Parasha Vayetze
So here we are, rushing through life one appointment after another. Is life getting the best of you? Well it should, this week’s parasha is jam packed with goodies, we have so much that it will be impossible to study all of it in one week. Take for example my wife, she is still stuck two parasha’s ago with her reading, as she slowly progresses through it she is unravelling it one word at a time and savouring every spiritual morsel she can. So what does that have to do with this week’s parasha, you may ask? Well a lot, this week’s parasha starts with the statement that Yaakov left his house and was on his way to Haran, to his relatives.
We all know the story, he rests his head on rock and has a dream, where as some of us rest our rock on a pillow. The story continues that Yaakov arrives and greets his relatives, waters the flock and falls in love. He agrees to work for his love and is deceived, his love is so great that he is prepared to work a further seven years for his love. In the meantime, the two sisters have a small competition running, who is going to bless Yaakov the most with sons.
The contest is even, greater as to who Yaakov will show the most attention. Further to this he now sees his blessing and how his house and everything he does is being blessed, so he strikes another deal to work for wages and to see the hand of God deal plentifully with him. He worked hard, used unusual methods and had increase in the number of flocks, that would be his wages. So much so that his relatives started a campaign of disinformation, and libel accusations. It is at this stage that I make this connection with how my wife is dealing with her parasha reading, you see I can observe her growth in knowledge by the time and effort, she puts in her Torah study.
Prosperity is a biblical concept that is sometimes misunderstood; the way one prospers according to this passage is through hard work. Yaakov was promised a blessing and an inheritance, but if he just sat there by the rock, then he would be minus the wives, the children, the flock, the servants and the wealth acquired. For one to prosper there needs to be obedience, commitment, trust and hard work.
This leads us to another interesting part of this parasha; we see that when HaShem told Yaakov that it was time to return his land and his family, trust waivered, first in telling his father in-law, then when it was time to meet his brother.
He may have had cause to fear his brother but he had more cause to trust his God, our God that will keep His promise to prosper and care for him. He was promised the inheritance and the land and the blessing of all nations to be blessed in him, same as father Abraham, Yitsak. He had also promised God that upon his return he would give a tithe of all that he was given by HaShem. This is crucial because he failed to do just that, instead he gave his tithe to his brother Esau for fear of being killed and losing his family. Yet even though he failed to do what he promised, HaShem kept his promise and protected him. However he had to pay for his non-compliance and was therefore banished from the land of his promise to Mitzrayim (Egypt), not forcibly by vanquishing enemy but by the hand of HaShem. Yaakov had two evictions from the land both of them at the hand of HaShem, Similarly his children have had two diasporas, I am a child of the dispersion, as are so many more that don’t know it yet. A heavy price to pay for lack of trust and disobedience and or a combination of both.
