Divrei Beit Hillel
Articles on the Weekly Torah Portion by Students at The University of Pennsylvania
The Duality of Jacob
By Liz Rubin
Esau is out for blood when he discovers that his conniving twin has stolen his birthright. Jacob, scared for his life, abandons his home to start a new family. He falls in love with a girl at a public well, but before he can marry his newfound love, his father-in-law-to-be steps in and plays the switching trick that Jacob knows all too well. Twenty years later, he finally leaves his father-in-law, laden with four wives, eleven sons, and millions. Lies. Love. Deception. This week promises it all.
Sounding a lot like a soap opera, this week?s Torah portion focuses on the central theme of duality- both in a sense of repetition and conflict.
The Torah portion begins by telling us that Jacob went down to Haran, which is puzzling, since last week?s Torah portion already told us this. We can explain that the motivation for Jacob?s flight is a dual one. In last week?s Torah portion, Jacob is told to leave home twice, once by each parent: His mother urges him to flee to Haran to seek refuge after Esau threatens to kill him, and his father sends him to Haran to find a wife. The Torah tells of us Jacob?s departure two times: The first represents his embarkation to fulfill the mission set by his father; the second refers to his mother?s plea to find safety.
The dual mission follows Jacob throughout his travels. Homeless and penniless, he is forced to sleep outside with a boulder as a pillow. He dreams of angels ascending and descending a ladder reaching into the heavens. Rashi and Ramban, two Torah commentators, both mention that the ascent and descent of the angels represented a ?changing of the guard.? The angels accompanying him in Israel were replaced with angels of the Diaspora. God was promising Jacob His continued support and presence, despite his venturing outside of the holy land of Canaan. Furthermore, the message in the dream had a dual meaning: The beginning of the message promised health and success to Jacob?s future, but the end of the prophecy pledged immediate protection to Jacob?s present existence. The dream ensured Jacob a connection between the celestial and natural, adding to the duality of his journey.
The theme of duality and contrast is epitomized in Jacob?s twenty-year ordeal with Laban. Jacob sets out to fulfill part one of his mission, his father?s command to find a wife. In the process, he achieves his mother?s goal of finding a safe haven. However, neither mission is accomplished without a sense of conflict: Due to Laban?s trickery, Jacob marries Leah instead of Rachel, resulting in almost twenty years of work and four wives. Rachel and Leah, two sisters, are completely different. The Torah describes, ?the eyes of Leah were soft, and Rachel was beautiful in appearance? (29:17). Rachel, representing physical beauty and a natural existence, is the matriarch of Mashiach ben Yosef ? the Messiah from the House of Joseph – who will fight the brutal war against the enemies in order for Mashiach ben David ? the Messiah from the House of David ? to accomplish his task. Leah, whose soft eyes represent mourning, will ultimately mother the ancestors of Mashiach ben David who will usher in the ultimate World to Come .
The theme of duality culminates in Jacob?s situation in Laban?s house. While he fulfills Rebecca?s plea to find physical safety, he lives in a house of deception and deceit. In addition to the trickery with regards to his daughters, Laban tries to cheat Jacob in the shepherding business. Ultimately, when Jacob escapes with his family, he fears the wrath of his father-in-law when Laban chases the traveling party in order to reclaim his stolen idols. Only when Jacob completes his journey and makes his way home, accompanied by the angels of the holy land that initially left him during the dream, is his duality replaced with harmony.
It Takes Two
By Rachel Friedman
This week?s Torah portion begins with Jacob?s journey to Haran to find a wife. In documenting this journey, the first thing the Torah records is the famous dream in which Jacob sees a ladder reaching towards the heaven with angels ascending and descending it. God reiterates His promise that He previously made to Abraham: ?The ground upon which you are lying, to you will I give it and to your descendants. Your offspring shall be as the dust of the earth, and you shall spread out powerfully?and all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and by your offspring?? (28:13-14). This placement of God?s promise is especially appropriate in light of this Torah portion?s theme ? the quest to continue Abraham?s lineage.
