פירוש על בראשית 33:4

ויחבקהו AND EMBRACED HIM — His pity was aroused when he saw him prostrating himself so many times (Genesis Rabbah 78:8).

וירץ עשו, his attitude changed suddenly when he realised to what extent Yaakov had humbled himself before him. It is of great concern to us seeing that we live among the descendants of Esau, people who are arrogant, consider themselves invincible. Yaakov’s conduct vis a vis Esau teaches that the only way to escape the sword of Esau is through self degradation and gifts. This corresponds to what our sages taught us (Taanit 20) that the curses of the prophet Achiyah Hashiloni were more beneficial to the Jewish people than the blessing showered upon them by Bileam. Achiyah had cursed the Jewish people describing them as a reed which bends in all directions, a reference to someone demeaning himself rather than facing up to adversaries. (Kings I 14,15) If the Jewish people during the period of the second Temple had taken his advice to heart, the Temple would not have been destroyed. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai testified to this when he said “if not for the militant extremists the Romans would not have destroyed the Temple.”

וירץ, when Esau saw that Yaakov had humbled himself so much before him, he forgave what he had done to him and his sense of compassion was stirred.

They wept. At that moment love for Eisov awakened in Yaakov as well. Similarly, whenever Eisov’s descendants genuinely acknowledge Yisrael’s greatness, Yisrael reciprocates with feelings of brotherhood.

The truth is that most of the time, "falling one another's neck" only is mentioned when there is a kiss, and therefore the text could have mentioned this, along with the weeping, without explicitly mentioning that they kissed; the kiss would have been understood implicitly like Ya'akov and Yosef in Gen. 46:29 ("And Yosef...went up to meet his father...and fell on his neck and wept on his neck a good while"). In the latter case, Yosef clearly kissed him without it having to be mentioned in the text. It's also possible that in a state of great emotional excitement one would be too wonderstruck and stunned to kiss the other person; perhaps this was the case with Yosef and Ya'akov. However, regarding Ya'akov and Esav there's no doubt that there was no great affection between them, certainly not the type of excitement that would lead to being wonderstruck and stunned.

וישקהו, “and he kissed him.” The word is written with dots on top of the letters. We know that whenever the sages of the massorah have seen fit to place these dots on top of a word or a letter they did so in order to attract our attention. Here the reason they placed these dots was to let us know that this kiss was not whole-hearted. It was a kiss which originated in anger. We find a similarly motivated kiss in Proverbs 27,6 ונעתרות נשיקות שונא, “the kisses of an enemy are profuse.” Amos 1,11 explains the matter when he writes: ויטרוף לעד אפו ועברתו שמרה נצח, “because his anger raged unavailing, and his fury stormed forever. “

There are those who explained these dots as saying that he did not kiss him wholeheartedly. Meaning: וישקהו has dots on all letters except the ש. Thus it is as if it is written ויקהו, as in הקהה את שיניו (blunt his teeth — Pesach Haggadah). This is because he intended to bite him.

dass hier in der Tat ein reines menschliches Gefühl in Esau zum Ausbruch gekommen, dafür bürgt das Wörtchen ויבכו, sie weinten. Einen Kuss kann man heucheln, Tränen, die in solchen Augenblicken ausbrechen, nicht. (בכה verwandt mit פקח ,בקע, ausbrechen, Thränen sind Tropfen aus dem Innersten der menschlichen Seele.( Dieser Kuss und diese Tränen lassen uns auch in Esau den Nachkommen Abrahams erkennen. In Esau kann nicht bloß der wilde Jäger gelegen haben, wie wäre er sonst fähig geworden, ein Beherrscher der ganzen Entwicklung der Menschheit zu werden. Das bloße Schwert, die bloße rohe Gewalt befähigt nicht dazu. Aber auch Esau legt nach und nach, und immer mehr und mehr das Schwert aus der Hand, gibt immer mehr und mehr der Humanität Raum, und zwar ist es gerade Jakob, an dem Esau zumeist Gelegenheit hat zu zeigen, dass und wie das Prinzip der Humanität bei ihm zum Durchbruch zu kommen anfängt. Wenn der Starke das Recht des Starken achtet, so mag es Klugheit sein. Erst wenn der Starke, wie hier Esau, dem Schwachen um den Hals fällt und das Schwert der Gewalt weithin von sich wirft, erst dann zeigt sich, dass Recht und Menschlichkeit in ihm zum Siege kommen.

ויפול על צוארו, “he (Esau) embraced his neck”; the letter י in the word צואריו, is missing here.

וישקהו AND HE KISSED HIM — Dots are placed above the letters of this word, and a difference of opinion is expressed in the Baraitha of Sifré (בהעלותך) as to what these dots are intended to suggest: some explain the dotting as meaning that he did not kiss him with his whole heart, whereas R Simeon the son of Johai said: Is it not well-known that Esau hated Jacob? But at that moment his pity was really aroused and he kissed him with his whole heart. (Sifrei Bamidbar 69.2)

וישקהו, the word has a dot on each of the letters. In Bereshit Rabbah 78,9 Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar says that everywhere where you find the dots do not cover each letter of the word underneath we give preference to the meaning of the text as is, without the dots. When there are more dots than letters, we give emphasis in our interpretation to the dots. In this instance, there are as many dots as there are letters in the word וישקהו, so that we understand that Esau kissed Esau sincerely with all his heart. To this Rabbi Yannai countered by asking that if this is indeed so, why bother to put any dots on the word if they do not affect the meaning? We therefore must interpret that originally Esau had intended to bite Yaakov’s neck feigning an embrace. G’d made his teeth as soft as wax and Yaakov’s neck as hard as ivory. ויבכו, one on account of his neck, the other on account of his teeth.

וישקהו, “he kissed him;” this word has dots above the letters.