VAYETZE 1991

In the Torah portion Vayetzai we learn how Jacob had to go into exile.  We learn how he was forced to flee before his brother because of his brother's hatred for him taking his blessing.  This is an illustration of galut.  This is the first exile of the Jewish people, and the rabbis say, "The deeds of their fathers are the signs for their children." We learn that Jacob almost lost his Jewishness three times in the exile, that in order for the Jewish people to maintain themselves as a minority we have to have at least three qualities, and three times Jacob almost lost his Jewishness.
The rabbis say the first time was when Rachel was very upset because she could
not have children and she complained to Jacob about it.  She said, "Give me children
and if not I shall die," and Jacob got very angry with her and said, "Am I in
place of G-d?  Am I stopping you from having children?"  In other words, "What
are you talking to me about.  I can have children.  It is not fault.  I have
children by your sister.  What are you talking about?  Why are you blaming me?
Am I in place of G-d?"  The rabbis are very critical of him.  He should have
been much more understanding.  He should have had Rachmones, and unless a Jew
has Rachmones, compassion, then he cannot maintain himself.  He cannot be a Jew
because that is the essence of Judaism.  He should have told her he would pray
for her and do things for her, but, instead, he gave her a very angry reply when
she was hurting inside.
The second time the rabbis say that Jacob almost lost his Jewishness was when he stopped having the dream that he had when he first left Israel, the dream of angels ascending and descending.  All of a sudden, after working so many years for Laban, he was having a different type of dream, a dream of one sheep mounting another.  All he was able to think about was money, money, money.  The only thing that counted for him was money, getting more sheep, getting more sheep.  This
 
is similar to what is happening today when all Jews are interested in is making money.  They cannot keep kosher because it costs too much money.  They cannot close on Jewish holidays because it costs too much money.  They cannot spend time with their family because it costs too much money. All they are interested in is money, money, money.  If a Jew is only interested in money then he cannot maintain his Judaism.
The third time that Jacob almost lost his Judaism was after Laban overtakes him and they make a pact.  Laban originally wanted to harm Jacob and his family but G-d told him not to.  They made a pact.  The pact was that they would neither harm each other, and then Laban swore by the G-d of Abraham and the G-d of Nochor but Jacob did not swear by the G-d of Abraham and the G-d of Nochor.  He swore by the awe of his father, Yitzchak.  What happened was that Laban wanted to tell Jacob that Jacob's religion was not unique and special.  There was a G-d of Abraham and a G-d of Nochor and they are both equally good.  All roads lead to G-d. That may be true that all roads lead to G-d, but then why should we take the hardest road?  Jacob was not willing to concede that Judaism had nothing special and unique to still teach the world.  If Judaism has nothing unique and special to teach the world, why stay Jews?  That is a question which, of course, many Jews of today are asking.  First generation immigrant Jews knew that they were Jewish.  They could not be anything else but their children and grandchildren can be.  That is why we have such a high assimilation rate in America today because we concentrate on telling our children that Judaism is just like every other religion.  They do not say that Judaism is unique and special and that there is something special that the world still needs from Judaism, that Judaism still has a message to teach the world.  Unless you believe that then, of course, you cannot stay Jewish because why take upon yourself the hatred of the majority?
 
Why still be a minority unless Judaism has something unique and special to teach the world, unless Judaism has some unique qualities the world still needs?
In Judaism, of course, we know that what is good for the family is good for Judaism. What is bad for the family is bad for Judaism.  Judaism is based on the family. Judaism has many things to teach the world, but one of the most important things is about family.  That is what we learn in this Torah portion, too, about how Jacob built a family.  In fact, he is known for that.  He was the one who called it, after he saw this vision of the ladder, "Beis Elochim, the house of G-d". House in Hebrew means a family.  We know that Judaism has always fought other cultures and civilizations because they have denigrated the family.  We know that we fought paganism in Canaan because they used to have licentious sexual rites on the bema as part of their religion, sympathetic magic, that if they could get the sperm of Baal to come down and impregnate the earth and the sperm of G-d was the rain, then they would have crops and a flourishing life style. Therefore, they stimulated it on the bema and we fought that.  We fought those sexual rites because they were bad for the family.  In ancient Greece they were all homosexuals.  They did not have any use for women at all.  All the great philosophers were homosexuals.  They did not even consider women good sexual partners.  They had no use for women at all in ancient Greece.  They only got together with them once in a while to have children.  In fact, in ancient Sparta everyone was a homosexual because they felt that you would fight better if you fought with your lover.  Therefore, we fought that, too, because that was bad for the family.  Even today in America there is something wrong.  Twenty-five percent of the children are raised in poverty.  You have 50-60% of marriages which end in divorce.  I remember here when I came to Houston 15 years ago. I met men 35 years old and they introduced me to their wives and now 15 years
 
