Parshat Vayetze: Walkthrough
Posted by Jack Kustanowitz on November 12, 2010 | Tags: Vayetze
Loyalty to the literal text, with a modern voice [All editorializing in brackets]
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Walkthrough Rules
- A reader of a Walkthrough should have the same rich, immersive experience that someone who is deeply familiar with Biblical idiom and references would have reading the original.
- Cultural translation: Phrases that sound idiomatic to a speaker of Biblical Hebrew get translated to phrases that sound idiomatic to a speaker of modern English.
- No insertion of flowery language where the original is simple, and vice versa.
- Not a word-by-word translation, but sometimes coming close where the narrative is very dense.
- Long soliloquies in the original remain proportionately long, and vice versa.
- (Parenthesis indicate parenthetical remarks that are in the original.)
- [Editorializing in brackets, to make it clear what’s not in the original.]
]
[We pick up our story with Jacob fleeing his brother’s anger at his having stolen the blessing.]
Jacob leaves Beer Sheva and heads towards Charan [recall, where Rivka is from]. Night fell, and so he put together a few stones for a pillow and went to sleep. He dreams: a ladder is standing on the ground, with the top reaching the sky, and angels of God are ascending and descending on it.
And God is standing over it, saying “I am the God of your fathers – the land that you are sleeping on is for you and your descendants, who will be many as the dust of the earth.” [note many similarities to the blessing that was given to his grandfather and father]. “I will take care of you while you’re away and bring you back to this land.”
Jacob wakes up and says, “Hey, God IS in this place, and I had no idea!” Then he got scared and realized that this was a special place, a gateway to heaven. When he woke up he took the stones he had used for a pillow and built them into a monument, and he called the place “Beit El”. [A real improvement over the previous name of “Luz”]
He makes a pledge to return to turn the improvised monument he built with the stones into a true place of worship, if God is with him on his journey.
So he continues his journey north. And he encountered a well in a field, with 3 flocks of sheep around it, covered by a large stone. (The idea was, once they all arrived, they would have the strength to roll the rock off together, preventing one or the other from taking while the others were absent.) “Hey guys, where are you from?” asked Jacob. “From Charan,” they replied.
“Do you know Lavan?”
“Yup.”
“How’s he doing?”
“Just fine – in fact here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep.”
And when Jacob saw his cousin Rachel with Lavan’s sheep, he walked up and rolled that stone right off the well, and gave Lavan’s sheep water to drink. Then he kissed Rachel and wept. He told her that he was her cousin, and she ran to tell Lavan.
When Lavan heard the news, there was more hugging & kissing, as the story was retold. Lavan said, “You’re family!” And Jacob stayed for a month. [compare to Eliezer’s refusal to stay more than one night the last time this played itself out, when Lavan was a younger man] [Jacob must have done some work during this month, because] Lavan says to Jacob, “As long as you’re working, you shouldn’t work for free. What salary can I give you? (By the way, Lavan had TWO daughters, the older one was Leah, and the younger was Rachel. And while Rachel was beautiful, Leah may have been less so).
Jacob liked Rachel. “7 years for Rachel is my price,” he declared. “Better you than someone else, I guess,” said Lavan [hardly a ringing endorsement]. And for seven years Jacob worked for Rachel, and it seemed like but a few days because of his love for her.
So at the end of the seven years, Jacob asks for his due, and Lavan throws a party. At night, he brings Leah to Jacob, who consummates the marriage. (He also throws in Zilpah as a handmaid.)
Anyway, the next morning Jacob wakes up to find Leah! “What did you do to me? I worked for RACHEL – why would you trick me?” Lavan: “That’s not how it’s done around here, putting the younger before the older. [perhaps a jibe at Jacob’s own history of pushing for just that for himself?] At the end of the week, you can get the other one as well, if you commit to work for me for seven more years.”
Which is exactly what he did, and this time he threw in Bilhah as a handmaid.
And Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah [more favoritism], and he worked the additional seven years.
But God saw that Leah was hated, and let her have children, leaving Rachel barren. She had a few kids:
• Reuven: “God saw my anguish, maybe my husband will love me now.”
• Shimon: “God heard I was hated, so he gave me another one.”
• Levi: “Maybe now my husband will spend time with me, after all I’ve now given him 3 sons.”
• Yehuda: “This time I’ll just say ‘Thank God’”.
And then she took a break.
By now Rachel was jealous and angry, and she said to Jacob, “Give me children, otherwise what’s the point in living?” But Jacob got angry back and said, “Is it really my fault?” So Rachel suggested Jacob try with her handmaid Bilhah, He does, and she has two, whom Rachel gets to name:
• Dan: “God has judged me but also listened to me.”
• Naftali: “I struggled mightily with my sister and had some success.”
But now Leah saw that she hadn’t had children in a while, so she had Jacob try with her handmaid Zilpah. Jacob obliges, and she has two as well, whom she names:
• Gad: “Good luck arrived.”
