Parashat Vayetzei / פרשת ויצא

Torah Portion: Genesis 28:10 – 32:3

In this week’s Torah portion, Vayetze, we find the first labor dispute in Jewish history. As agreed upon with Laban, Jacob works diligently for seven years in order to earn the dowry to wed his beloved Rachel, Laban’s younger daughter. After those seven years, though, Laban switches out Rachel for Leah so that Jacob would marry the oldest daughter first. Laban then requires Jacob to toil another seven years in order to wed Rachel. Jacob does, indeed, put in another seven years of labor and does, in fact, marry Rachel. Having now labored for 14 years to earn his dowry for two of Laban’s daughters, without ever acquiring any property of his now, Jacob negotiates a deal with Laban to acquire a portion of Laban’s flocks that Jacob himself raised. Again Laban cheats Jacob, this time by removing from the negotiated portion of the flocks the healthiest of sheep and goats.

Though Jacob himself had earned a reputation as a trickster, Laban surely exceeds even Jacob in his unethical labor practices. Much is made of Laban’s chicanery in biblical commentaries as well as in the legal literature of Jewish tradition, where Laban is held up as the model of one who deceives others for personal gain. To be sure, throughout Jewish history the highest value has been placed on ethical, just business practices; in that vein, our reading this week calls us to focus our attention on ethical lapses within our society and to redouble our commitment to justice.

It is unfortunately the case that in today’s world that both employer and employee too often seek shortcuts to improve their bottom lines. For their part, workers sometimes alter time cards to show more hours than they actually work or seek other ways to continue receiving a paycheck while choosing not to work for no good reason. Meanwhile, employer abuses are legendary in our culture and include wage theft, neglecting the safety of their workers, taking advantage of immigrants, and on and on. For many in today’s workforce, the story of Laban and Jacob sounds all too familiar, and because workers, especially migrant workers, lack the political clout to effect change, they are forever stuck laboring under unprincipled masters.

Many organizations work to ensure fair employment practices in the U.S. and abroad. One such organization within the Jewish community that is working on behalf of worker and human rights is T’ruah (www.truah.org), an organization of Jewish clergy who work “together with all members of the Jewish community, to act on the Jewish imperative to respect and advance the human rights of all people.” Meanwhile, Interfaith Worker Justice (www.iwj.org) “advances the rights of workers by engaging diverse faith communities into action, from grassroots organizing to shaping policy at the local, state and national levels.” It is incumbent upon each of us to learn about the issues facing workers and to advocate fairness in the workplace. Visiting the websites of Truah and IWJ are two places to begin that work, though searching the internet will reveal many, many more.

There is a succint commentary on this week’s parasha at http://www.myjewishlearning.com/ written by Jeremy Burton, former chief of staff at the Jewish Funds for Justice, which merged in 2011 with Progressive Jewish Alliance to form Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice (http://bendthearc.us/). In his article titled “Laban’s Excuse: Labor Ethics and Community Standards,” Burton demonstrates that Laban was able to get away with his unethical behavior because Laban refused to take responsibility for his actions and no one held him accountable. Ultimately, the mission of those working on behalf of workers rights and all of us, really, is to ensure that employers are held accountable for their actions and that they take responsibility for ensuring fairness in the work place.

This year, we read Parashat Vayetze on the weekend following Thanksgiving. What better time to turn our attention to those struggling within a system in which workers are too often ignored or oppressed than when we gather with friends and loved ones to give thanks for the bounty with which we’ve been so blessed but eludes so many of our brothers and sisters?

Shabbat Shalom

Parashat Toldot / פרשת תולדות
Torah Portion: Genesis 25:19 – 28:9

This week’s Torah reading opens with the birth of the twins Jacob and Esau. Their mother, Rebecca, had been barren, and when their father, Isaac, pleads to God on her behalf, God responds and she conceives. The birth is not an easy one, however. The brothers are restless in utero, supposedly struggling with one another, and when Esau emerges first from the womb, Jacob is found to be grasping onto his heel.

Commentators throughout history have seen Jacob’s maneuver as an attempt to pull Esau back so that Jacob himself could be the firstborn. This view is supported by Jacob’s later efforts, first, to buy the birthright from Esau at a moment when Esau was hungry and weak and, second, to disguise himself as Esau so that Isaac, then blind, would give Jacob the blessing that Isaac had intended for Esau. One can only imagine how stressful it must have been on Isaac and Rebecca to raise these boys, one a boorish and impetuous hunter, the other, a conniving, cerebral homebody. In the end, it is Jacob who emerges as an adult with all the honor that would normally have gone to the firstborn, Esau.

