Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Vayetze Genesis 28:10-32:3
By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel – As soon as we open the Biblical portion of VaYetze, we are struck by a problematic vow which Jacob makes after his dream, a kind of bargain with G-d as he sets out for exile: “If G-d (Elokim, the Universal Power of Creation) will be with me, and will guide me in this path whereon I am going, and will give me bread to eat and garments to wear, and will return me in peace to the house of my father, then the Lord (Y-HVH, the Abrahamic more personal G-d of world redemption) will be my G-d, and this stone which I have placed as a monument will be a house of G-d…” (Gen. 28: 20-22).
How can we justify making such “deals” with G-d?

There are other textual difficulties as well within the entire context of Jacob’s dream and subsequent vow. First he experiences a most stirring and inspiring dream in which he is specified as the heir to the Abrahamic mission; he – Jacob – will be granted multiple progeny through whom “will be blessed all the families of the earth.” After Jacob awakens from the dream- and declares the awesome and numinous quality of a place which he now realizes is the house of G-d and the gateway to the heavens – the text then informs us that Jacob woke up early in the morning (he apparently went back to sleep after he had previously awakened from his dream) and then makes his vow. What point is there to the Bible’s recording the time lag between the dream and the vow? And finally, does G-d not promise Jacob in his dream whatever he later asks for in his vow, that He will watch over him wherever he goes, return him to this land, and not forsake him (Gen 28:15)? Why does Jacob require the vow altogether?

I attempted to demonstrate in my commentary on Toldot the crucial necessity of unconditional parental love for each child as he/she essentially is for the sake of the future development of that child. This is not to say that a parent does not have the right - and even the obligation – to attempt to ameliorate the child’s rough edges and refine certain unpleasant personality traits. But the child must always be made to feel loved and accepted by his/her parents, and to believe that his/her basic personality finds favor in their eyes. Jacob did not feel that his persona as a “wholehearted, dweller of tents” was accepted by his father; Isaac clearly favored the out-door, aggressive hungry Esau, who provided him with the red venison meat that he loved and who knew how to get around him with honey-sweet words.

Hence Jacob, in his obsessive desire to gain his father’s favor, attempts to bury his true and essential personality and become as much like Esau as possible; he jumps at his mother’s offer to put on the external garb of Esau, to aggressively substitute himself for Esau by bringing his father venison and so assuming the grasping hands of Esau, and to attempt to convince his father with deceitful words that he indeed is Esau.

And perhaps Jacob can justify his deception: did he not purchase the birthright from his elder brother with a pot of lentil soup, and did not Esau spurn the birthright? Of the two twins, Jacob was certainly a worthier heir to Abraham and Isaac! But Biblical morality does not support the view that the ends justify the means; “justice, justice shalt thou pursue” (Deut. 16:20) teaches that not only the goal but also the procedure of getting there must be perfectly just.

So that although Jacob may have wrested the material blessings (“the dew of the heavens, the fat of the earth and much grain and wine) from his hapless brother, at this juncture he loses the spiritual birthright, the Abrahamic mission which will bring redemption to all of humanity from the backdrop of Israel and Jerusalem. Jacob must journey backwards; he is exiled from his ancestral home Israel and is forced to wander back to Haran, back to the place which G-d told Abraham he must leave if he were to become the great blessing for the world. And exile has meant punishment for Biblical personalities ever since Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden; moreover, the Abrahamic mission can hardly be realized outside of Canaan in Haran!

And then comes Jacob’s dream, in which the Almighty introduces Himself as “Y-HVH the G-d of Abraham your father and of Isaac.” G-d is in effect telling Jacob that Isaac is not his father, that although Isaac has not related to him as a loving father, Jacob has sealed off the relationship by his act of deception. But nevertheless Abraham remains Jacob’s father; since Jacob has the essential character necessary for the continuity of the Abrahamic mission, his seed shall spread out throughout the world and all the families of the earth shall be blessed through him and his seed.

Jacob awakens, Jacob is moved and inspired; but Jacob remains conflicted. On the one hand, he feels pangs of guilt for his deception and on the other hand he listened to his mother’s command as well as to the voices in his heart telling him to become Esau. Yes, he played the imposter before his father, but did not his father later say, “He, (Jacob) shall nevertheless be blessed.” And now G-d has confirmed the fact that he does have the birthright but does not say when and how?

Jacob goes back to sleep to rest and to process the dream. He awakens and takes a special vow. He doesn’t refer to the Divine guarantee that he will be the heir apparent, holder of the birthright. He understands that that must refer to the future. He is not up to that yet; he is still in the midst of his struggle; he remains fixated on trying to win his father’s favor. He still thinks that without his father’s love and acceptance, he won’t be able to accomplish anything; he will never successfully realize his potential. And so he makes his bargain with G-d: “If you will guard me… and will return me in peace to the house of my father, then the Lord will be my G-d and this (place)… will be a house of G-d.”

Yes, Jacob is still in the early stages of his struggling development. He interprets the dream to mean that only if he returns in peace to his father, only if he gains his father’s love and acceptance, will he be able to express the birthright of the Y-HVH of love and redemption and will he be able to make the world a house of G-d. And so he continues to compound his error of transforming himself into Esau, and out-Laban’s Laban in Haran as he tries to become a wiley and aggressively grasping “contender” – and not nurturer – of the cattle. He has yet to learn that true maturity comes only in freeing oneself from dependency upon parental acceptance, only in establishing one’s moral autonomy by listening only to the voice of the G-d of ethical monotheism on the march to self realization with as much integrity as possible. When Jacob learns that lesson, he will be able to exorcize from himself the false overlay of Esau and he will emerge as independent Yisrael, the one who has emerged triumphant over himself by having returned to his truest self.

Shabbat Shalom
Shlomo Riskin
Chancellor Ohr Torah Stone
Chief Rabbi - Efrat Israel

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