December 8, 2025|י"ח כסלו ה' אלפים תשפ"ו Wrestling with Angels, Walking with a Limp By Rabbi Jonathan Muskat

There’s a moment in this week’s parsha that reminds me of a scene from one of Netanel’s favorite movies (Netanel is my oldest son). We encounter the first-ever biblical wrestling match: in one corner we have Yaakov — dweller of tents, shepherd par excellence, husband to four women and father to eleven boys and one girl. In the other corner, we have the ish — “the man.”

Yaakov versus “the man,” though the stage name is misleading, because Chazal tell us the “man” is actually an angel.

By any normal measure, we would expect the angel to overpower Yaakov. Yet Yaakov refuses to back down, and at one point it even looks like he might be winning.

Then comes what feels almost like a foul move. The angel strikes Yaakov in the thigh – low blow –  injuring him. The angel wants to break the clinch and end the fight, but Yaakov refuses to release him until he receives a blessing. When the struggle finally ends, Yaakov is limping — tzola’a al yeraicho.

And then the Torah does something truly unexpected. To commemorate this mysterious midnight wrestling match, Bnei Yisrael are forbidden to eat the gid hanasheh, the sciatic nerve on the thigh. Even in a perfectly kosher animal, that part is off-limits.

But the strangeness doesn’t end there.
The sciatic nerve has no taste.
Halacha rarely forbids foods that no one desires to eat. So why would the Torah prohibit something tasteless?

To answer this, we must ask: what exactly is the Torah asking us to remember?

The Sefer HaChinuch writes that this mitzvah commemorates one of the greatest upsets in wrestling history — literally of Biblical proportions — when a human being defeated an angel. And not just any angel, but the angel of Esav. That victory assures us that although Esav’s descendants may one day challenge us or try to harm us, the Jewish people will ultimately prevail. Not eating the gid hanasheh becomes a daily reminder of endurance, of promise, of destiny.

What is unusual here is that we typically remember miracles through action — by doing something positive. We eat matzah to recall the Exodus, we light candles to remember the miracle of Chanukah. But here, the Torah asks us to remember our greatest moment of spiritual triumph by refraining from something — a negative command.

The Da’at Zekeinim offers a very different explanation. They focus not on the miracle, but on the vulnerability. They suggest that Yaakov was injured because he was left alone at night. His family allowed him to cross the river by himself; no one insisted on accompanying him. He became exposed, unprotected. The angel struck him only because he was alone. According to the Da’at Zekeinim, the prohibition of gid hanasheh is a perpetual reminder of our responsibility to accompany others — physically, emotionally, spiritually. Yaakov’s limp becomes a call to build community and ensure that no person ever walks alone.

These are powerful explanations. But what about the tastelessness of the gid hanasheh? Why choose something with no flavor?

Here we return to one of Netanel’s favorite movies — Mulan. Early in the movie, an imperial outpost in China is attacked, and the emperor orders every family to send one man to fight. Soldiers arrive in Mulan’s village, and her father — who limps from an old injury — steps forward to volunteer. Everyone can see his limp. Everyone knows he is unfit for battle. But for him, honor, duty, and family outweigh whatever limitations his injury might impose. His limp is visible, yet irrelevant to his identity. His disability is real, but it does not define him.
It is, in a sense, tasteless. Like Mulan’s father, Yaakov limps as he meets Esav after twenty years, but it doesn’t phase him in the slightest. And this is exactly the reason for the prohibition of the gid hanasheh.

Why do we avoid the gid hanasheh, asks the Seforno?

כדי שיהיה ההיזק… היזק בדבר בלתי נחשב אצלנו

We avoid the sciatic nerve to declare that the injury it symbolizes is insignificant to us — not nonexistent, but not identity-defining.

Yaakov limps as he approaches Esav, while Esav marches toward him with a mighty army. By every external measure, Yaakov seems to be the weaker brother. Yet when Esav asks about his wealth, Yaakov answers: yesh li kol — “I have everything.” He is not defined by physical strength or vulnerability. He ignores the limp, the weakness, the fear, because he is focused on what truly matters: his family, his mission, his covenant with God.

As Rav Nevensahl notes, the word hanasheh in gid hanasheh is related to the root nashani — to forget. Yosef names his eldest son Menashe:

כִּֽי־נַשַּׁ֤נִי אֱ-לֹהִים֙ אֶת־כָּל־עֲמָלִ֔י וְאֵ֖ת כָּל־בֵּ֥ית אָבִֽי

Because God has made me forget all my hardship and my parental home.

Nashani, hanasheh means to forget. The limp could have caused Yaakov to forget what mattered. But he refused to let it. He refused to let the injury become the story. He refused to let the tasteless part of his life overshadow the flavorful.

The gid hanasheh becomes a symbol of what does not matter.

Why is it tasteless?
Because it reminds us not to obsess over the tasteless parts of our lives — the slights, the insults, the anxieties, the deficiencies — the things that feel huge in the moment but add no real flavor to our lives. This mitzvah trains us to distinguish the meaningful from the meaningless, the substantial from the superficial.

Yaakov teaches us to forget the limp and remember the blessings.
To forget the fears and remember the mission.
To forget the tasteless parts of life and cling to the parts that give life meaning.

And then — the Torah adds a final, beautiful note.

After Yaakov leaves Esav, we read:

וַיָּבֹא יַעֲקֹב שָׁלֵם — “And Yaakov arrived complete” — in Shechem.
Chazal explain: shalem b’gufo — he was healed from his limp.

But when did he heal?
Only once the encounter with Esav was over. Only once the limp no longer mattered.
The healing came precisely when the injury was no longer central to his mission, no longer defining, no longer relevant.

This is the Torah’s message:
When we stop fixating on our limps — the tasteless, distracting parts of life — we become whole. We become shalem.

Each one of us has so many areas of life to celebrate — family, community, Torah, mitzvot. Let us carry this reminder with us:

Don’t let the tasteless parts of life dominate your attention.
Don’t let the limps define you.
Remember what truly has flavor — relationships, mitzvot, gratitude, and the shared journey of our people.

May we all learn from Yaakov to walk forward — even with a limp — toward what really matters, and may we merit, like Yaakov, to reach moments of true shalem, wholeness.