Two Minute Torah Podcast

Vayetze 5773 by Rabbi Ed Romm

Shalom, my name is Rabbi Ed Romm, Director of Education and the Visitors Center of the United Synagogue Fuchsberg Jerusalem Center For Conservative Judaism.

Welcome to KOACH's Two Minute Torah, a project of the College Dept of the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism.

I would like to share some thoughts with you about Yaakov and Parshat Vayetze. When we look at the lives of the "Avot" (forefathers), Yaakov seems to be most complicated with a life filled with irony and sadness. In the previous Parsha (Toldot) we learn that Yaakov was destined to carry on the family lineage. When Rivka inquires of God about her pregnancy she is told "Two Nations are in your womb...and the older shall serve the younger."

There were two very problematic incidents from a moral point of view committed by Yaakov. Firstly, he took advantage of his brother Esau's hunger and had him sell his birth right for lentil stew. Secondly when his father Yitzhak was on his death bed, at his mother's insistence, he took advantage of his father's failing health and poor vision by pretending to be Esau and thus received his father's blessing.

Even though it was God's plan for Yaakov to be the inheritor it is hard to condone Yaakov's actions.

This week's Parshat Vayatze marks the beginning of Divine "payback" or to put it into the language of the sages "measure for measure". Yaakov's behavior did not escape the attention of the Biblical narrative.

Thus Yaakov is deceived by Lavan into marrying Lea even though he worked seven years for Lavan in order to marry Rachel. Later on in the Torah narrative Yaakov is deceived by his own children: firstly over the episode with Dina and Shechem and then over Yosef, the son of his beloved Rachel, who was thrown into a pit by his brothers, sold to slave traders and ended up in Egypt

Yaakov is presented to us as a complex human being with a life of ups and downs. Yet through Yaakov the numbers of the people significantly increased fulfilling God's promise. The foundation for the 12 tribes is established and the seeds of redemption are planted. Therefore it is no wonder that among the three patriarchs we carry the name of Jacob as our legacy and are called "the House of Jacob and the People of Israel."