Musar zu Mischlej 26:17

And the man of heart must reflect always upon what Chazal have said in Midrash Rabbah Parshath Emor 27 on the verse (Koheleth 3:15): "And G-d seeks [i.e., stands up for] the pursued." R. Huna said in the name of R. Yosef: "G-d always 'seeks' the pursued." You find a tzaddik pursuing a tzaddik — "And G-d seeks the pursued"; a tzaddik pursuing an evildoer — "And G-d seeks the pursued." R. Yehudah said in the name of R. Yossi b. Nahora: "The Holy One Blessed be He always claims the blood of the pursued from the pursuers." R. Elazar said in the name of R. Yossi b. Zimra: "It is also so with sacrifices. The Holy One Blessed be He said: 'An ox flees a lion; a goat flees a leopard; a lamb flees a wolf — Do not sacrifice before Me [animals] from the pursuers, but from the fleers.'" And if so, one must give thought to distancing himself from abetting machloketh, from taking one side over another, since, in the final analysis the Holy One Blessed be He claims their blood from his hand. And instead of emerging "the victor" and gaining honor thereby, in the end he will be seen in his shame, being punished by either tzara'ath or poverty. But if one guards himself from machloketh, he is honored by men, as it is written (Mishlei 20:3): "A man's honor is abstention from a quarrel." And Chazal have said: "Now if a man is honored by suppressing a quarrel which is his own, how much more so [is he to be censured] for intervening [and taking sides] in a quarrel which is not his own. And thus is it written (Mishlei 26:17): 'As one who seizes a dog's ears is he who grows wrathful over a quarrel that is not his.'"

We have now explained this פרשה inasmuch as it refers to Jacob personally. We must remember that Jacob is also a symbol of his descendants. All the experiences of the patriarchs are viewed as forerunners of the experiences of the Jewish people as a whole. Nachmanides has demonstrated this in great detail. Bereshit Rabbah 75,3, describing the gifts Jacob sent to Esau, quotes Proverbs 26, 17: "He who passes by and meddles in a quarrel not his own is like someone who takes a dog by his ears." G–d is quoted as saying to Jacob: "Esau was pursuing his own personal designs and you had to send him gifts describing yourself as his servant!" During the second Temple the rulers of the Jewish people voluntarily entered into a political alliance with Rome, only to eventually be devoured by the Romans. This alliance was the beginning of the decline of Jewish independence. All the struggles between Jacob and Esau mirror what was going to happen later on a national scale. Bereshit Rabbah goes on to comment on 32, 9: "If Esau comes to the one camp and smites it, then the remaining camp will escape." It is our experience in exile that when Jews are persecuted in the South, that they find relief in another part of the globe. The "thigh joint" of Jacob that the angel "touched," is also understood as referring to Jacob's descendants.