Shabbat Shalom Weekly
Torah Portion: Vayishlach
In War There Are No Winners
by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis
Rashi, as always, gives a masterful explanation. He explains, Yaakov was afraid lest he be killed and he was distressed lest he be forced to kill. It was Yaakov who realized that in war, there are no winners. Either your life is taken or for the rest of your life you have blood on your hands.
And so it is in every form of conflict, including domestic and communal conflict. Even when one is fighting lesheim shamayim, for the sake of heaven, there will always be pieces to pick up. There will be matters that one will regret.
Let us recall how even when facing a war which was inevitable and which he had to engage in, Yaakov was ever conscious of the destructive nature of conflict.
Let us always strive to love peace and to pursue it.
Now Versus the Future
by Rabbi Yehonasan Gefen
Bereishit, 32:5-6: “And he [Yaakov] commanded them [the Angels], saying, ‘so shall you say to my Master, to Esav, so said your servant, Yaakov, ‘I sojourned with Lavan, and I delayed until now. And there is to me an ox and donkey…”
Rashi, 32:5. Dh: Garti: “I was not made a prince or important person, rather a stranger, it is not worth it for you to hate me because of the blessing that your father gave me – ‘you shall rule over your brother’ – because it was not fulfilled in me’.”
Rashi, 32:6: Dh: Veyehi li: “Father said to me, ‘from the dew of the Heavens and from the fat of the land’, but [my property] is not from the heavens or from the land.”
This week’s Torah portion begins with the build up to the confrontation between Yaakov and Esav. Yaakov attempts to appease his angry brother by sending him gifts and appeasing messages. He explains that there is no reason for Esav to be jealous of the blessings that Yaakov ‘stole’ from him, because they were not in fact fulfilled: The blessing included great status and fame, and yet Yaakov points out that he has been a mere stranger in a foreign land for the past several years.
Likewise, the blessing promised the bounty of the ‘heavens’ and ‘earth’, yet Yaakov points out that he only has cattle and property, but nothing from the ‘heavens’ and ‘earth’. Accordingly, Yaakov argues, there is no reason for Esav’s anger with him.
Two significant difficulties arise. Firstly, as Rabbi Moshe Feinstein1 points out, it sounds like Yaakov is denying the veracity of the blessings – how can he possibly believe or communicate that the Divine blessings he received are meaningless? Secondly, it is obvious that blessings are not immediately fulfilled – for example, the blessings to the Patriarchs about receiving the land of Israel took hundreds of years to come to fruition. Consequently, why should the fact that Yaakov had not yet received the full benefit of the blessings of such significance?
The key to answering both these questions is to understand that Esav viewed the world in a fundamentally different way from Yaakov.2 Esav lived in the now, expecting immediate reward and satisfaction. He was not interested in long-term results, he wanted everything right now. This is borne out by his very name, Esav: this means that he was born ready-made. There was no process of growth to something greater – from birth he was complete. Yaakov, on the other hand, is named after the heel, ‘eikev’ – alluding to the fact that starts at the bottom and has to patiently work his way up. It is also evident that Yaakov was well aware of his brother’s short-term approach.
In Toldot in the incident of the sale of the birthright, Yaakov tells his brother; “sell to me like the day (ka’yom’) your birthright.”3 The words, ‘ka’yom’ in this request seem superfluous – what was Yaakov adding with these words? The Seforno4 explains that Yaakov was hinting to Esav that he lives for the day to the extent that he is so hungry that he can’t even tell the difference between a bowl of soup and the color red. Consequently, Yaakov was telling Esav that there is no doubt that he would not be able to perform the function of the first-born – that is a position that requires long-term service of God – yet you are focused on the here and now. Indeed, Esav agreed with this assessment and rejected the long-term prospect of the birthright for the immediate gratification of the lentil soup.
We can now answer the two questions above – how could Yaakov seemingly deny the validity of the blessings, and the fact that they had not come to fruition yet was no indication that they wouldn’t be actualized at some point in the future. The answer is that Yaakov knew very well that the blessings would indeed be fulfilled, and he was willing to wait. However, when he was speaking to Esav he was speaking according to Esav’s worldview. In that vision, Esav expects immediate results – he has no interest in the ‘long haul’. Therefore, when Esav sees that Yaakov has not received these blessings in the past several years, then the blessings seize to be of use to an Esav.