later they are about 50 and I am being introduced to them again and to their wives only they are new wives.  Something is the matter in America.  In Judaism we say that the most important thing is the family, and if the family disintegrates you cannot have Judaism.  I can tell you from many years of marriage counseling that men and women look for different things in marriage.  Women look for security, and I do not just mean financial security but emotional security, spiritual security, etc., and men look to be made to feel important.  That does not mean that women have to kowtow to them.  In fact, usually it is the opposite.  If a man can do a lot of things for a woman he feels important.  In fact, it is not far from the truth the empty headed blonde Judy Holliday type woman who always gets her man.  Men like to be made to feel that they are useful and that they are helping. Nothing is worse for a marriage than if one of the spouses refuses to let the other one help.  They feel completely rejected and useless.  They do not feel important at all, and especially a man in a marriage has to be made to feel that he is important.  That does not mean that a woman cannot also do things.  A woman should do things.  In fact, traditionally in marriages in eastern Europe the woman controlled the money and the sex and the man got an aliyah, not a bad tradeoff. Obviously, in Jewish life the most important thing was always the family, and a man's main responsibility was not to develop himself and his talent but to support his family.  The woman's main responsibility was the willingness to have children.  Sometimes she could not have children but she had to be willing to have children, maybe not 15 children but at least one, two, three, four.
Unfortunately, in America today the main emphasis is not on family.  In this Torah portion, too, that is why we learn how when Jacob saw Rachel he was able to roll off the stone off the well without the help of the other shepherds because his willingness and his desire to help his family gave him added strength to
 
do all sorts of things he could not do without that impetus.  Rachel was very upset because she could not have children.  The basis of a marriage is the man's willingness to support his family.  The money is not just for him, and the basis of a marriage is the woman's willingness to have children.  It does not mean that she cannot do other things, too, but we are talking about the basic requirement in every marriage.  Unfortunately, today marriage and family have a much lower priority.  The important thing is developing your talents, both for men and for women, and because of that, of course, marriages fail.
This Torah portion is teaching us something very important, and that is with a family we can overcome everything.  With a family we can achieve spiritual lives and even lives that have material prosperity but without a family constantly flitting back and forth between this wife and that wife you not only dissipate your health and your fortune but you lose your spirituality in the world.  Judaism tells us that what is good for the family is good for man and good for his spiritual soul as well as for his material well being.  Let us hope and pray that we will always realize that.  Let us hope and pray that we will always support the family and keep the family because it is only because we have had families throughout the generations that the Jewish people have survived.  That is the way Jacob was able to survive in exile and that is the only way we are going to be able to survive.  We have to base our families on compassion.  We have to base our families not on money but on the willingness to help each other and do things for each other, and we must base our families on the idea that Jewish prescription of the duties of life are unique and special and that the world still needs these lessons.  If we do this we will preserve our families and then we can preserve Judaism and we can still be a light unto the nations.  May we be so in the future as we have in the past.  Amen.
 
