1. AND JACOB SAID TO THEM, ‘MY BROTHERS. FROM WHERE DO YOU COME?’ … AND HE SAID, ‘IT IS STILL THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY. IT’S NOT YET TIME TO BRING IN THE SHEEP. WHY NOT WATER THEM, AND GO ON GRAZING …’ (29:4-7)
It was just a small incident.
Jacob sees some workers ‘goofing off’. Standing around, instead of doing their job.
It would have been easy to ignore it.
To say: ‘It’s really none of my business. After all, they are not working for me.’
And … ‘Who am I to tell them what to do?’
But Jacob does not ignore it.
It was wrong – and it bothered him.
So he says something to them.
And the way he says it, teaches us a valuable lesson.
Look at how he addresses them:
‘My brothers …’
It’s a strange way to address people you don’t know.
But he’s making a point.
Before he says anything to them. And especially because he wants to correct them.
He shows them his love.
‘My brothers.’
Because there’s a right way to correct others.
And there’s a wrong way.
… The wrong way? With anger. Putting the other person down.
The right way?
When it comes from love. Because you care about them.
And you show it.
In fact Judaism teaches that it’s the only way.
… And if I can’t correct from love.
I should not correct at all.
2. JACOB LEFT BEER-SHEBA AND WENT TO CHARAN … AND G-D SAID TO HIM: I WILL BE WITH YOU; I WILL GUARD YOU WHEREVER YOU GO AND I WILL RETURN YOU TO THIS LAND… FOR I WILL NOT FORSAKE YOU … (28:10-15)
Abraham and Isaac lived in the Land of Israel.
But with Jacob a new era begins.
Exile.
Jacob is forced to leave his homeland. To live in a strange land.
Struggling to survive.
And to remain a Jew.
It’s the story of the Jewish People.
We also started out like Abraham and Isaac. In the Land of Israel.
And then – exile.
Mighty empire after mighty empire tried to destroy us.
But somehow we survived.
How? Why hasn’t the Jewish People disappeared like other ancient nations?
Historians have no explanation.
But Jacob did. Over thirty-five hundred years ago.
G-d’s promise.
That He will be with us. Won’t forsake us.
And that we will return to the Land of Israel.
And that’s exactly what has happened.
3. STORY OF THE WEEK
Hadrian. Emperor of Rome.
He put down the Bar-Kochba rebellion (137 CE). And executed the great Rabbi Akiva.
Spent three years of his life trying to destroy the Jewish People.
Today? Almost two thousand years later?
People from around the world stand on line to see an ancient bronze bust of Hadrian. A relic of the once great Roman Empire.
Where?
At the Israel Museum.
In Jerusalem, Israel. Homeland of the Jewish People.
4. QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“A pious Jew is not one who worries about his fellow man’s soul and his own stomach. But one who worries about his own soul and his fellow man’s stomach.”
(Rabbi Israel Salanter)