Esav’s attitude is the general approach of virtually all wicked people. They always look at the short-term benefits versus the long-term gain. In a spiritual sense, that means that they effectively trade long-term benefit for transitory pleasure – this world for the next world. But this does not only apply to the wicked — when people are faced with the dilemma of choosing the pleasure of the moment or choosing the long-term view at the cost of deferring instant gratification, people that don’t possess a sense of spirituality will chose the now, and in the long-term they will lose out.
In contrast, success in the spiritual realm (and almost always in the physical realm as well) requires considering the long-term effect of our decisions, even if in the short-term, the results do not seem so desirable. In this vein, Rabbu Yissachar Frand relates the following story – in his words:
I heard that Rabbi Moshe Soloveitchik, who was a Rabbi in Zurich Switzerland many years ago, was once counselling a couple who were having marital problems. The husband came to Rav Soloveitchik and said “My wife is making a mistake. She just isn’t right! We can’t come to terms.” Rav Soloveitchik responded, “Maybe your wife is not right. But if you have Shalom and the house is tranquil then your children and grandchildren will grow up in such an environment and will be different people – much better people!
Take the long view of life. The view of a Jew is always the long-term view. “Granted, your wife may be wrong in this argument. But if you take the long view of things and consider the effects of long-term Shalom Bayit (marital harmony), it is far more important than the short-term victory over your wife in proclaiming ‘I was right!’” The whole point of being a Jew is that we are not into it for instant gratification, or just for the here and now. We are in it for the future as well. Therefore, he advised this congregant to give in to his wife, because in the long run, it will be for the best.
This is the difference between Esav and Yaakov — may we merit to emulate our ancestor and consider the long-term future as well as the here and now.
- Darash Moshe, Bereishit, 25:31. See there for his answer – a different answer is given here.
- This answer is based on the words of Rabbi Yissachar Frand.
- Bereishit, 25:31.
- Seforno, Bereshit, 25:31, dh: Michra kayom
Don’t Waste — Appreciate
by Nesanel Yoel Safran
Everything we have — including all of the world’s resources like water and oil — are gifts from God that we should appreciate and not waste, even if we have more than we need. We learn in this week’s Torah portion how even though our forefather Jacob was a wealthy man, when he was moving his tents and realized he had left behind a small almost worthless pitcher, he took the trouble of going back to get it rather than letting it go to waste. We learn from here to appreciate and not waste all the good that we have.
In our story, a girl gets a first-hand taste why we shouldn’t waste.
“Hey, are you just going to throw all that out?” asked Jenny, noticing the kid next to her about to dump her barely touched school lunch into the garbage.
“Why not? What else am I supposed to do with it?” the kid shrugged, as she spilled out her tray and walked off.
Jenny sighed. She probably would have said the same thing as that kid last year. She never used to think twice about wasting things or taking more than she needed and then just dump it. But something happened the past summer at camp that made her see things a little differently.
She had been sitting with her friends in the camp dining hall back then…
“Hey guys, check this out! It’s the leaning tower of — pizza!” Jenny said, pointing proudly at her latest food-mess creation. At this camp they would just put out trays of food and let the kids eat as much as they wanted. The food wasn’t that great, so nobody really ate that much of it, but Jenny liked to take some extra and use her creativity to design messy ‘food sculptures’ to give her friends a laugh.
The kids were still cracking up when Mrs. Lang, the clean-up lady, walked by. “What a shame, wasting so much good, edible food like that,” she scolded. The kids tried to ignore her but she continued. “If you don’t want something, just don’t take it. Why waste it like that so nobody else can have it?”
By now the kids were quiet, except for the occasional giggle that would burst out from their lips. After another minute, the woman walked off, not saying a word, and shaking her head.
“I don’t know what’s her big problem.” said Laura. “The camp gives us plenty of food. What does it matter what we do with it?”
“Yeah,” Jenny added. “They just throw it out anyway. Why not have some fun with it first?”
After a few more quips, the kids moved on to the next topic – the cool boat trip some of them would be taking the next day. They were going to be leaving at the crack of dawn to watch the beautiful sunrise over the nearby lake.
The next morning when Jenny popped out of bed, it was still dark outside. She quietly got dressed and walked down the path to where they were supposed to meet. As she was going past the camp parking lot, she suddenly heard a noise. She ducked behind a tree and didn’t make a sound. Maybe it was a wild animal or something!
She heard another noise, and peeked out to see a person carrying a really big box. Apparently Jenny wasn’t hiding as well as she thought because the woman looked right at her and said, “Would you mind helping me with this for a minute, dear?”
Jenny recognized the voice right away — it was Mrs. Lang!
