A Bold Exegetical Gambit
Nov 2, 1995 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayetzei
Why does Jacob abandon the security of his parents home in Beer-sheba?
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Jealousy for the Right Reasons
Nov 11, 2010 By Abigail Treu | Commentary | Text Study | Vayetzei
When I struggled with infertility, the jealousy of our barren matriarchs was a great comfort.
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Behind God’s Names
Nov 20, 1993 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayetzei
Judaism is a wellspring that emits an endless profusion of names for God. The Bible contains some 70; rabbinic literature adds another 90 or more and no one as yet has bothered to tally the number added by Jewish mystics. As Gershom Scholem wrote more than a half-century ago: “In the last resort, the whole of the Torah [for the author of the Zohar] is nothing but the one great and holy Name of God.” The layers of names bespeak an unbroken dialogue driven by love and mystery.
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Between Rachel and Jeremiah
Nov 24, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayetzei
According to our parashah, the world turns on the principle of measure for measure. Our misdeeds are repaid in kind. A noble end can never be justified by ignoble means. The deception that Jacob worked on his sightless father to strip his older brother of the blessing and status of the first–born son is now wrought on him by his uncle. In Laban, Jacob has met his match; if anything, a rival who exceeds him in gall and cunning.
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The Morality of Wealth
Nov 23, 1996 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayetzei
It is well known that the New Testament evinces a strong aversion to personal wealth. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus declaims, “You cannot serve God and Money (Matthew 6:24).” Elsewhere he counsels a moral man of great means, “There is still one thing lacking: sell everything you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have riches in heaven (Luke 18:22).” When the man demurs, Jesus lets fly with a retort that has hurtled through the ages: “How hard it is for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Luke 18:24-25).”
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The Importance of Educating Our Children
Dec 6, 1997 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayetzei
When Abraham instructed his servant Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac back in the old country, and only there, he stipulated twice that Isaac himself was never to return. He was to stay in Canaan, but not to marry any of its native women. Yet a generation later, we find caution thrown to the winds. Jacob retraces his grandfather’s steps to Paddan-aram, from where he hailed.
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Finding Comfort in Exile
Nov 20, 1999 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayetzei
I spent my birthday this month on business for the Leo Baeck Institute (devoted to the study of German-speaking Jewry) in Germany, where I had been born as the curtain came down on German Jewry. If Hitler had not seized power, how differently would my life have unfolded. To leave the place we were born (even in flight) does not end its influence on our lives. While I don’t believe that birth is destiny, our birthplace is often a crucial factor in shaping who we are. In 1910 at age 23, Marc Chagall arrived in Paris to stay for four transformative years. “I brought my objects with me from Russia,” he later reflected. “Paris shed its light on them.” In truth, Vitebsk never left Chagall. How much of my own life have I expended in recovering and appreciating the world of my ancestors!
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Jacob’s Prayer for Lasting Peace
Dec 9, 2000 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Vayetzei
My grandchildren call their grandparents “Sabba” and “Savta.” These ancient Aramaic words for grandfather and grandmother are firmly ensconced in the vocabulary of contemporary Hebrew. Like “Abba” and “Imma” (the Hebrew words for father and mother), they are terms of address and endearment. They ring with love and intimacy. But they also connect us to something far beyond our family circle. They bind us to the State of Israel, where the language is Hebrew, and to the history of the Jewish people, whose literary, if not spoken language was always Hebrew. To make use of such linguistic fragments in our personal lives locates us in a cultural context and continuum that resonates with deep meaning.
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