Dear friends;

I hope that you’ll enjoy the following Parsha summary followed by a Dvar Torah.

” Parsha in a Nutshell “

Jacob returns to the Holy Land after more than 20 years stay in Charan, and sends messengers to Esau in hope of a reconciliation, but his messengers report that his brother is on his way with 400 armed men. Jacob prepares for war, prays, but decides to go in peace and sends Esau a large gift (consisting of hundreds of sheep and cattle) to appease him.

That night, Jacob ferries his family and possessions them across the Yabbok River; he, however, remains behind and encounters the angel, with whom he wrestles until daybreak. Jacob suffers a dislocated hip but triumphs the supernatural creature, who bestows on him the name “Yisrael”, which means “He who prevails over the Divine.”

Jacob and Esau meet, embrace and kiss, but part ways. Jacob purchases a plot of land near Shechem, whose crown prince — also called Shechem — abducts and rapes Jacob’s daughter Dinah. Dinah’s brothers Simon and Levi avenge the deed by killing all male inhabitants of the city after rendering them vulnerable by convincing them to circumcise themselves.

Jacob journeys on. Rachel dies while giving birth to her second son, Benjamin, and is buried in a roadside grave near Bethlehem. Reuben loses the birthright because he interferes with his father’s marital life. Jacob arrives in Chevron, to his father Isaac, who later dies at age 180.

Our parshah concludes with a detailed account of Esau’s wives, children and grandchildren, and the family histories of the people of Se’ir among whom Esau settled.

” Dvar Torah “

In this week’s Parsha, we learn about a very tragic story. Dina, Jacob’s one and only daughter, leaves the safety of home to go out to “look at the daughters of the land.” She is raped and abducted by a local prince called Shechem, son of the king of the town also known as Shechem. The Torah then tells us that Shechem loved Dina and asked his father, Chamor, to take Dina for him as a wife.

Jacob learns of this fact but does nothing until his sons return. Shimon and Levi, Dina’s brothers, immediately realise that they must act to rescue her. It is an almost impossible mission. The hostage-taker is no ordinary individual. As the son of the king, he cannot be confronted directly. The king is unlikely to order his son to release her. The other townspeople, if challenged, will come to the prince’s defence. It is Shimon and Levi against the town: two against many. Even if all of Jacob’s sons came to the rescue, they would still be outnumbered.

Shimon and Levi therefore came up with a plot. They agree to let Dina marry the prince but under one condition. The members of the town must all be circumcised. The Shechemites, seeing long term advantages to an alliance with Jacob’s tribe, agree. The men of the town are weakened by the obligatory surgery, and the pain is most painful on the third day. That day, Shimon and Levi enter the town and kill the entire male population. They rescue Dina and bring her home.

Jacob is horrified. “You have made me look shameful in the eyes of the people of the land,” he says. “What then were we supposed to do”, ask the two brothers? “Should we have left our sister to be treated like a prostitute?” The episode ends and the narrative moves elsewhere. But Jacob’s rage does not end there. Even on his deathbed, he criticises them and curses them: “ Simeon and Levi are brothers— their swords are weapons of violence. Let me not enter their council, let me not join their assembly, for they have killed men in their anger. Cursed be their anger, so fierce, and their fury, so cruel! I will scatter them in Jacob and disperse them in Israel! “

This is an extraordinary passage. It seems to lack any kind of moral message. No one comes out of it well. Shechem, the prince, would seem to be the chief villain. It was he who abducted and raped Dina in the first place. Chamor, his father, fails to condemn his action or order Dina’s release. Shimon and Levi are guilty of a horrendous act of violence. The other brothers engage in looting the town. Jacob fails to take charge. He neither acts nor instructs his sons on how to act. Even Dina herself seems at best to have been guilty of carelessness in going out into the town in the first place.

The overall effect is a story with no indisputable villains and no obvious heroes. Why then is the story told after all? Stories are not told in the Torah just to fill up the pages. If a story appears in the Torah, it’s because it has a significant. Torah means “teaching, instruction, guidance.” So, what teaching does the Torah want us to draw from this narrative out of which no one emerges well?

Well, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks finds an interesting lesson to be learned from this story. He says that in situations where there are power and violence involved, unfortunately, all the parties involved are the losers. Because, sadly, power and violence can only be stopped by power and violence! In the case of Dina, if the brothers wouldn’t have reacted, the Shechemites would have exercise their power and would have probably raped more Israelite girls and would have became their masters. And what Shimon and Levi did ended up killing many innocent people who were not involved in the plot in the first place. What the episode of Dina tells us is not that Jacob, or Shimon and Levi, were right, but rather in situations where power and violence are involved, there is no right course of action. In these situations, whatever you do is wrong; where every option involves abandoning some moral principle!

