 Rabbi Wein continues to apply the lessons from this week's parasha to our turbulent world today, to give us strength and comfort to go on.
Our father Yaakov lives in a very violent
and dangerous world. Escaping from Lavan and his treacheries, he falls
into a wrestling match with an angel and an actual encounter with
Eisav, who apparently is determined to kill him. Extricating himself
from these difficulties, bruised, wounded and slightly poorer
materially for the events, Yaakov then suffers the tragedy of his
daughter Dina being kidnapped and assaulted and the resultant war that
his sons, led by Shimon and Levi, conduct against the leaders and
citizens of Shechem.
Yaakov is appalled by the violence
perpetrated by his sons but is apparently powerless to limit it. Even
on his deathbed he will reprimand Shimon and Levi for their violent
nature and behavior. This parsha therefore turns into a litany of
tragedies and untoward events that befall Yaakov. I have always felt
that when Yaakov told the Pharaoh that “my years have been few and bad”
he was referring to this week’s parsha and its events.
It
certainly seems that any assessment of Yaakov’s life, based on the
events of this week’s parsha, must certainly be a bleak one, full of
shade with very little light shining through. Yet in the assessment of
Jewish history and rabbinic tradition, Yaakov’s life is seen as a
triumph and success. He is the one who takes a family and builds it
into a nation. He takes thirteen disparate children, each one with a
distinct personality and differing goals and welds them into the people
of Israel. He imbues them with the belief of monotheism, good purpose
and probative behavior, in spite of their living in a world of paganism
and dissolute behavior.
Yaakov is strengthened in his belief
by the promises made to him by God many years earlier in his life,
before he embarked on his fateful journey to Aram. He never questioned
the validity of God’s support of him, of his eventual salvation and
survival, no matter how difficult the circumstances. In this he is the
paradigm of all future Jewish existence that mimics his life and
circumstances.
Jewish life and events can be characterized as
always being one of “out of the fire into the frying pan.” There never
seems to be a letup, a respite from the challenges and dangers that
constantly arise. Yet we Jews are constantly aware of God’s promise
that He will never completely forsake us and that within us is the
ability of being an eternal and constantly renewed people.
Being
a loyal and Torah abiding Jew can create within each of us a sense of
serenity and harmony. However, as a nation and people, such a pleasant
passage through the waters of human history is unlikely. It is natural
for us to wish that this would somehow be otherwise. But the events of
the life of Yaakov stare us in the face. They chart our course in life
as well. Faith in God and the will to persevere under all circumstances
define our goals and hopes in this difficult world in which we live.
For, after all, we are all the children of Yaakov.
Shabat shalom.
Rabbi Berel Wein
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The Weekly Parasha 
