Parashat VaYetsei

 

Rav Haim Lifshitz

 

 

 

Home

Essays

Glossary

 

 

 

Essays and Articles:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go to Hebrew site

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 Translated from Hebrew by DR. S. NAthan

l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
L'ILUI NISHMAT MAYER HIRSH BEN LAIBEL

 

Jacob sets out, beginning his new journey – with a mission. He must cultivate the seed of truth that has been cast down from heaven to earth. Jacob, the man of truth, commences upon a new road – as though he has not acquired appropriate tools during his long years of study and spiritual struggle under the tutelage of history's first Torah teachers, Shem and Eber. In their academy, he had pursued truth in its purest form, as it reflects from heaven. There he was not required to cope with any material concerns nor did he have to struggle for survival. “And he lay down at the place, and he slept there.” From the sound of this verse, he has not slept until this moment. For fourteen years! He has immersed himself in Torah and been exempted, liberated from all material limitations. Could he possibly have come to his new journey unequipped with his Torah – the law of life – from which to draw any resource he might need for confronting existential reality?


The appropriate thing at this point is to proceed with great caution, in order to clearly define the new path of truth – as taught by its father and founder, Jacob – with maximal precision. How is one to navigate a path that breaks new ground, that dives directly into life's turmoil, penetrating the teeming chaos of existential reality to imprint the seal of truth upon it?


Sleep is the first and highest on the list of life-supporting needs: Were they to become unavailable, life would not be feasible. One who vows to abstain from sleep for three days is given the lash and forced to sleep. As a vital need it supersedes eating. At this stage of the narrative, we have already become aware of Jacob's spiritual quality. His sleep is no ordinary sleep, in which the sleeper parts from his soul and is considered as dead. His spirit remains active, and finds a way to connect to its heavenly source. He dreams a dream of prophecy, a dream that connects him to his Possessor – the dream of the ladder that connects heaven to earth. From the dream, he learns of a reality that unites spirit and matter, in which they complement each other, exercising a reciprocal influence upon one another – an effervescent, actively engaged reality. From earth to heaven and from there to earth, in ceaseless flow, to and fro. There is no disconnecting these two entities, though they appear so remote from one another, so mutually contradictory. The academy, from which he has so recently parted – being overwhelmed by the sorrow of this parting – is now discovered, to his great joy, to have been an illusion. “For see, I am with you, and I will guard you wherever you go, and I will return you to this land.” Jacob awakens from his sleep and realizes he has made a highly encouraging discovery. The Holy, Blessed One is to be found in every place. Not that He is found in one specific place, but rather that He is in him, in Jacob, escorting him wherever he goes. On condition that he guards the Godly Presence in his heart. “How terribly awesome is this place.” At this stage, in his extreme modesty, Jacob still believes that it was the place that brought him his revelation. The sacred place is what caused the heavenly experience.


The continuation of this experience calls for careful elucidation. Jacob prays; a request rends his pure heart: “If the Lord will be with me,” when I am immersed in any situation, not necessarily in ideal circumstances, but rather on this “road upon which I walk.” This is not presented as a condition but rather as a desire, as a yearning to become attached. These are the longings that rouse the sanctity that is a capable escort in the fight for survival. It will protect him against distractions, so that he will not allow his mind to be distracted from attaching to the Lord; that the fight for survival will not compel him to begin thinking of himself, of his own ego, of his own separate existence; that it will not compel him to think of himself or feel himself as severed from the Divine Presence, God forbid, even when he is utterly involved in his struggle for the most basic elements of survival, “bread to eat, a garment to wear,” in short – the privilege of returning home safely.


Here is the myth of the prodigal son returning home, richly laden with experience that renders him immune to threat. He is no peniless vagrant who has wandered home naked, barefoot and stripped of the rich spiritual values he had kept in his pack. It is true that Elifaz, Esau's son, had attempted to strip him of everything he had, but his “staff,” his yardstick of values had remained with him. With his staff, he crossed the Jordan, and with this same staff, he measured and navigated his path throughout his wanderings. He discovered that the place of his dream was the gate to heaven, a gate wide open and delighted to receive the lost son. Jacob determined that this gate would be his guiding point, the beacon of light that would illuminate his road and bring him safely home from the darkness of exile. From here, Jacob “carried his legs” and began his travels in earnest. See Sforno, who distinguishes between the traveler who carries his own legs, who knows his way, whose goal and purpose are clear to him, and the traveler who wanders on a path of perplexity, whose legs carry him, uncontrolled by his knowledge or wish.