Sadly for Esau, while Jewish tradition lavishes praise on Jacob, it portrays Esau only in a negative light. In their critique of Esau, the rabbis highlight Esau’s spurning the birthright and then marrying Hittite women to his parents’ chagrin. Since it is Jacob who ultimately inherits the covenant that God had made with Abraham and Isaac, Jacob’s faults are forgiven by the rabbis, who revere him as the father of Israel’s twelve tribes. Esau receives no such forgiveness, however, and instead, becomes identified with Roman oppression much later in history, (even though there is no good justification for this identification).

What is amazing is that, despite Esau’s shortcomings, Isaac loves and favors him over Jacob (Genesis 25:28). Commentators have minimized the significance of Isaac’s love for Esau by claiming that Esau manipulated his father into loving him. But not everyone sees Isaac’s love for Esau as empty or unmerited. Going against the grain of traditional biblical commentary, the Conservative Etz Hayim humash observes that Isaac may have appreciated the physical gifts in Esau that were lacking in himself (pp. 147-8). Other commentators credit Isaac for loving both of his sons unconditionally, even though each son troubled Isaac uniquely.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, a brilliant scholar and the former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth, is counted among this latter group. In his essay, “Why Did Isaac Love Esau?” (See http://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation-5771-toldot-why-did-isaac-love-esau/), Rabbi Sacks asserts that far from being deceived by Esau, Isaac knew full well who Esau was and loved him because that’s what Esau needed most. Rabbi Sacks writes:

It may be that Isaac loved Esau not blindly but with open eyes, knowing that there would be times when his elder son would give him grief, but knowing too that the moral responsibility of parenthood demands that we do not despair of or disown a wayward son.

There is great truth in Rabbi Sacks’s observation. Though parents need to enforce consequences — sometimes severe consequences — for their children’s misdeeds, these consequences must be dealt with an open heart that yearns for the children to grow into productive, caring, responsible adults. From such an open, yearning heart love flows abundantly.

It is my prayer that all parents will love their children as Isaac loved Esau and, moreover, that all people will extend this love to the rest of humanity. Much of humanity, through its indifference to suffering and its thirst for power, surely deserves the disdain of the civilized world. Nevertheless, let us keeping hoping that one day all will be right. That day will only come when we demonstrate the kind of love for humanity that Isaac had for Esau.

Shabbat Shalom,

Parashat Chaye Sarah

Genesis 23:1-25:18

This week’s reading, Chaye Sarah, begins and ends with sorrow. Our matriarch, Sarah, dies at the age of 127, leaving behind Abraham, patriarch of the Jewish people and ten years her senior, and son Isaac, now 37 and not yet wed. Abraham mourns and weeps over Sarah then begins the difficult process of purchasing a burial place for his beloved and interring her there. Nearly 40 years later, Abraham also dies. Though he is 175 years of age and dies “old and contented” (Gen. 25:8), our own lived experience suggests that his family bewails his passing even as they give thanks for the fullness of life that Abraham enjoyed. Finally, Ishmael, Abraham’s son through his concubine Hagar, also dies at 137.

Many decades separate the passings of Abraham, Sarah and Ishmael, yet the succession of their deaths within a single parasha leaves us bereft. Our history as a people, after all, begins with this family. The loss of Abraham and Sarah within one literary unit should rightly leave us feeling the sadness that comes when a whole generation of family dies out.

The parasha, however, is not to be characterized solely by feelings of loss. Between the passings of Sarah and Abraham is a beautiful story of love discovered late in life that gives us hope for the future. Soon after Sarah’s passing, Abraham takes measures to ensure that the blessings that God had bestowed upon him, will be vouchsafed by Isaac and his descendents. Chapter 24 of Genesis tells of Abraham’s servant Eliezer journeying to the city of Nahor, Abraham’s birthplace, to find there a wife for Isaac from among Abraham’s kin. The one who emerges as Isaac’s prospective wife is Rebecca, who at once shows herself to be a kind, generous person. Eliezer brings Rebecca to Isaac; the two wed; and “Isaac loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death” (Gen. 24:26). In between the loss of both parents, comes this “happily-ever-after moment” for Isaac. We have to think he deserves this pleasant outcome. After all, he had once been bound by his father on an altar and nearly sacrificed as a burnt offering.

This parasha illustrates a powerful truth about life. When confronted with pain and sorrow, as we ultimately all will be, it behooves us to be on the lookout for life’s beauty as well. We can hope that Isaac and Ishmael grow closer as they reunite at their father’s burial place. That would be nice for all concerned. While the Torah is silent on that count, it is very clear that the union of Isaac and Rebecca, ostensibly arranged by God with Eliezer as God’s helper, is intended as a moment of luminescence amid some darkness. No matter what straits we find our selves in, there will be those times when our hearts will be warmed and lifted. May we, as did our ancestors, recognize and appreciate those beautiful times when they arise.

Shabbat Shalom.