Yes my friends, unfortunately violence can only be stopped by violence!  A successful defence mechanism against a violent aggressor, is to become violent like them. This is so apparent in the fight against terrorism across the globe. There is no way you can sit down and negotiate with the terrorist and make peace. They will continue terrorising you until you give up and bend down to their demands. The only way to stop them is to attack back! But that will involve killing innocent people. But what else can we do?! Either kill or be killed….. a lose, lose situation!  In a situation where one side seeks peace and the other power and violence, sadly, violence will eventually prevail.

May Hashem, protect us from the hands of terrorists in the Land of Israel and across the world. May Hashem help us to get rid of them all, with the least amount of casualties. We long for the day that the world will be free of violence and bloodshed, and everyone will live in peace and harmony next to one another.

Shabbat Shalom & Regards;

Martin

Dear friends;

I hope you’ll enjoy the following Parsha summary, followed by a Dvar Torah:

Jacob leaves his hometown of Bersheva and journeys to Charan. On the way, he stops at a place and sleeps there, dreaming of a ladder connecting heaven and earth, with angels climbing and descending on it; G‑d appears and promises that the land upon which he lies will be given to his descendants. In the morning, Jacob raises the stone on which he laid his head as an altar and pledging that it will be made the house of G‑d.

In Charan, Jacob stays with and works for his uncle Laban, tending Laban’s sheep. Laban agrees to give him his younger daughter, Rachel—whom Jacob loves—in marriage, in return for seven years’ of labor. But on the wedding night, Laban gives him his elder daughter, Leah, instead—a deception Jacob discovers only in the morning. Jacob marries Rachel, too, a week later, after agreeing to work another seven years for Laban.

Leah gives birth to six sons—Reuben, Simeon,Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun—and a daughter, Dinah, while Rachel remains barren. Rachel gives Jacob her handmaid, Bilhah, as a wife to bear children in her stead, and two more sons, Dan and Naphtali, are born. Leah does the same with her handmaid, Zilpah, who gives birth to Gad and Asher. Finally, Rachel’s prayers are answered and she gives birth to Joseph.

Jacob has now been in Charan for fourteen years. After six more years, Jacob leaves Charan in stealth, fearing that Laban would prevent him from leaving with the family and property for which he labored. Laban pursues Jacob, but is warned by G‑d in a dream not to harm him. Laban and Jacob make a treaty on Mount Gal-Ed, and Jacob proceeds to the Holy Land, where he is met by an angel.

” Dvar Torah “

What is it that made Jacob–not Abraham or Isaac–the true father of the Jewish people? We are the “congregation of Jacob”, “the children of Israel”. Jacob/Israel is the man whose name we bear. Yet Jacob did not begin the Jewish journey; Abraham did. Jacob faced no trials like Abraham, nor was he binded on the altar like Isaac, to sacrifice his life. Abraham introduced monotheism to the world and was a symbol of kindness. Isaac too was a man of G-d and followed in his father’s footsteps. Jacob was not what Noah was: righteous, perfect in his generations, one who walked with G-d. It was Jacob who deceived his father in order to steal his brother’s blessing. Yet, it was Jacob who fathered the twelve tribes of Israel, and not Abraham or Isaac. And it was Jacob that all his children stayed within the faith, unlike Abraham or Isaac. So why did he succeed when Abraham and Isaac failed? What was so special about Jacob that Hashem chose him to be the father of “Benei Israel”?

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, gives a great answer to this question. He says that the answer lies in this week’s Parsha and the next. He says that Jacob’s greatest visions of G-d came to him, when he was fleeing from one danger to the next. First, in this week’s Parsha when he was escaping from Esau, he stopped and rested for the night with only stones to lie on, and had a dream. In his dream, Hashem appeared to him and said, “Behold, I’m with you; I will guard you wherever you go, and I will return you to the land”. In next week’s Parsha, fleeing from Laban and terrified of the likelihood of meeting Esau again, he wrestles alone at night with a stranger who was an angel of G-d. Then the man said your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with G-d and have overcome”.

Rabbi Sacks explains that this is precisely the great strength of Jacob. Jacob is the man who has his deepest spiritual experiences alone, at night, in the face of danger and far from home. He is the man who meets G-d when he least expects to, when his mind is on other things, when he is in a state of fear and possibly on the brink of despair. Jacob is the man who in the middle of the journey, discovers that “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!” And this is the reason why he became the father of the Jewish nation.

