, Vayishlach (“and he sent”) is a story rife with pain and confusion. Jacob is in the prime of his life— and yet, is on the run. Even before birth, Jacob is portrayed as a person who struggles. When Rebekah is pregnant with him and Esau, we know that he struggled in the womb (25:22). For his whole childhood, he struggled with Esau for birthright and blessing (Genesis 25 and 27). After twenty years of living in Aram he struggled with his father in law Laban (Genesis 31). Now, a husband and a father, he has begun a journey home- headed for Canaan, and the struggle is far from over.

The parasha opens with the words:

 וַיִּשְׁלַ֨ח יַעֲקֹ֤ב מַלְאָכִים֙ לְפָנָ֔יו אֶל־עֵשָׂ֖ו

And Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to meet Esau—

After tricking his brother out of his birthright, getting Esau to trade it away for a bowl of lentil soup, Jacob’s life is unsettled; now married to both Rachel and Leah, with a substantial household to care for, there is a sense that he is still ill at ease in his world.  After years of estrangement, Jacob sends these messengers ahead as he prepares to see his brother for the first time. Those messengers return with the news that Esau is traveling with 400 men— biblical code for “war”. Jacob’s anxiety is palpable— he prays for divine protection, he sends gifts ahead to his brother, and still— the night before he is to see his own brother again, he cannot settle his mind. Famously— he gets up in the middle of the night, sending his wives, his servants and his eleven children ahead, while he stays alone.

 וַיֵּאָבֵ֥ק אִישׁ֙ עִמּ֔וֹ עַ֖ד עֲל֥וֹת הַשָּֽׁחַר

And an ish  wrestled with him until the break of dawn.

Jacob is scarred by this nocturnal wrestling match, which leaves him in pain from an injury to his hip socket. Determined to wrestle meaning out of this mysterious being, Jacob demands a blessing, and the ish replies “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed.”

He is scarred, but blessed. 

Jacob’s struggle is far from over— in the morning, he will indeed meet his brother Esau again. His encounter with his brother is bittersweet— they embrace, they cry, they kiss. Esau’s four hundred men turn out to be a non-issue.  But ultimately, this is a short lived reunion, and they go their own way. 

It begs the question— is Jacob doomed to struggle? 

We don’t know who the ish that Jacob wrestled with is, exactly– 

Perhaps Jacob wrestled with unknown man— 

Or maybe an angel of God

Or maybe with his own conscience. 

But this year, as I encounter this iconic and infamous story- I can’t help but consider Jacob in the context of his own family. Jacob is the son of Isaac— and the grandson of Abraham. The story of Jacob’s encounter with the ish comes just two generations from the story of Akeidat Yitzhak— in considering what has been handed down from father to son, perhaps we can better understand Jacob in the context of what is handed down through the generations, when a family experiences trauma. What if we understood Jacob not simply as an anxious man, afraid to see his estranged brother— but as Abraham’s grandson, inheriting the memory of what answering God’s call to go forward really required of him?  What if we understood Jacob, in this story, as the son of Isaac- a man whose own father walked him up to the top of a mountain, bound him, and lifted a knife over his throat? 

This idea of inherited trauma is also at the heart of “A Real Pain”. Intergenerational trauma—is a term that refers to the idea that traumatic events like the Holocaust not only impact survivors, but can also show up in 2nd, 3rd generations in profound ways. Research has shown, for instance, that there is a difference in stress hormones between Jewish descendants of survivors and their peers.

For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it is an excellent film, following the story of two cousins, David and Benji Kaplan, who travel to Poland to visit their late grandmother’s childhood home, where she lived before being taken away to a concentration camp. The movie invites us into the story of these two cousins, who essentially represent two possibilities for how one might respond to inherited trauma, and to real pain. 

Benjy- on the one hand, is mired in it. The pain that Benjy experiences is real to him- it is a pain that is simultaneously old and new; his and not his. The relationship between Benjy and his late Grandma Dory seems to intentionally blur the lines of experience– especially as Benjy embarks on this quest of discovery, traveling to Poland in search of a usable history. As the story goes on, we learn that Benjy’s existence is altogether tortured— this trip with his cousin comes just six months after he makes an attempt to die by suicide. 

David– however, lives his life as though in direct opposition to the pain. David’s life is one of forward motion: he proudly wears his IU hat (a trophy to his higher education?), has a good job, a wife and a child. As he says over dinner in one scene, "My pain is unexceptional so I deal with it". Where his cousin Benjy seems haunted by the pain, David seems intent on categorizing it as unexceptional, and therefore, unworthy of time and attention. Having traveled as part of a group from Warsaw and then to Lublin, the movie raises important questions around memory and commemoration, trauma and pain as we see how differently Benjy and David react to visiting places like the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Memorial, or the concentration camp, Majdanek. Benjy keeps saying that he wants this trip to be “real”--- he wants real emotion, real encounters, and real tears. His cousin David prefers to observe from a distance— both literally, and emotionally. 

The emotional relationship between these two cousins comes to a head toward the end of their trip in the dusty courtyard of an old house somewhere in Poland, where their grandmother lived before the war. The entire journey has led to this moment— this journey of discovery and memory has been building up to this: when the cousins will finally come home, to the place where their story, as defined by their relationship to Grandma Dori, began. 

There is a real pain to be found in anticipation as well— in the build up and anxiety that can come with wanting something, and being scared of it at the same time. 

Arriving at the house numbered 25 where Grandma Dori lived, the two men stand there.

“It’s so unremarkable,” says Benji. “Yeah, I guess I don’t know what I pictured” David replies. 

History looms so large, but sometimes the physical traces are mundane. The journey that brings David and Benjy to this moment ends quietly; they place stones on the stoop of their grandmothers’ childhood home before a neighbor asks them to remove them. Benjy’s agitated soul seems quieted, if only for a moment- and his stoic cousin David, slips the stone from his grandmothers’ courtyard into his pocket. A small token- a memory of where his story began. 

Ultimately— these are stories that may help us to distill our own relationship with pain, as well as our own understanding of what it means to be at home in the world, even when our relationship to the physical places we have called home changes. 

We are living through such a tender time in the world— a time when the pinpricks of memory seem ever present. Throughout our tradition- from Torah all the way through a commercially released film in 2024, we encounter stories of our people, yearning to find their way home, and yearning to feel at home in the world. The stories of our people- from Jacob and the ish, to the cousins David and Benjy, are stories that ask us to consider “what can we learn from our pain– and how can we move through a world where pain is unavoidable?”

Perhaps the blessing that we can wrestle out of these stories is a reminder that we can always change; we are more than the pain we inherit, and we are more than the worst thing we have ever done. 

At the end of the Torah portion this week, God appears to Jacob once again saying: 

“You whose name is Jacob,

You shall be called Jacob no more,

But Israel shall be your name.” Thus he was named Israel.

“I am El Shaddai.

Be fertile and increase;

A nation, yea an assembly of nations,

Shall descend from you.

Kings shall issue from your loins.

The land that I assigned to Abraham and Isaac

I assign to you;

And to your offspring to come

Will I assign the land.”

Like his grandparents before him, Jacob is so changed by his life’s experiences, that his name too, is changed.  The blessing that God first offers to his grandfather Abraham is one that is now offered again to Jacob, as he becomes Israel. The story of the Jewish people evolves, with each generation adding their names and their voice to the chain of tradition. 

Like Grandma Dori, who survived by a thousand miracles, in every generation, we are a people who have survived not only by miracles, but by the deepening strength of knowing what it means to be Israel- a people who wrestle with God.