Vayetzei

This portion tells the saddest story in the Torah. It is the story of a man who has forgotten his dream. As Jacob begins his journey, God appears to him…Jacob responds by committing himself to God’s mission…With Laban, he accumulates wealth. And, forgetting his mission and focusing on property, quickly becomes a slave rather than a seeker of destiny…Jacob is in fact a slave, and not merely an employee in the house of Laban…What is most striking, though, is that it is not just Laban who treats Jacob as a slave, but as we shall, see, all the members of Jacob’s family treat each other as nothing more than human property…this confusion has its roots in Jacob himself. Jacob certainly is the first to designate a person as wages.

Dvora Steinmetz (Contemporary)

We realize that Jacob’s life, just like our own lives, exists on two levels. There is the level of hardship, moral failure and guilt; ordinarily we take the narrow view and are cognizant of that level only. But there is also a deeper level, a much broader perspective; from time to time we are able to attain it, and at those times our ordinary concerns are transcended. On those occasions, from that deeper level, illumination breaks through and floods our awareness; the significance of our lives suddenly becomes clear; and we, together with Jacob, know the simple and unconditional truth that we are accepted in spite of our endless shortcomings; at such times we experience the truth of purpose in human life, and we feel a determination to advance that purpose, in spite of impediments and hardship.

Richard Borkow (Contemporary)

Jacob went out from his father’s house to go into exile. He left with the birthright and the blessing which he had acquired by roundabout means…but beyond these…he had nothing…Here we see that God does not show partiality even to His chosen ones. On the contrary: one may even say that it is specifically to His chosen ones that he does not show partiality. That is why Jacob underwent all these terrible events. He suffered failures because, on his way to attain him mission, he did not follow the straight path.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz (20^th Century)

Perhaps the most significant prayer I know is attributed to a child who left the following petition in the rubble of the Warsaw Ghetto: “Dear God, I do not ask you to make my life easy; I do ask you to make me strong.” Jacob experienced very little of Divine compassion in his life. He is hurt by the lack of a father’s love and appreciation, he is forced to flee his homeland and escape from a vengeful brother, he works two decades for a scoundrel uncle, he loses a young beloved wife, and he is separated for 22 years from his favorite son, whom he thinks is dead. Then, the end of his life is spent in Egyptian exile. Nevertheless, an aged Jacob blesses his grandchildren: “May the angel who has redeemed me from all evil bless these children.”

Shlomo Riskin (Contemporary)

(The word “place” can also mean “God.”) Jacob “fell” upon “a place” because the sun had set…He was so preoccupied with the immediacies of Esav’s threat that God had to intervene…God picked him up and plunked him down. Still clueless, Jacob missed the point…But when the “place” evokes his dream, Jacob awakens with a start and puts two and two together…”Surely God is in this place and I didn’t know it,” he concludes…We understand how Jacob could miss the obvious when we see how often we do the same thing. Sacred places look sacred only to a people with sacred intentions.