Yaakov sent messengers to his brother Eisav to inform him that he was on his way back to Canaan. He also wanted to let him know he wanted to make peace with him. The messengers came back with the news that Eisav was preparing to meet with him with an army ready for war.
Imagine you want to make peace with someone and that person only wants to fight. What would you do?
The Parasha of Vayshlach teaches us a very important lesson on how to deal with this type of situations. It says that Yaakov did three things: first he sent gifts to try to appease him, then he prayed to H”S for divine interference and thirdly he prepared for war.
These three strategies, the Torah teaches us, are the way in which we should deal with these type of situations.
Thank G-d he didn’t need to use the third one. With gifts and prayer he was able to finally come to peace with his brother.
By looking at the order of this method we also see something very interesting. First we have to put our effort, good relationships come from our will to achieve them, prayer also helps because H”S can always help change people’s hearts and if this doesn’t work and the other party doesn’t want peace then the Torah is telling us that sometimes we do need to say what needs to be said and we need to fight for wha’s right.But we should always strive for peace first and leave the last alternative only if there is no other way out.
livealittlehigher.com
