This week’s parsha is the very eventful Vayetze, which, like all the early portions of the Torah, is just crammed with some of our most familiar Bible stories.
It starts off with Jacob fleeing from Esau (Vayetze means “And he left”) and going to seek a wife in Charan, where his relative Laban lives; then there’s the story about his dream of the ladder; then the wonderful scene in Charan where Jacob, once he sees the beautiful Rachel, uses superhuman strength to move a rock off the shepherds’ well so they, and she, can water their flocks.
And then there’s the whole story about how Jacob, after agreeing to work seven years for Rachel’s hand, is given Leah’s instead, and then his working seven more years for the woman he truly loves. After that there’s the part about the dueling wits of Laban and Jacob over a promised portion of Laban’s flock – all the colored sheep — and how basically Jacob out-tricks Laban with crafty animal breeding to assure that there would be an especially large number of this kind.
And finally, the entertaining scene where Jacob decides to return with his already large family to Padan-Aram, and the whole family sneaks away from Laban, and Rachel steals a couple of Laban’s idols. Laban tracks down Jacob and his family, can’t find the idols, and finally comes into Rachel’s tent to look for them. And Rachel – who’s sitting right on top of the idols, which are inside a cushion — basically says: Um, you really can’t come here because I have this, you know, women’s condition, and Laban grosses out and returns empty-handed.
So many of these stories are about deception, trickery, lies, cheating, just as they were in the parasha we heard here last week. For tonight’s D’var Torah, I’d like to read this one by Alberto Mizrahi, a famous cantor in Chicago who was born in Greece. It’s adapted from his blog, Alberto’s Voice:
“Trickery. Deception. One might think that is the basis for two parashiyot of the Torah; last week’s Toledot and this week’s Vayetze. Talk about leaving your dirty laundry hanging on the line. Even if Esau took his birthright so lightly as to sell it for a bowl of stew, there is still little doubt that Jacob took advantage of his brother’s nature. Then there is Isaac’s blessing of his sons: What else is one to think except that Rebecca conspired with her son to steal that blessing? Was it but for a pelt of lambskin attached to Jacob’s arm — and a well-cooked soup — that the blessing would have gone to the intended, Esau, and that Edom would be the blessed land and people instead of Israel?
“And this week, what is Laban up to? Does he care so little about his daughters’ happiness that he tricks Jacob into marrying Leah, thus making the couple unhappy from the start? (Leah declares that her husband “hates” her and hopes that now, after the birth of their first child, ‘…now my husband will love me.’)
“Jacob continues to use trickery in the form of craftiness (legal but sketchy) with his expertise in animal husbandry to end up with a large flock that he sneaks away from Laban, now that he’s married to both Leah and Rachel after 14 years of laboring for them. Both daughters were probably quite cross with their father as well – because Laban hoarded the riches that Jacob had accrued for him and did not pass down the wealth to his children. For this he paid the price of his daughters abandoning him; a very high price for being cheap!
“I think back to 1944 when my father and his brother, Alberto, answered a call by the Nazi authorities to come to the synagogue and collect free matzah for Passover. They were immediately herded into trucks and taken by cattle car on a ten-day death ride to Auschwitz. The Nazis were masters of deception.
“My mother, then a lovely single woman in Greece, was to be forced into marriage with a Christian boy by her uncle so as to be saved from the Nazis (a deception that would not have worked anyway). After her youngest brother abducted her from the ceremony at gunpoint, she, her sister (with husband and baby in tow) and their mother were hidden by a family named the Kourelises, in a nearby neighborhood. When the Nazis showed up at the door, it was Elftheria Kourelis who saved everyone’s life through the use of very quick thinking, courage and, yes, deception. “What Jews? You can clearly see these are my mother, my aunt, my sister and my grandmother! You may search the house all you want for Jews!” We might not call that trickery but being fast on one’s feet.
“When my father and mother slept and dreamt during these terrible years, they probably did not see a ladder leading all the way up to the gate of Heaven, as did Jacob in this week’s sidrah. It is hard to do that when in the midst of Hell. But God did save them. The promise made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was fulfilled for a small remnant of our people who rebuilt their lives and ensured the continuation of the Jewish people for generations. May we, in the midst of a country blessed with freedom, not forget to be diligent and forthright in thought and action so that apathy and complacency do not become our common deception.”
Shabbat Shalom.