Vayetze 5785

To what extent are you willing to take an extraordinary effort? Would you only take that effort when it benefited yourself or a family member? And in what situation would you consider that effort to be appropriate or needed? 

We often hear of individuals, or groups of individuals, who will literally put themselves in harm’s way in order to help or save the life of another. Bystanders seeing a car or house going up in flames will risk their own lives to free someone who is trapped. Then there are those in the medical profession and first responders who have their own stories. There are also heroic stories of those who have served in our armed forces, both here in the US and in Israel, who have risked their own lives to aid a comrade in harm’s way or who has been hurt by the enemy.  Needless to say, we honor the men and women of the IDF who continue to search in Gaza for each one of the remaining hostages. 

One story told of 660 Ocean Avenue is the time when a woman collapsed on the floor of our shul during Shabbat morning services during a bar mitzvah. Quickly those in attendance rushed to provide her with CPR in the back of the sanctuary while the service continued.  

How often will witnesses stay on the scene of a hit and run crash, rather than simply driving off, to provide the details to the police officer who arrives on the scene. (Just about a month ago, at 10 p.m., one such witness stayed with my son Cory and our grandson, when their car was struck and totaled by a careless driver.) 

But it is not solely in emergency situations where one might make a decision to provide extraordinary assistance to another.

In our Torah portion, Vayetze we find Jacob arriving at the town watering hole at the outskirts of Haran. Three other shepherds are there together with their flocks. As is the custom, everyone normally waits for the most revered in the pecking order of the group to arrive before removing the stone from the well to give water to their flocks.  The three sit in waiting. God forbid one should roll the stone of the well prior; that would change the pecking order in that society!!!!

As a visitor to the area, Jacob makes the appropriate introduction and asks if they knew where he could possibly find his uncle Laban. As they were talking, the narrator of the events in the Torah shares with us that Laban’s daughter Rachel, who is also a shepherd, is approaching the area. With an extraordinary amount of might Yaakov rolls the extremely heavy stone off the top of the well. At that moment, Jacob bucked the norms of that society and its hierarchy as to whose flocks would be given water first. 

One might wonder how he accomplished this feat, since according to the commentaries, it normally took several individuals to remove the stone.  In the commentary, Pirke De Rabbi Eliezer, we learn: “Jacob's strength did not fail, and like a strong hero he rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, and the well came up, and spread forth water outside itself, and the shepherds saw and they all wondered, for all of them were unable to roll away the stone from the mouth of the well; but Jacob alone rolled the stone from off the mouth of the well, as it is said, "And Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well's mouth." (Gen. 29:10). One midrash actually suggests that to the onlooker, it appeared as simple for Jacob as popping a cork out of a bottle. It seems like a scene that might have come out of Hollywood, where the love at first sight hero is able to do the unthinkable, for the purpose of showing his masculinity and impressing the young woman in waiting.

The commentary Sforno furthers this thought stating: “until he had met Rachel, Yaakov had not been interested to get involved in the problem of rolling the rock off the top of the well. He had been afraid that if he helped, the three shepherds would only be concerned with watering their own flocks without waiting around to assist any other shepherds.” 

Witnessing with his own eyes, not only the beautiful Rachel, but the fact that God had brought the two of them together at that moment, Jacob does the unthinkable. He doesn’t wait for the rest of the shepherds to arrive at the well. He impulsively acts, rolling away the stone and “watered the flock of his uncle Laban,” (Genesis 29:10) going against the traditions of the place and time. 

In this particular instance, our narrative is specifically furthering God’s promise to be played out. As we continue to watch this love story unfold, perhaps we recognize something inside our own personal souls and selves that might be similar. It might not be a love story; it might not be an act of heroism; it might not be even something impulsive. It might simply be an act of gemilut chesed, an act of lovingkindness, in a manner that in the moment did not seem to be extraordinary; but later on that effort turned out to be life changing and consequential to that other individual.

Ellen Bass’s poem shares this thought in a most beautiful way.  It is found in her collection The Human Line (Copper Canyon Press, 2007). The poem appeared in the Judith Magazine this week:

What if you knew you'd be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to touch that palm,
brush your fingertips
along the life line's crease.

When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
too slowly through the airport, when
the car in front of me doesn't signal,
when the clerk at the pharmacy
won't say Thank you, I don't remember
they're going to die.

A friend told me she'd been with her aunt.
They'd just had lunch and the waiter,
a young gay man with plum black eyes,
joked as he served the coffee, kissed
her aunt's powdered cheek when they left.
Then they walked half a block and her aunt
dropped dead on the sidewalk.

How close does the dragon's spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?

Perhaps, through the story of Jacob we are learning about the human side of the individual who will become our namesake. God’s angel will rename Yisrael, for he has “striven with being divine and human, and has prevailed.” (Genesis 32:29) Jacob is no longer being portrayed as the schemer and the deceptive one. Instead he is being portrayed for the man who he truly became. 

That is Jacob’s story.

We have our own too. 

Am Yisrael Chai!
Bring them home now!!!!

Shabbat shalom.

Rabbi K