Parshat Vayetze: Genesis 28:10 -32:3 By: Rabbi Denise L. Eger

Life is rarely smooth sailing. For most of us, life is a series of fits and stops, detours and back steps. There are many people however that still hold on to the fantasy that the “pursuit of happiness” will be a simple forward motion. That getting to point B will is just a matter of logic. This may work in geometry or higher mathematics. But not in the real world. Life is always more complex than that.

This week’s parasha, Vayetze is filled with many examples that life has many ups and downs and twists and turns. Our patriarch Jacob already fleeing from the wrath of his brother, Esau returns to the homeland of his mother, Rebekah. There he is taken in by his extended family. Rebekah’s brother Laban welcomes Jacob with these words, “You are truly my bone and flesh” (Gen. 29:14).

That seemed so simple and yet as our story unfolds the twists and turns of Jacobs’s life become apparent. He falls in love with his cousin Rachel and asks to work in return for marrying her. And so he works seven years but on his wedding day, his uncle Laban switches brides. Behind the wedding veil is Leah, Rachel’s older sister. Thus a Jacob had tricked his brother, Esau and his father Isaac in last week’s portion, Toledot—he is now deceived in a Divine irony.

Jacob must work an additional seven years for Rachel hand. And he does. Each sister brings to the marriage a maidservant, Zilpah and Bilhah. And thus Jacob who wanted to marry Rachel now has in essence four wives and he has children with all of them.

So much for a “traditional” view of marriage. This week’s portion is a prime example of how the Bible continues to be misread often by evangelical Christians. They ignore the simple evidence that marriage has meant many different things in many different times.

In our Torah portion this week—Jacob the patriarch definitely has his hands full and when he came to his uncle’s home, with nothing now has his own household to contend with. But there are more fits and stops along Jacob’s path in this week’s parasha. As he establishes his own household within Laban’s clan, God takes pity upon Leah and she bears children while Rachel is barren. This brings pain to Rachel and she encourages Jacob to have children with her maidservant, Bilhah, which he does. Jacob has more children with both Leah and her maidservant, Zilpah although Jacob and Rachel long to have their own children.

It is only later in life that Rachel and Jacob finally have Joseph and later Benjamin. Benjamin’s birth was so difficult that Rachel dies in childbirth. And so even though Jacob and Rachel longed to have their own children it would only be later in their lives and Rachel would never live to see their children grown.

Thus Jacob’s story this week reminds us that even as we towards our goals in life—to find a spouse, to have children, to get a degree or attain a skill, to live well, to keep our health, whatever your dreams really are, we must come to recognize that the plans we have must have a plan to make those dreams real. But along the way—it might not go exactly as we planned. Jacob and his wife, Rachel learned this.

Perhaps we can learn from their example.

Posted by Jimmy at December 3, 2008 09:32 AM