Something that occurred to me during this morning’s discussion of Parshah Vay’etze (Gen 28:10 � 32:3) was that when Jacob has fled his house, running away from a home he has essentially demolished by deceit and extortion, leaving behind him not only the inheritance he tricked his way into but everything he has ever owned, he sleeps in the desert, with a rock for a pillow. The Lord gives him a vision that night and says...
Well, if you didn’t know what the Lord said, what would you expect the Lord to have said. For that matter, what would you have said to Jacob that night, if you appeared to him in some mutual vision?
I think I probably would have said something like “Go home, Jacob! Apologize to your father and your brother, and work to make peace in the household. Try to deserve the blessing you stole. Become a good steward for the house, and take care of your blind father, and be a comfort to your mother, and a friend to your brother.” Right?
No, the Lord in his infinite wisdom just gives Jacob the land, and assures him that the Lord will always be with him, wherever he goes, no matter what.
Unconditional.
Jacob, in return, is as conditional as can be, saying “If the Lord will keep me and stay with me...”, just after the Lord says that’s what he will do. Jacob doesn’t trust the Lord, as a fellow projects his own behavior on others. The Lord, however, just reaffirms his covenant, not with the most deserving, the most pious, or the most XXX, but with the son of the son of Abraham.
One nice thing, though, is that Jacob says “So that I come to my father’s house in peace,” (Gen 28:21), which at least shows some sort of awareness that he has left it without peace, and that he ultimately is responsible for returning to it, and fixing it. On the other hand, by the time he actually does return to his father’s house, it is the everlasting peace of death that has settled on it. And Jacob himself never knows the shalom habayit that the Rabbis cherish, without much in the way of role models. Still, I get the impression that when Jacob wrestles with his better angels, he tends to win two of three.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.