You are viewing a preview version of this site. The live site is located at: https://fedweb.com

This piece of content is not currently in a published status.

Menu
 National Young Leadership
The Jewish Federations of North America
Parshat Vayetze

November 28, 2014

This week’s Shabbat Message was written by Planned Giving & Endowment Co-chair Cintra Pollack from Denver.

Dear Chevre,

This week’s Torah portion, Vayetze comes from the book of Genesis. While I am only going to address the first section of the parsha, I encourage you to read the whole thing on your own. Vayetze has a little something for everyone: romance, family drama, subterfuge, and odyssey. It really is a “can’t miss” slice of Torah.
 
The word vayetze means “and he left,” which is what Jacob is doing as the parsha begins. More accurately, we find Jacob fleeing Beersheba and his angry brother. He heads towards Haran, where his mother Rebekah’s family resides. On his journey, Jacob falls asleep in the wilderness and has a dream of a ladder linking earth to heaven, with angels frenetically ascending and descending the ladder. In Jacob’s dream, G-d speaks to him, reaffirming and extending the covenant between G-d and Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham. G-d states that the land where Jacob rests has been promised to him and his offspring, and that they will be as numerous and widespread as dust.
 
When Jacob awakes, he is surprised that G-d is present there. He exclaims, “G-d is in this place, too, and I did not know it.” Jacob asserts that he will be loyal to G-d and will tithe a tenth of everything he has if G-d takes care of him and returns him to his father’s land in peace. Jacob upends the rock he had used for a pillow, pours oil on it to consecrate it, and names the location of the rock “Beth El,” the place where G-d is.
 
Much midrashim, particularly by Maimonides, has been written on Vayetze and Jacob’s dream. Far be it from me to try to upstage Maimonides. I do, however, feel like Jacob needs a little enlightenment. Is it chutzpah to instruct a patriarch? G-d is indeed in the place where Jacob has slept, but that’s because Jacob has slept there. That is to say, G-d is where Jacob is as much as the other way around. Wherever he goes, there G-d is.
 
Jacob’s dream is G-d’s declaration of “Hineini.” What a remarkable thing for Jacob, to have G-d’s presence in the wilderness! Remember the context: Jacob has just deceived his father, Isaac, and betrayed his older twin brother, Esau. Jacob flees his family in fear and maybe even regret. Though Jacob’s transgressions have distanced him from his kin, he remains tethered to G-d in his mind through his dream of a ladder. No matter what rung Jacob finds himself on, whether he is closer to heaven or earth, ascending or descending, G-d is never far.
 
Wherever you go, there G-d is. Such has always been the case for Jews, a people in motion since Abraham first left his father’s house. And still today, after centuries of diaspora, turmoil, the destruction of two temples, exiles, expulsions, pogroms, and the Holocaust, G-d ends up wherever we do. The metaphor of G-d’s presence is more important than the coordinates. Every mezuzah we pass echoes the Shema, reminding us that each of us brings G-d, or “godliness” if you prefer, with us wherever we go in our daily lives.

Knowing that “G-d is in this place, too,” as Jacob realized at Beth El, are we allowed to become complacent? No. As Jews, and what’s more, as leaders of Jews, we need to remember that though G-d is where we are, we still must climb the rungs of the ladder to get closer. We are but dust; we are widespread as dust. And as stirred up dust hangs in the air and defines the edges of a ray of sunshine, so we--stirred up and striving to improve this world--define where G-d is. We make the shining warmth evident through our actions.

May you have a meaningful week and find godliness in your homes and with your families.

Shabbat Shalom.


Cintra