Although this theme is completely valid, I would like to suggest an alternate way of reading the Torah portion. To do this, we will have to look more closely at the interaction between God and Jacob as he is leaving Canaan. After the dream sequence, Jacob marks the place where he dreamed, Beth-el, as a holy place, and takes a vow, saying, ?If God will be with me, will guard me on this way that I am going; will give me bread to eat and clothes to wear; and I return in peace to my father?s house, and the Lord will be a God to me ? then this stone which I have set up as a pillar shall become a house of God, and whatever you will give me, I shall repeatedly tithe to you? (28:20-22). It is peculiar that after receiving a blessing from God, Jacob responds with a vow to create a house of God on the condition that God fulfills his demands.
Furthermore, as we follow the events of the Torah portion, we see that God does fulfill His side of the bargain.
Jacob arrives in Haran with a bang, heroically lifting a heavy rock from the mouth of a well, for the shepherds waiting to feed their flocks. He lives in Laban?s house for 20 years working and prospering, and when he finally leaves, it is as a rich man with ?all his livestock and all the wealth which he had amassed? (31:17). When Laban catches Jacob fleeing with his stolen idols, Laban does not cause him any trouble, despite wanting to do so. He says, ?It is in my power to do you all harm; but the God of your father addressed me last night, saying, ?beware of speaking with Jacob either good or bad? (28). In next week?s Torah portion, when Jacob encounters another assailant, his brother Esau, on his way back to Canaan, God comes to the rescue. And finally, when Jacob and his family are encamped in Shechem and his sons avenge their sister?s rape by wrongfully deceiving and then murdering the whole city, God does not punish Jacob, because he is acting according to the name of the Lord, Hashem ? the name which describes God?s merciful personality.
Once God has fulfilled all of Jacob?s requests, guarding him on his journey, providing sustenance, returning him home safely, and acting out of mercy, He tells Jacob to fulfill his side of the bargain: ?God said to Jacob, ?Arise ? go up to Beth-el and dwell there, and make an altar there to God? (35:1). And he does. Not coincidentally, Jacob has returned to Beth-El, signifying the completion of his physical and spiritual journey.
So the Torah portion is not really about Jacob?s journey to find a wife and continue his family?s heritage. Rather, it is about this new dialectic between man and God: Jacob recognized that the purpose of the Jewish people is to serve and worship God, but to do this there needs to be a give and take. Specifically, God needs to provide safety and security to His people, while remembering to act benevolently even when they don?t necessarily deserve His mercy. Only then, when there is this dual commitment between God and His people, can God truly be worshiped.
Laban and Esau
By Matt Brendzel
At the beginning of this week?s Torah portion, Jacob is fleeing his brother Esau and journeys to his uncle Laban in the land of Haran. When Jacob arrives, Laban promises to allow Jacob to marry Rachel in exchange for working for Laban for seven years. Jacob puts in the time, and before he knows it the seven years are up, but when the time finally comes to be with his new bride, he discovers that he’s been had. In a classic case of the bait-and-switch, Jacob was promised Rachel but married Leah. Jacob confronts Laban, and Laban says that it is improper in the land of Haran for the younger daughter to be married before the older daughter (that’s FIFO for you computer people). Laban says that this is a formality, and that he can have Rachel after the initial week of Jacob and Leah’s marriage. However, and this is a big however, he demands another seven years of service out of Jacob in exchange for Rachel’s hand, something that Jacob should have already been entitled to anyway.
Now, Jacob could have done any number of things. He could have challenged Laban and laid claim to Rachel, or he and Rachel could have tried to run off together in the middle of the night. But instead, Jacob consents to Laban’s changed terms, and forgoes his entitlement to Rachel. This stands as a sort of foil to his behavior in last week?s Torah portion, where Jacob tricked his father Isaac and took the birthright that Esau was entitled to.
Why did Jacob just sit there and take it when Laban would change his wages, and continually try to cheat and deceive him? One possibility is that Jacob felt guilty about what he had done to Esau. So rather than simply try to take what he wanted, Jacob may have been trying to do things openly and honestly, as a way of easing his conscience. Eventually, however, Jacob could not take any more and decided to leave.