Abraham gave Jews the courage to challenge idol-worshiping. Isaac gave them the capacity for self-sacrifice. Moses taught them to be passionate fighters for justice. But Jacob gave them the knowledge that precisely when they feel most alone, God is still with them, giving them the courage to hope and the strength to dream. We learn from Jacob that the Shechina, the Divine presence, is always with us even in a strange land. The connection with G-d is never lost.

Yes my friends, we find G-d not only in holy places but also in the midst of a journey, alone at night. The most profound lesson that we learned from Jacob is the knowledge that we are not alone. God is holding us by the hand, sheltering us, lifting us when we fall, forgiving us when we fail, healing the wounds in our soul through the power of His love. God never loses faith in us.

In these difficult times, when we think that terrorism has taken over the world; when the terrorists attack with knives, machine guns and bombs, we may rightfully feel hopeless and scared. But this is exactly the time that we should find our connection to G-d and have the courage to move on and fight the enemy. Remember that G-d never abandons us and he will fight our wars for us as long as we keep his commandments.

Even, Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, knows that G-d is involved in fighting terrorism, as he amusingly said in a quote recently: “To Forgive The Terrorists Is Up To God, But To Send Them To Him Is Up To Me”…….

Shabbat Shalom & Regards;

Martin

Dear Friends;

I hope that you’ll enjoy the following Parsha summary followed by a Dvar Torah;

” Parasha in a Nutshell “

Isaac marries Rebecca. After twenty childless years their prayers are answered and Rebecca conceives. She experiences a difficult pregnancy; G-d tells her that “there are two nations in your womb,” and that the younger will prevail over the elder. Eisav emerges first; Jacob is born clutching Eisav’s heel. Eisav grows up to be “a hunter, a man of the field”; Jacob is “a wholesome man,” a dweller in the tents. Isaac favors Eisav; Rebecca loves Jacob.

Returning exhausted and hungry from the hunt one day, Eisav sells his birthright to Jacob for a pot of red lentil stew.

Eisav marries two Hittite women. Isaac grows old and blind, and expresses his desire to bless Eisav before he dies. While Eisav goes off to hunt for his father’s favorite food, Rebecca dresses Jacob in Eisav’s clothes, prepares a similar dish, and sends Jacob to his father. Jacob receives his fathers’ blessings for “the dew of the heaven and the fat of the land” and mastery over his brother. When Eisav returns and the deception is revealed, all Isaac can bless his weeping son with is to predict that he will live by his sword, and that only when Jacob falters, his supremacy over the him will vanish.

Jacob leaves home to flee Eisav’s wrath and to find a wife in the family of his mother’s brother, Laban. Eisav marries a third wife — Machlat, the daughter of Ishmael.

“ Dvar Torah “

In this week’s Parsha, we read about the episode of Isaac wanting to bless Esau, as he had become old and his eyes dimmed from seeing. So he tells Esau: “hunt game for me, make me a meal such as I love and bring it to me and I will eat, so that my soul bless you before I die.” Rivka was listening to their conversation and immediately tells Jacob to bring her two young goats and she will prepare a meal for Isaac the way he likes it. And he should take it to him and take the blessing instead. Hesitant at the beginning, but with his Mom’s persuasion, he disguised himself as Esau and took the meal to him. Suspicious at the beginning, but eventually Isaac ate the meal and blessed Jacob believing that it was Esau.

Was Jacob right to take Esau’s blessing in disguise? Was he right to deceive his father and to take from his brother the blessing Isaac sought to give him? Was Rivka right in conceiving the plan in the first place and encouraging her Jacob to carry it out? These are the fundamental questions that many of us want to know the answer including myself.

Well, one interpretation that the majority of commentators go with is as follows. Rivka was right to propose what she did and Jacob was right to do it. Rivka knew that it would be Jacob, not Esau, who would continue the covenant and carry the mission of Abraham into the future. She knew that because she heard it from G-d himself. Before the birth of the twins, G-d tells Rivka: “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the elder will serve the younger.” Esau was the elder, Jacob the younger. Therefore it was Jacob who would emerge with greater strength, Jacob who was chosen by G-d.

Also, she had watched the twins grow up. She knew that Esau was a hunter, a man of violence. She had seen that he was impetuous, temperamental, a man of impulse, not calm reflection. She had seen him sell his birthright for a bowl of soup. No one who despises his birthright can be the trusted guardian of a covenant intended for eternity.

