{"id":44101,"date":"2018-11-16T08:13:57","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T06:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=44101"},"modified":"2022-03-20T09:24:10","modified_gmt":"2022-03-20T07:24:10","slug":"jacob-finds-comfort-outside-his-comfort-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/jacob-finds-comfort-outside-his-comfort-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacob Finds Comfort Outside His Comfort Zone"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There is an old joke about how when a\u00a0 rabbi leaves her or his position at a synagogue, friends ask was it vayetze<\/em> (“he went out”) or \u201cvayishlach<\/em>\u201d (“he was sent out”).\u00a0 Whether a person is fired or resigns, goes willingly or not makes a big difference to the meaning of the story and how it is told.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is a profound lesson behind this joke: how do we see what happens to us in life?\u00a0 Do we have agency or not?\u00a0 How much control do we really have over our lives?<\/p>\n

What I find amazing about this parasha is that the exiled Jacob finds connection.\u00a0 As soon as he leaves Beer Sheva to go towards Haran (28: 10) he \u201calights upon\u201d a place (28:11).\u00a0 The verb used, \u201cvayifga<\/em>\u201d is an unusual one , used\u00a0 here\u00a0 and again at the end of the parasha, when angels encounter him upon his return after 20 long years (32:2).\u00a0 The root of the word p-g-‘<\/em>\u00a0can mean \u201cmeet or encounter\u201d \u201crequest\u201d and also “injure,” as in the modern Hebrew \u201cpigu’a<\/em>\u201d for a terrorist attack.\u00a0 Thus there is a sense that for Jacob, an innocent man, a tent dweller (25:27), danger is present in encountering the world, leaving his most comfortable way to exist.\u00a0 Yet he is compelled to go, whether or not it is his desire or plan.<\/p>\n

But as he leaves, he begins to change from the simple and perhaps na\u00efve Jacob he once was. The Talmud teaches that the meaning of \u201cvayifga bamakom<\/em>,\u201d is that \u201che encountered the Place,\u201d as \u201cmakom<\/em>\u201d is one of the many names for God, and that this is Jacob\u2019s creation of the evening prayer. The important thing here is that adrift and away from home as he is, Jacob finds a way to connect, first with God and then with his newfound relatives.<\/p>\n

And once he prays, he dreams, and a new level of connection becomes apparent: his vision of a ladder with angels of God ascending and descending.\u00a0 God speaks to him from the ladder and assures him that He will be with him. Jacob acknowledges this divine apparition by saying \u201cGod was in this place and I, \u00a0I did not know it\u201d and \u201chow fearful (nora<\/em>) is this place” (28:16-17) the same word we use in Hebrew for the High Holydays, yamim nora’im<\/em>. Prepared or not, willing or not, awake or asleep or suspended in a state that is neither one nor the other, Jacob experiences divine revelation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This sense of connection to the divine and the protection and comfort it enables continues as this portion is the only one in the Torah to be bookended by the appearance of angels (28:12 and 32:2). Despite the difficulties he has encountered being exiled from home before the parasha opens, and dealing with the conniving ways of his father-in-law Laban throughout these chapters until he finally makes his escape, Jacob has a firm understanding that he is under angelic and divine protection.<\/p>\n

Those of us who have encountered difficult situations that we could not have imagined or did not plan on (pretty much all of us at one time or another) need to be like Jacob and find comfort in our encounters with the world, the Place, and the angels who can be at work in it. Even when we don\u2019t know it, or don\u2019t understand it as Jacob does not immediately, somehow God is in this Place. Or the Place is God.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t understand but neither does Jacob.\u00a0 Yet he still prays and encounters both angels and humans.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Beth Kissileff is married to Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of New Light Synagogue in Pittsburgh.\u00a0 Visit her online at\u00a0www.bethkissileff.com<\/a>. \u00a0<\/p>\n","image":{"ID":102502,"id":102502,"title":"-621ceb3194105--621ceb3194107gen18-angel wings.png","filename":"621ceb3194105-621ceb3194107gen18-angel-wings.png.png","filesize":0,"url":"https:\/\/cetwpuploads.blob.core.windows.net\/wp929\/uploads\/2018\/08\/621ceb3194105-621ceb3194107gen18-angel-wings.png.png","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/behold-there-were-three\/621ceb3194105-621ceb3194107gen18-angel-wings-png\/","alt":"","author":"7","description":"","caption":"","name":"621ceb3194105-621ceb3194107gen18-angel-wings-png","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":36987,"date":"2022-02-28 15:33:05","modified":"2022-11-29 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