Through firsthand experience with both sides of the spectrum, Jacob learns what it is like to be deceived; when he finally returns to meet with Esau in next week?s Torah portion, he sympathizes with his brother’s plight and tries to make amends, offering him cows, bulls, and donkeys, and prostrating himself on the ground. This sort of poetic justice seems to be a takeaway from this Torah portion: What goes around, comes around, and reciprocity is the name of the game.
Biatribe
NACHI: So I was reading through all the passages in the Torah with prime chapter and verse numbers ? you know, to find the code ? and I think I inadvertently found a misprint in my Bible.
JOMO: Back on the shoe polish again? Well, no matter. Where?s the misprint?
NACHI: In the story of the pact between our forefather Jacob and his father in law Laban, they accidentally printed some of the words from the translation in the text itself. See here (31:47), they make a monument of a pile of rocks and Jacob calls it Gal?ed, but instead of recording what Laban calls it, the printer copied the words out of Onkelos?s translation,(1) saying he called it Y?gar Sahaduta.
JOMO: That?s not a mistake. It?s Aramaic for Mound of Testimony and Laban himself was an Aramean, so the Torah records his version of Jacob?s appellation Gal?ed, which means the same thing.
NACHI: But the Torah can?t be defiled by other languages! The Torah is written in Hebrew, the Holy Tongue!
JOMO: Oh, it can and it does, my incredulous friend. Have you ever heard of chapters 3 through 7 of Daniel? They?re entirely in Aramaic!
NACHI: Well that?s not really the Torah. It?s a later writing. Maybe it was allowed by then. We don?t find any other foreign words in the big Five Books!
JOMO: That?s debatable, but either way, it doesn?t detract from their holiness. The Talmud say(2) that one is allowed to desecrate the Sabbath to protect a Torah from burning, including even these words of targum.(3)
NACHI: How could that be? Ramban(4) says the Torah is written in the Holy Tongue.
JOMO: Exactly! The inclusion of a word or term in the Torah is what defines it as Lashon Hakodesh, which you take to mean ?Holy Tongue.? That?s a misconception. But don?t worry. It?s been around for hundreds of years. The Zohar(5) says that kodesh, holy, is a noun and not an adjective(6) because it is not the language that is holy, but its source, the Holy One Blessed Be He, who used it to write the Torah and confer prophecy.
NACHI: So if we have this God-given holy language, why don?t we use it for everything and maximize our own holiness?
JOMO: There have been some well known people to espouse that opinion. Rambam even lists learning it among the positive commandments.(7) But we are only required to use it for certain rites, while for many things our understanding of the words we?re saying trumps the gain from using Lashon HaKodesh.(8)
NACHI: Well for some reason it still doesn?t sit so well with me that those two Aramaic words somehow snuck into the Torah.
JOMO: Don?t worry. You?re not alone in your sitting problem. Rabbi Mordechai Greenberg(9) cites the mystical book Galia Raza(10) saying that the phrase ?Aramean destroyed my forefather,?(11) with which we begin our storytelling at the Passover Seder, refers to the eventual degradation of our nation to slavery in Egypt resulting from our forefather Jacob allowing these two Aramaic words into an otherwise Hebrew Torah.
NACHI: Man. That?s heavy. I guess we should be careful what we say.
JOMO: Yeah, especially with regard to the Torah.
1 2nd c. Babylonian scholar to whom the Aramaic translation of the Bible is attributed
2 Tractate Shabbat 115b
3 lit. translation
4 Nachmanides, 12th c. Spanish commentator and philosopher, on Exodus 30:13
5 Basic book of Jewish mysticism, first coming to light in Spain in the 13th c.
6 The adjective would be kadosh.
7 Maimonides, 13th c. Spanish philosopher and commentator, on Tractate Avots 2:1
8 Tractate Sota 7:1,2
9 Contemporary Rabbi in charge of Yeshivat Kerem B?Yavneh
10 16th c. compilation of teachings of the Ar?i za?l
11 Deuteronmy 26:5