In the torah portion Vayaitzai we learn how Jacob leaves the land of Israel because
of his fear of his brother.  His brother had threatened to kill him as soon
as Yitzchak died.  This Torah portion is really about exile.  Diaspora is
when Jews leave the land of Israel willingly; exile is when people are forced
to leave the land.  This whole Torah portion concerns how Jacob was able
to make it in exile until he was able to return to the land of Israel.
There is also another theme which runs through this Torah portion and that theme is stones.  The Torah portion starts with a stone, how it says, "And Jacob went out from Beersheba and he went to Choron and he lighted on the place and he lodged there because the sun had set and he took from the stones of the place and he put them under his head and he lay in that place."  Then he had the famous dream of Jacob's ladder, of angels going up and angels coming down, and he realized when he woke up that this was a place of G-d, and G-d had promised him that He would be with him, and when he woke up he took the rock that he had put under his head and he erected it as a monument and he poured oil over that monument, and he also promised that he would give 10% of what he made to G-d.
The second time we learn about a stone is when Jacob comes to Mesopotamia, and when he comes to Mesopotamia he comes to the well and he finds that there are some shepherds that are surrounding the well.  They are waiting until all the shepherds would come so they could roll the stone from the mouth of that well. While they were still talking, Rachel came and when Rachel came Jacob saw her and it was love at first sight.  What did he do even before talking to her?  He rolled off the rock from the mouth of the well.  Then it says that he gave drink to the sheep of Laban, the brother of his mother, and then Jacob kissed Rachel and the rest, of course, we all know, how he worked for her for 7 years, was tricked, and then had to work another 7 years.
 
In this image of rolling off the stone from the well we have not only a concern for supplying the physical needs of the sheep, but also this is a metaphor because water stands for Torah, stands for care, stands for concern, that Jacob, because he loved Rachel, showed her great care and concern.
The third time we learn about a rock is when we learn how after Laban had changed Jacob's salary many, many times, how he had tried to swindle Jacob even though Laban, himself, knew that his prosperity came because of Jacob, Jacob finally, after 12 children were born, 11 boys and one girl, decided with the consent of his wives to leave, and when Laban went to shear his
sheep at a faraway place, Jacob fled and he wanted to go back to the land of Israel, but Laban pursued him and overtook him near the borders of Israel. G-d had appeared to him before and G-d had told him not to harm Jacob so they set up a treaty between them and they sealed that treaty by erecting stones, by gathering together stones and making a Gal, a heap of stone, and there they sealed the pact, and, as always happens in Jewish history, countries persecute us but they also do not want to let us go.  Russia had a phrase, "Smite the Jew and save Russia," but, yet, at the same time, under the communists they would not let us go and it was only lately that Gorbachev allowed the Jewish people to go.  Anti-semitism is raising its head in Russia again. Of course, we here cannot say too much about it, because look at our state next door where you have a man running as a Republican candidate for governor. Anti-semitism, unfortunately, is rampant in the United States, too.  What did this rock symbolize?  It symbolized a sense of responsibility. Laban pretended that he only pursued Jacob because of his great love for his daughter and grandchildren and he made Jacob swear that he would not harm them, etc. We see from this that there are stones which dominate this Torah portion, one in the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end.
 
The rabbis also say that there is another occurrences in this Torah portion which is repeated, and that is when Jacob leaves Israel, he has an image of angels ascending and angels descending, and when he comes back to Israel it says, "And Jacob went to his way and he counted the angels of G-d".  In other words, the angels of G-d came up to meet Jacob as he was reentering Israel.  The rabbis ask, why when he left Israel the angels did not come to greet him, but when he reentered the angels came to greet him?  The answer they give is because
he came with a family.  He left alone but when he came back to Israel he came with a family, and the rabbis say that the only reason he was able to endure
the Galos, the exile, the only way he was able to endure the trickery of Laban and the hardships and the persecution and the hounding was because he had a family and that it was only thanks to his family that he was able to make it back to the land of Israel.  The rabbis tell us that these 3 stones that we learned about are really the bedrock upon which we have to base any type of family, that unless you have the 3 concepts that these stones embody you will not be able to have a successful family, and without a successful family the Jewish people cannot endure in exile.  They will not be able to make it long enough to return to the land of Israel.  The first stone that he put under his head stands for his dreams.  Jacob had to have values and goals that were compatible with family.  He had to be willing to share what he had with others and especially with his family, that unless you have a family that has correct values and correct goals they cannot endure.  Therefore, it teaches us that Jacob has these values even before he met Rachel because it was because of these values that he and Rachel shared that they were able to overcome the problems that came their way.
That is why, too, it says that he took the same rock that was under his head and he made it into a monument and said he was going to give 10% of what he made to G-d, which meant to other people to help them exist, to the poor and
 
