This week’s Torah portion: “The parshah tells of Jacob’s travels to, life in, and return from Haran. The parshah recounts Jacob’s dream of a ladder to heaven, Jacob’s meeting of Rachel at the well, Jacob’s time working for Laban and living with Rachel and Leah, the birth of Jacob’s children, and the departure of Jacob’s family from Laban.”
Here are my notes for my Monday 7pm PST discussion with Rabbi Rabbs:
* According to the Artscroll Stone chumash on Gen. 28:10-16: “Before going to Haran, Jacob spent fourteen years at the academy of Shem and Eber… R. Yaakov Kamenetsky explained that the first sixty-three years of his life he studied Torah with his father, in an atmosphere insulated from the corruption of Canaan. Now he would be living in Haran, among people who were Laban’s comrades in dishonesty. To survive spiritually in such an environment, he needed the Torah of Shem and Eber, for they too had been forced to cope with corrosive surroundings.”
* Gen. 28:16: Jacob says, “Surely God is in this place and I didn’t know it.” How often has that happened to you?
* Gen. 29:21 AS: “Jacob’s expression and I will consort with her would have been vulgar in a lesser person. Jacob’s only intent was that he was already eighty-four years old and he had to begin his mission of bringing the twelve tribes into the world. His concern was to serve God, not physical pleasure. (Rashi)”
I wonder if I could get away with such a line?
* Gen. 30:38 AS: “When husband and wife unite, they must purge their minds of all impure thoughts and every element which is foreign or which concerns third parties. The degree of their moral and spiritual purity will affect the souls of their children.”
* Have you tried to make a deal with God just a Jacob does? Do you expect God to do anything for you in exchange for keeping the commandments?
* Do you regard Jewish law as more of a gift or a burden?
* Why didn’t Jacob realize he’d spent the night with Leah, not Rachel?
* Gen. 30:2 Jacob’s response to Rachel legit? The offspring of the righteous is good deeds. Every man is barren.
* Rachel is insecure. If she can’t have kids, she wants to die. She has Jacob inseminate her maid so she can keep up in the baby race. Rachel has a low level of differentiation (the ability to hold on to yourself while staying in relationship to others, as elaborated in the book Passionate Marriage)
* Gen. 31:1: Jacob accused of getting rich at the expense of others.
* Why did Rachel steal her father’s idols? To wean her dad from idol worship (Rashi)?
* From Facebook.com/RabbiRabbs: No wife, no sex, no money, and now with no surfing until next summer, no motivation for staying alive.
I can’t fly solo on Shabbos anymore, and I’m beyond done with waking up alone even during the rest of the week.