• Asher: “I’m happy – all the ladies will agree.”
Reuven went out during the wheat harvest and found some jasmine. Rachel asked for some, which set Leah off: “Not only do you get my husband, you want my son’s jasmine as well!” So Rachel gives Leah a night with Jacob in exchange for the jasmine.
Jacob is informed, and obliges. Another son:
• Issachar: “God gave me my reward for the whole Zilpah experiment.”
Followed by another:
• Zevulun: “God gave me a good thing, now maybe my husband will let me stay with him since I have, after all, given him 6 sons!”
And then a daughter, Dinah.
And God remembered Rachel, who became pregnant. Her son:
• Joseph: “God has removed my shame, may he give me another.”
At this point, Jacob says to Lavan that it’s time to go home.
Lavan: “Name your price.”
Jacob: “Well, you’ve seen what I’m capable of – when I arrived you had very little, and now you have so much. When can I turn some of that magic on my own family?”
Lavan: “Name your price.”
[Warning: Mating sheep scenes coming. Young children may want to skip.]
Jacob: “Let’s do this. Move all the spotted or brown sheep & goats out of the herd and take them. From now on, any spotted or brown sheet or goats that are born will be mine.” [presumably, Lavan didn’t see how Jacob could create spotted & brown animals from the white ones that were left.]
Lavan agrees, and puts 3 days between the flocks.
Jacob then sets up spotted or striped sticks near the flocks, and when they, ahem, went into heat near the sticks, they would produce offspring that was spotted & brown.
This worked very well, and Jacob quickly had lots of sheep.
Lavan, on the other hand, wasn’t happy, and Jacob noticed that Lavan wasn’t on his side anymore. So God tells Jacob to return to his family.
Jacob calls a family meeting in the field with the sheep, and addresses both Rachel and Leah: “Your father is not so much on my side anymore. And you know personally that I’ve worked with all my might for your father, and he played games with me, changing the terms of my employment a dozen times. But God intervened, and basically whatever scheme Lavan designed to determine my share, that’s what the sheep produced.”
“I started to DREAM about sheep mating. These were mating with those, and those were mating with these, and finally an angel called out to me and said ‘YAAKOV’ and I said ‘Right here’ and he said ‘LOOK AT YOURSELF, You’re dreaming about sheep, this is what Lavan’s shenanigans have brought you to, I am God from Beit El, remember, 20 years ago, you built a monument – GET OUT NOW and go home.’”
Rachel and Leah agreed that they had nothing left with their father ever since he SOLD them [their words, not mine]. “We’re in.”
So Jacob got up and packed up the family. While Lavan was out, Rachel stole his idols. And Jacob stole Lavan’s heart, by not telling him that they were running away.
Three days later, Lavan is informed that Jacob & his family have fled, and he chased him for seven days. God warns him not to even speak to Jacob, but he meets up with him and throws out a litany of insults: You sneaked out, you treated my daughters like prisoners of war, I didn’t get a chance to throw you a going-away party, I didn’t get a chance to kiss the grandchildren, then God Himself tells me not to talk to you, and anyway, WHY DID YOU STEAL MY IDOLS?
Jacob explains that he didn’t think Lavan would let him go, and whoever stole the idols would not live (of course he didn’t know that Rachel was the one who stole them). And Lavan goes tent by tent looking for these idols, first Jacob, then Leah, then the handmaids, then finally Rachel’s tent. She had hidden them in the camel’s pouch, and she was sitting on the camel. “Sorry Dad, I can’t get up, it’s that time of the month,” she said, to avoid a camel search, and so Lavan came up empty.
Jacob is furious at this point – “You have virtually strip-searched my entire camp and found nothing! For twenty years I made you a fortune, taking the risks for myself and leaving the rewards for you. I was robbed by day and by night, spent sleepless nights out in the cold, was left with enduring insomnia – For TWENTY YEARS I worked for your two daughters and your sheep, and you changed my terms a dozen times. If not for God I would have walked away with nothing a long time ago – the God who personally told you to stay away from me last night just finally saw the personal HELL I’ve been through and took a stand for me last night.”
Lavan replied, “Everything you see here is mine. How can you ask me to walk away from my own children and grandchildren? Let’s make a pact to stay away from each other, and that you will treat them well and not take any more wives.”
And so they built a monument of stones [full circle from the beginning of the parsha], and swore on their common family God, and sealed the deal with a sacrifice and a meal.
And finally the next morning, Lavan kissed his children and blessed them, and went home. And Yaakov went on his way, and saw angels again, this time on his way home.
[And another parsha comes full circle: We started with Jacob leaving his house and building a stone monument on his way out, and we end with him leaving Lavan's house to go home, building a stone monument on his way back.]
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Jack KustanowitzJoined: July 15, 2007 Jack is an Internet professional living in Silver Spring, MD. He is a proud alum of the Frisch School in Paramus, NJ as well as Boston University, where he was active at BU Hillel. Divrei Torah (32) |
