Torah This Week
Welcome to Torah This Week, where you will find thoughts and reflections by CLAL
faculty and associates on the Torah portion of the week.
PARASHAT VAYETZE
(Genesis 28: 10 - 32:3)
Jacob runs for his life, fleeing the fury of the brother from whom he has stolen the
patriarchal blessing and the father he has deceived. He stops for the night, for the sun
is setting. The next day he will cross over into another land, a new family and a world
that knows nothing of a covenant with God. Jacob has reached the borders of his life with
no assurance that the blessings of power, wealth and progeny he has received from his
father, Isaac, will ever be fulfilled. Jacob dreams of a ladder to heaven with angels
ascending and descending. He envisions God at his side, renewing the covenant made with
his father Isaac, and grandfather, Abraham:
The ground upon which you lie I will give you and your descendants. Your progeny shall
be as the dust of the earth, spreading out to the west and the east, to the north and
south. All the families of the earth will bless themselves through you and your
descendants (28:14).
Jacob awakens from his sleep and says: "Surely there is God in this place and I
did not know." What is it that he did not know? Two Chasidic masters provide contrary
yet equally remarkable insight for us. Each responds to Jacob's confusion over God's
presence. One explains the place where God was found was in the "I" -- the self
of Jacob. Consumed with anger, fear and deceit, Jacob suddenly becomes aware of the
potential divinity with himself, the place where God can reside. The second intuits the
opposite. At the very moment that Jacob becomes aware of God's presence, he exclaims: It
is "I" (the self) that I do not know." Only when I am not filled with
myself, when I empty myself of the ego and self-serving explanations which encrust me, can
I truly experience God's presence. Both remind us how ever-present God can be and how easy
it is to say "But I did not know."
(David Elcott)
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