Vayeishev 5772

Following decades of adventure, “Jacob now settled in the land of his father’s sojourning, in the land of Canaan.  This is the family history of Jacob… ” (Genesis 37:1-2).  From such an opening, we might have expected this week’s parashah, Vayeishev, to continue with Jacob’s story.  Instead, the drama shifts sharply to his sons, especially Joseph:  “This is the family history of Jacob: when Joseph was seventeen years old, he would tend the flock alongside his brothers.”  The focus is now squarely on the next generation.

Within the context of the Torah, it is good that Jacob has returned to Canaan, the land where his father and grandfather, Isaac and Abraham, lived, the land promised to him.  Can it have another meaning, too?  We could also imagine that Jacob is now settling into the life his father lived, the life his father wanted him to live, rather than his own?  That’s what Isaac did when he was young man--he re-opened his father’s water wells rather than create his own.  Perhaps this is why the narrative of Jacob’s life is now, largely, over:  he is no longer pursuing his own adventure.

When we live the lives our parents establish for us, we are not truly living our own lives.  Rather we are merely treading water, killing time until the next story can begin.  When we seek to determine the path of our children’s lives, we deny them the opportunity to create themselves, to figure out who they are in the world.

“’Be who you are, ‘ said the Duchess to Alice, ‘or, if you would like it put more simply, never try to be what you might have been or could have been other than what you should have been.’”

Vayishlach 5772

Jacob wronged his brother, and fled their home.  Many years later, he returns and they are reunited.  Although Jacob feared retribution, instead, “Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck and kissed him.  And they burst into tears” (Genesis 33:4).

Esau is impressed with Jacob’s sizeable family and worldly goods.  He invites his twin to return to the homestead, and offers to accompany him.  Despite the warm reception, Jacob won’t have it. 

Rather than decline the invitation, however, Jacob tells his brother that the young children can’t move as quickly as Esau’s retinue of men.  He insists that he’ll follow at his own, slower, pace and that the big, happy family will be one once again.  Esau offers to leave some of his men behind to guard the fledglings, but Jacob once again declines.  Instead of joining his brother, Jacob and his clan set off for another locale, Succoth.  He was merely feigning to follow.  We do not know whether Jacob remains afraid of his brother, or if he just wants to go his own way.  He never says.

What would this world be like if we could each say what we meant?  What would happen if we expressed our needs to one other, rather than pretending?