Jacob sees a well. “Whoever sees a well in his dream is seeing the Torah; he has seen the source of living water. It is a good sign for him.” Jacob, who has amassed much strength in the academy, is suited as no one else for the task of rolling the heavy stone off the opening of the well, to offer drink from the pure waters of truth, to all the thirsty flocks of humanity in whatever spiritual condition they might find themselves. For some reason, Jacob is in no hurry to remove the stone, in spite of his strength. Strength requires the excitement of love to turn into the energy that takes it from dormant potential to tangible actualization. He sees Rachel. On the surface of things, this could be his first temptation, which could well muddle his ability to make distinctions, which could divert his path to distract him from his attachment to the Godly Presence. To his joy, he senses with utter confidence that Rachel does not constitute a hazard. He sees, in her, an expression of the love of God that burns within him. He discovers to his joy that the love of truth immunizes against the temptation of otherness, the seduction entailed in separateness. In loving Rachel, Jacob experiences the actualization of the idea for the first time. Love of God has real, tangible expression. Here comes attachment to God in its human incarnation, and makes itself tangibly real. Jacob discovers the connection between love of God and love of human beings. We are witness to the birth of “love that depends on no thing.” This is a love that is still searching for its address. Jacob himself senses this clearly; there is in no doubt of any sort in his mind. However, applying the heart's awareness to tangible reality requires careful navigation and investigation. Especially when the conditions of reality are as horrid as they can possibly be. What can be more horrid than a liar? Distinguishing good from evil? One might be persuaded to accept the fact that there are individuals who are incapable of making such distinctions. His fathers Abraham and Isaac had toiled endlessly over this effort, finally netting their catch by producing a pair of twins – behold Jacob and Esau – who in their very personalities embody the distinction between good and evil. But true and false? Jacob is now charged with the difficult, complex mission of drawing out the good and the true from the slippery manure of deceit that pretends to be honest and righteous. What is entirely clear to Jacob is his own will and wish. What is less clear to him is reality. On the wedding night he has difficulty discerning or recognizing the wife for whom he has yearned and for whom he has labored seven years. “And it came to pass in the morning that, behold, she was Leah.” “Why did you lie to me?” Jacob accuses Laban the liar, though in his heart he blames himself as well. How had he been so inept in worldly matters? In human affairs? Where had it gone, that promise given him by his Creator, Who loves him so? That He would protect him from every enemy and evil plague? It would appear to indicate that this must really be the will of the Creator. Well, then, let it be. Jacob therefore never views his marriage to Leah as an action taken under false pretense and therefore not binding. He relates to it as a valid marriage in spite of all. See Ohr HaHaim's commentary on this: “...that he had done it by way of deceit. Jacob is thus showing his feeling on this matter – that he would not have been so indignant about it if he had not done this trickery.” What bothered Jacob, apparently, was not that he had married Leah before Rachel, but the deceit. Jacob hated anything opposed to truth, which was his heart's true love. Jacob loved truly because he loved truth, and it was because he loved truth that he was the first to discover true love. Whoever does not believe in truth, is incapable of giving himself over to an absolute devotion to the object of his love, and he will cool the fire of his ardor. The trait of nobility (for which truth is its prime expression) is pure, and incapable of absorbing stains and deficiencies such as character flaws. It is never tempted to take revenge or to hate or to make use of any means that are not ultimately pure and kosher.


Here lies the secret of Jacob's victory over Laban. It is for this reason that Laban's ugly trickery does not harm Jacob in any way. He continues to yearn for Rachel, in his great love for her, in spite of his realization that she had cooperated in the trickery against him by revealing the secret signal of her love for Jacob – to her sister. The compassion intrinsic to Rachel also knew the secret of perfect union with the trait of truth. Who more than Jacob is capable of appreciating and cherishing such wonderful perfection? It only strengthened his attachment to her.


“Now give me children, or else I am dead.” “Is that how one answers suffering women,” God rebukes Jacob, who has retreated from Rachel's demand that he pray for her, with this inconsiderate reply: “It is you whom the Creator has denied children, not I. Pray for yourself.” Yet why would Jacob not want to pray for his heart's beloved that she should be helped in her distress? We are reminded of Penina, who deliberately aggravated and tormented her co-wife, Hanna, in order to spur her to pray for herself, so that Hanna would turn directly to God for a solution to her barrenness. For this same reason Jacob compelled Rachel to pray for herself regarding her childlessness, rather than depending solely upon him. In spite of his love or perhaps because of it, Rachel had felt too protected, to the point of lacking the obligation to invest personal effort, to the point of lacking any worry about her own needs.


Through this confrontation with love and its growths, Jacob learns to attach relations of love to a complex human expression that is untainted by any of the alloys of dependency, exploitation, or other undesirable growths whether on the part of the lover or of the beloved. The hazard of love, which entails suffering, is its absolute dependency upon truth. Any effort to sever it from truth, brings suffering. Dependency, exploitation, domination by the beloved or by the lover – all these undermine the delicate balance of the element of reciprocity in relationships of love. Reciprocity is the representative of truth, reflecting a just balance. In the absence of reciprocity, brute force enters, turning the tables of love upside down. Thus Jacob rebukes Rachel but it is a rebuke of love and devotion. Rachel's pain is no less his own pain, but he is strict about maintaining reciprocity. I have prayed. Your time has come to pray – as expressed in the Talmudic statement: “Whoever prays for his friend, while his friend prays for him...” in order to create a relationship of reciprocity that pierces through all the heavens.



 Go To Top

Home

Essays

Glossary