the helpless, etc.  A family must be based on the values of giving and caring concern.  The second stone represents being there.  When Jacob removed the stone from the well it meant that he was there for Rachel.  It meant that he would always be there for his family, that when they needed him he would be there.  Unfortunately, today especially because of the spread of the philosophy that I have to do my thing, people are not there for their families.  Many times parents do not want to raise their children.  When a baby is only a few weeks old mothers put them in a childcare center and decide that they have to do their thing, and fathers never see their children, and even after they are divorced they waive custody rights and, of course, most of the divorces today are absolutely unnecessary.  They never visit their child.  The mother is lucky to get a check, but children need parents who are there for them. Children need parents who have the right values, who have dreams of angels ascending and descending, of parents who through their example show them how to relate to other people by giving and caring, and they have to be there.
They have to physically be there.  Jacob could not have a relationship with Rachel until he proved that he would be there, that he would uncover the hard rocks of life, that he would be a source of comfort and care and concern for Rachel.
The third rock, of course, stands for responsibility.  Finally Laban was willing to acknowledge his responsibility to Yaacov.  He was going to be straight with him.  You cannot have a family unless you are responsible.  You cannot tell your kids one thing and do another, as Laban had been doing up to this time to Jacob.  You have to be straight with people.  You have to keep your word. You have to make sure that your family has enough to eat.  You have to be there for them, as we said before, and you also have to be responsible.  You have
to especially do what you say.  Children learn responsibility not from a parents words but from what he does.
 
In this week's Torah portion, too, we learn about baby naming.  In fact, it is very good to name a baby on this Torah portion because in this Torah portion we learn how 11 sons of Jacob and his one daughter were named, and it gives the reasons for their names.  One son of Jacob was born later in the land of Israel, Benjamin.  The first four sons of Leah were Reuven, Shimon, Levi, and Yehuda.  The rabbis say that the first letters of these names spell the word Israel.  In order to be a Jew, the rabbis say, you have to have these qualities. You have to be able to see the other person, to sympathize and empathize with them, but that is not even enough because sometimes people put on a front. You also have to hear them.  You have to understand what he really means. It is not enough to see the needs of others and understand the needs of others, but you also have to be willing to help.  You have to Levi, to accompany them. You also have to praise G-d.  You also have to thank G-d for giving you the means to help other people.  G-d helps those who help themselves, and G-d helps those who help others, too.  When we name our children, when we want them to be good Jews, we have to remember that we have to set them a good example. Children only learn when they come from a good family.  Children only learn when the values of the family are the values that we have always prized, the values of helping and concern and care, the values of being there, the values of responsibility.  When the family has these values then the children almost always turn out right.  I can tell you from teaching Hebrew school for over 40 years that the children today are not the same children of 40 years ago, 30 years ago, or 20 years ago because they do not come from the same kind of families.  Families today do not consider the family, itself, the most important value.  They do not consider any more being there, being responsible, having values of sharing yourself with the community and with others as particularly important.  Because of that, the Jewish family is disintegrating and many of them will not be able to endure the exile and will assimilate.  Let us always
 
hope and pray that our babies are being named throughout the year will always be raised in good families who will recognize the importance of positive, caring values, who always realize that they have to be there, and who always realize that they have to be responsible.  If they will, they can rest assured that their children will grow up into upright, kind, compassionate, loving Jews.
I am reminded of the story they tell about two siblings who were talking together. One of them said, "You know, Daddy just said that the new baby who is coming home cost $3,000".  The other said, "That much?"  The other said, "Oh, it's not really so much.  Look at how long they last."  Let us all hope and pray that the Jewish family will last so that truly we will be able to live lives filled with correct values so the Mashiach will come quickly in our day.  Amen.