Parshat Vayetze - 5761 The
First Exile The "Parshat
HaShavua," the Weekly Portion of the Torah
that will be read this Shabbat,
Parshat VaYetze, begins (Bereshit 28:10), "Vayetze Yaakov
MiBe'er Sheva, vayelech Charanah," "And
Yaakov left Be'er Sheva, and traveled towards Charan."
Over and above the significance of this
event in his life and in the life of his family, which was extremely
great - perhaps still greater was its significance, from the perspective of
the Jewish People as a whole.
For, using the principle of "Maasei
Avot Siman LeBanim," "Actions of the
Forefathers are models for their descendants," this departure of
Yaakov from Be'er Sheva can be seen as the first "Galut,"
the first Exile, of the Jewish People. In a sense,
it was also the first expulsion,
for Yaakov was forced by events, and by the requirement to obey his mother,
to leave the Land of Israel. And
he was to travel to a dangerous place, a place rife with idol worship and
thievery. His destination was
the home of Lavan, his uncle who, in the end, would try to rob him of all
his "possessions," including his wives, his children and all his
property and who, in the words of the Pesach
Haggadah, "wanted to uproot everything." During his stay in the household of Lavan, Yaakov enacted the experience of his descendants in a thousand locations. We read (Bereshit 31:38-42), "These twenty years I have been with you, your ewes and she-goats never miscarried, nor did I eat rams from your flock. That which was mangled I never brought you - I myself would bear the loss. In the case of a theft, you would deduct it from me, whether it was stolen by day or stolen by night. By day, heat scorched me; frost consumed me by night; sleep wandered from my eyes." "This
was my twenty years in your household:
I served you for fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years
for a percentage of your flocks; and you
changed my salary ten times! Had
not the G-d of my father - the G-d of Avraham
and the 'One Who Aroused Dread in Yitzchak' - been with me, you would surely
have sent me away empty-handed…" In a sense,
this journey of Yaakov was the reverse image of the journey that his
grandfather, Avraham, had made early in the activities that he undertook in
"partnership," so to speak, with the "Ribbono
shel Olam," the Master of the Universe.
HaShem
had commanded him, as we read several weeks ago (Bereshit 12:1), "…Go
forth from your land, and from your birthplace, and from the house of your
father, to the Land that I will show you." This was the first "Aliyah,"
the first "going up," especially in the spiritual sense, to the
Holy Land. Thus we see
HaShem, operating in the world according to the principle that "He
creates the healing before the injury;" the "Aliyah," the
"Geulah," or Redemption, before
the "Galut," or Exile. Yaakov's own
father, Yitzchak, having consecrated the "Har HaBayit," the Temple
Mount, with the intended sacrifice of himself at the "Akeidat
Yitzchak," had risen to the highest level of holiness and was never
permitted to leave the Holy Land. Yaakov
teaches us how to fortify oneself for life in the "Galut." On the way to his uncle's house, he spends fourteen years in
the "Yeshivah" of Shem and Ever, son and grandson, respectively,
of Noach, the Captain of Noah's
Ark, who saved humanity and all forms of non-aquatic life on earth, and who
passed down all, or most, of his spirituality to his son, Shem.
Shem and Ever founded a "Beit Midrash," an "Academy of
Study" of the "Torah." Now
the curriculum of this "Yeshivah" is a
fascinating subject in itself, for there was taught the
"Torah" generations before HaShem would give his "holy
treasure" to the Jewish People on Mt. Sinai.
But, whatever the subject matter was, it
contained the Foundations of the Torah, principles of thought and
behavior that would later be revealed at Sinai. Having
integrated this learning into his personality, Yaakov was prepared to deal
with everything that the evil
"Lavan," the hypocritical "White One," was able to throw
his way. He would be able to
say "Im Lavan garti, ve'Taryag Mitzvot Shamarti," "Although I
lived with Lavan, I was still able to observe the entire Torah (all 613
Mitzvot contained therein)!" This
fortification with Torah is so necessary to survive spiritually in "Galut,"
in the embrace of a foreign culture. One
bus-ride down Broadway, taking in the billboard advertisements, one walk in
the "new" Times Square, is enough to undo years of religious
upbringing. One's only chance
at self-defense is the integration of a system of values, not man-made, that
emphasizes "Kedushah,"
holiness, and enables one to come to grips with and defeat Lavan and "Saro
shel Esav," the Representative of Esav, the "Yetzer HaRa,"
one's aroused Inclination towards Sin." When Yaakov
felt ready, when his family, the nucleus of the People of Israel, was
complete, Yaakov made the decision to return to "Eretz Yisrael,"
the Holy Land of Israel. Upon
his arrival, the Midrash tells us that he had not yet found peace. "Bikesh Yaakov leyshev b'shalvah, kafatz alav rugzo shel
Yoseph;" "Just as Yaakov thought that he would finally be able to
find peace, the tragedy of Yoseph
engulfed him" (Bereshit Rabbah 84:6).
Even in the Holy Land, major problems and bitter struggles had yet to
be fought. In our time,
the struggle of "Medinat Yisrael" with the Palestinians, and the
infinitely more important struggle of "Yisrael Sava,"
"Grandfather Yisrael," the true Spirit of Jewish Destiny, with his
"enlightened and sophisticated, willfully ignorant and
self-destructive" descendants, are fully engaged.
We pray that the outcomes of these struggles will be as it was with
"Yaakov Avinu" (Bereshit 32:29), "for you have been engaged
in spiritual combat with Angels, and in physical combat with men; and you
have prevailed." May we soon
see the movement of our entire People "me'afelah l'or gadol," from
thick darkness to great light. And,
as we pray in the "Kinot," the Lamentations of Tishah
B'Av, may the sorrow and
travail of "betzaitainu mi'Yerushalayim," of our "Departure
from Yerushalayim" be replaced by the joy of the sons and daughters of
Yaakov who became Yisrael, "beshuveinu li'Yerushalayim,"
"upon our return to Yerushalayim."
Rabbi Pinchas Frankel |