Relieved that it wasn’t a burglar or a bear, Jenny went over to her and helped her lift the big box, which turned out to packed full with leftover camp food, into the trunk of her car.
“Maybe you’re wondering what I’m planning to do with all this?” she asked.
Jenny nodded curiously.
“I try to keep it secret, but since you saw me and helped me, I’ll let you in on it. Down the road there’s a special camp for orphans and poor kids from broken homes. I have two nephews in that camp. Of course none of the kids can pay any tuition, so the camp is pretty broke. Mr. Roth, the owner of our camp, kindly lets me bring them any leftover food from our meals. I do it early so those kids don’t know about it and feel embarrassed eating other people’s leftovers. This isn’t a lot of food for so many kids, but usually there’s enough for them to get by, that is,” she looked Jenny in the eye, “that is as long as our campers, who are fortunate enough to get more food than they need, don’t just play around with it and waste it all.”
Without saying another word, the woman closed her trunk and drove off.
That next day, no matter how much her friends would tease or coax, Jenny just couldn’t bring her self to make her usual food-mess sculpture. After all, how could she just goof around with the food, knowing she was probably taking it out of some orphan’s mouth?
Ever since that day, Jenny had been really careful not to waste food or other things either. Somehow she felt like they were God’s presents to her and not something to waste. Maybe someday she would think of a way to help make sure everybody had enough food and everything else they needed, but at least until then, she could make sure to appreciate and not waste the things God had given her.
Discussion Questions
Ages 3-5
Q. How did Jenny feel at first about wasting food?
A. She felt as long as she had a lot, it was okay to waste it.
Q. How did she feel in the end?
A. She felt a lot of appreciation for what she had and felt it would be wrong to waste it.
Ages 6-9
Q. What lesson do you think Jenny learned from what happened to her?
A. She had never given much thought to the idea that she was fortunate to have things that others didn’t. Because of this, she wasn’t at all careful about wasting. Once she saw how other kids were depending on food she was just playing around with, she became much more grateful and careful.
Q. If Jenny’s camp was actually throwing out the food, would there have been anything wrong with the kids wasting it then? Why or why not?
A. True, the food would be going to waste anyhow, but purposefully or carelessly wasting it still wouldn’t be right. One of the main reasons we are in this world is to develop ourselves into caring and appreciative people. Being grateful for and careful with the things God has given us brings us closer to this goal. Wasting, even when it would seem not to make a difference, brings us further away.
Spiritual exercise: Try to find and apply one way to not waste resources today.
Ages 10 and Up
Q. Does the value of not wasting the world’s resources mean that we should try to avoid using any of them as much as possible? Why or why not?
A. There is nothing wrong with using the world’s resources to live normal and happy lives. God, in fact, wants us to partake of and enjoy the world that He made, and according to the mystics when we use the world’s resources with moderation and good intentions, we are actually ‘helping’ the things we use in a spiritual way. However, while it’s fine to use what we need, we should be careful not to use more than we need. Wasting, either purposefully or through carelessness, isn’t using God’s gift of the world, but abusing it.
Q. How does the way we relate to our property reflect upon the way we relate to God?
A. If someone receives a gift from someone else, and if he takes good care of it, it is a sign of respect and appreciation for the giver. If he carelessly wastes or ruins it, it is a sign of disrespect. (Sort of like choosing to frame the needlepoint tapestry Aunt Millie made for you and put it on the wall above your bed versus using it to line the birdcage.) When we realize that everything we have and every resource of the world is actually a gift from God, it becomes clear that the way we use them demonstrates our respect and appreciation for Him or the opposite.
Spiritual exercise: Try to find one way to not waste resources today.
Quote of the Week
“Whoever saves a single life is to be considered as if he saved the entire world” — Talmud Sanhedrin 4:5
Joke of the Week
Leah gives 25 cents to her daughter Sarah. The little girl goes outside and returns ten minutes later without the coin. Wondering what she has done with the money, Leah asks, “Where is the quarter I gave you, my darling?”
“I gave it to an old lady,” says Sarah.
“Oh, I’m so proud of you Sarah. That’s a very important mitzvah you did. Tomorrow I am going to give you a dollar.”
Sure enough, the next day, Leah gives Sarah a whole dollar and she returns a little while later without the bill.
“What did you do with the dollar today Sarah?”
“Today I saw the same old lady,” begins Sarah as her mother beams at her, “and I gave her a whole dollar for an even bigger ice cream. I love performing the mitzvah of eating ice cream.”
Shabbat Shalom!!
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