This week's shtikle comes with mazal tov wishes to two of my avid readers and constructive critics.
Mazal tov to Rabbi and Dr. Mordechai Weiskopf on the recent marriage of their daughter, Rivka, to Chaim Monderer.
And mazal tov to Mr. and Mrs. David Farkas on the upcoming bar mitzvah of their son, Noam, this shabbos.
In honour of the bar mitzvah, here is a beautiful shtikle compiled by the father of the bar mitzvah boy, (followed by an editorial note of my own.)
וַיִּפְגַּע בַּמָּקוֹם וַיָּלֶן שָׁם כִּי בָא הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ וַיִּקַּח מֵאַבְנֵי הַמָּקוֹם וַיָּשֶׂם מְרַאֲשֹׁתָיו וַיִּשְׁכַּב בַּמָּקוֹם הַהוּא.
In a well-known statement, Chazal state that only now did Yaakov permit himself to sleep, a luxury he did not allow himself the previous fourteen years studying in the Yeshiva of [Shem, by now deceased] and Eber. If one calculates the timeline, it emerges that Yaakov was away from home a total of 36 years, all in which time Yaakov failed to keep the mitzvah of honoring one's parents. However, Chazal also observe that Yaakov received Divine recompense for this failure only for 22 of those years, while the 14 years spent in study were absolved.
R' Yaakov Kamenetsky questions this. If a father asks his son to buy him a pair of shoes, and the son stops on the way to sit and learn, would not that be considered a failure – let the son learn sometime else! By the same token, after his parents told Yaakov to go to Haran, what gave him the right to stop for so long a period of time? Moreover, R' Yaakov points out, it was not as though Yaakov hadn't learned anything till then – he had always studied by his father and grandfather. What, then, was so special about this period of time that Chazal felt it excusable from parental obligations?
According to R' Yaakov, it was because it was during this period that Yaakov learned the secrets of how to survive in exile. Shem and Eber grew up in the period of the Flood and then the Great Dispersal, epochs in which very few men were upright and righteous. Shem and Eber were survivors, who had successfully insulated themselves from the ungodly zeitgeist howling all around them. Abraham and Isaac, by contrast, lived their lives away from all evil influences. So much so that Sarah refused to allow Ishamel to remain in the house after she saw him "jesting" (מצחק). We might add, Abraham also deliberately separated himself from Lot. Thus, when Jacob was leaving Eretz Yisrael to live among the ungodly, he needed to learn strategies of how to keep himself pure and pristine in such an unforgiving environment. As R' Yaakov phrases it, he needed to learn Toras Ha-Galus – and for that he needed the Torah of Shem and Eber, not the Toras Ha-Aretz he learned with his father and grandfather.
Thus, the comparison to the son learning after being asked to buy his father shoes is no longer apt. The better comparison would be a father asking his son to buy him a lulav, with the son first stopping at the beis medrash to learn the signs of kosher lulav. Clearly this would be seen not merely as excusable delay, but laudable and praiseworthy.
While R. Yaakov elaborates on this point with proofs and details, what remains to be asked, and what he does not address, is what, exactly, were these strategies? What were these tools that Yaakov learned, to survive in the great wilderness?
For this, I can do no better than to repeat the insights of Noam Jacobson (YouTube link) who highlights three things Yaakov did that all of us can, and indeed, must learn from and emulate.
1) Yaakov stayed in contact with God. Every step of the way, from even before he reached Haran, we find him engaged in prayer and meditation. He saw God in his dreams, because God was always on his mind.
2) He did not rely on God alone. Rather, he utilized the tools and technology available. He made himself rich using such techniques, through animal husbandry and genetics still not fully understood today.
3) He did not allow himself to be taken advantage of. As the Torah says, Yaakov "stole" the heart of Laban by leaving him. The phrase is deliberate, intending to underscore that after Laban cheated him from his wives and then his wages, Jacob gave it right back to him, as they say – in his face. "Righteousness" does not mean allowing oneself to be played.
These three lessons – keeping God uppermost in one's thoughts, but still making your best efforts, and not allowing oneself to be taken advantage of – allowed Yaakov to stay Yaakov, and to proclaim, in the words of chazal, עם לבן גרתי, ותרי"ג מצות שמרתי.
In this period of time, but in all times, we would do well to remember these lessons. There is a Torah – timeless lessons – for Eretz Yisrael, where we belong; but there is also Toras Ha-Galus. Our destiny and permanent mission is to fulfill the former. Until we get there though, we need to absorb the lessons of the latter.
This touches upon one of my parsha pet peeves. Many people speak about Yaakov spending 14 years in the yeshivah of Shem and Ever. However, Rashi (28:9) clearly refers to it as Beis Ever. This is because by this time, Shem had already passed away. Indeed, a footnote in Emes l'Yaakov points out that while both R' Yaakov and the Chasam Sofer make references to Shem and Ever, Rashi, whose source is Megillah 16b, clearly refers to it as the yeshivah of Ever.
Have a good Shabbos.
Eliezer Bulka
WeeklyShtikle@weeklyshtikle.com
Shtikle Blog Weekly Roundup:
Dikdukian: Wordsthatsticktogether
Dikdukian: From his Sleep
Dikdukian: Complete it
Dikdukian: Qualification of the AHOY rule
Dikdukian: Different Types of Kissing
Dikdukian: Come on, People - Part II
AstroTorah: Did Yaakov Leave the Solar System by R' Ari Storch
AstroTorah: Yaakov's Lesson on Zemanei HaYom by R' Ari Storch
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