The blessing had to go to Jacob. If Isaac did not understand the true nature of his sons, if he was “blind” not only physically but also psychologically, might it not be necessary to deceive him? He was by now old, and if Rivka had failed in the early years to get him to see the true nature of their children, then it was too late to make him understand now. So, if Rivka was right to deceive Isaac, then Jacob was right to follow her instructions.

But there is also another interpretation to the story. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has a different, yet very interesting view. He says that Isaac fully understood the nature of his two sons. He loved Esau but this did not blind him to the fact that Jacob would be the heir of the covenant. Therefore Isaac prepared two sets of blessings, one for Esau, the other for Jacob. He blessed Esau with the gifts he felt he would appreciate: wealth and power: “May God give you heaven’s dew and earth’s richness – an abundance of grain and new wine” – that is, wealth. “May nations serve you and peoples bow down to you. Be lord over your brothers, and may the sons of your mother bow down to you” – that is, power. These are not the covenantal blessings.

The covenantal blessings that God had given Abraham and Isaac were completely different. They were about children and the land of Israel. It is this blessing that Isaac later gave Jacob before he left home: “May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May He give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham, so that you may take possession of the land that God gave to Abraham”. This was the blessing Isaac had intended for Jacob all along.There was no need for deceit and disguise. The blessing Isaac was about to give Esau was not the blessing of Abraham. He intended to give Esau a blessing appropriate to him.

Accordingly, Rivka and Jacob did make a mistake, but it was a forgivable and understandable one. Jacob came to realize his mistake later on in his life. He was deceived himself by his father in law, Laban, measure for measure. After 22 years of separation, Jacob finally meets with Esau. He gives Esau massive amount of gifts including sheep, cattle and other livestock. He then bows down seven times to Esau. But this was exactly the blessing that Isaac intended for Esau in the first place: “May you be blessed with heaven’s dew and earth’s richness and May the sons of your mother bow down to you…..”  Jacob finally gave the blessing back!

Yes my friends, for each of us there is a blessing that is ours. We should never seek our brother’s blessing. We should be content with our own. We should also learn from our mistakes. We live life forward, but we understand it only looking back. This is what we learn from the story of Isaac, Rivka, Esau and Jacob…..  all four people acted rightly as they understood the situation, yet still tragedy occurred.

Shabbat Shalom & Regards;

Martin

Dear Friends;

I hope that you’ll enjoy the following Parsha summary followed by a Dvar Torah;

” The Parsha in a Nutshell “



Sarah dies at age 127 and is buried in the Machpeilah Cave in Hebron, which Avraham purchases from Ephron the Hittite for 400 shekels of silver.

Avraham’s servant, Eliezer, is sent with gifts to Charan, Avraham’s hometown, to find a wife for Isaac. At the village well, Eliezer asks G-d for a sign: when the maidens come to the well, he will ask for some water to drink; the woman who will offer to give his camels to drink as well, shall be the one destined for his master’s son.

Rebecca, the daughter of Avraham’s nephew, appears at the well and passes the “test”. Rebecca returns with Eliezer to the land of Canaan, where they encounter Isaac. Isaac marries Rebecca, loves her, and is comforted over the loss of his mother.

Avraham takes a new wife, Keturah (Hagar) and fathers six additional sons, but Isaac is designated as his only heir. Avraham dies at age 175 and is buried beside Sarah by his two eldest sons, Isaac and Ishmael.

” Dvar Torah “

One of the most difficult tasks in every man’s life is by no doubts, to find his soul-mate. The task seems to be so difficult that many people can not do it on their own. Some seek professional counseling, some go to seminars, some use a matchmaker and some use the modern technology by using websites and internet. Some people find their soul-mate in their own neighborhood, some move from one town to another, while some others travel across the world in search of a soul-mate. Yet, with all the help and the effort that the people put into this task, it seems that they pick the wrong choice since the divorce rate in the U.S. among the gentiles is close to 50%!

Well, being faced with such a difficult task, some people even give up. They decide to stay single! But this is not an option for a Jewish man, since it’s a direct commandment from the Torah that “every man should leave his father and his mother’s house and cling to his wife and they shall become one flesh”, which means that every Jewish man has to get married!

So, for us Jews, the question is not IF we can find the love of our life, but rather, HOW can we find the love of our life? But with such a difficult task that Hashem has put on our shoulders, don’t think that He is not going to help us. He also guides us how to find a “shiduch” (destined-match) in his holy book!

In this week’s parsha the Torah talks about how Avraham finds a “shiduch” for his son, Isaac. It discusses, in great detail, page after page after page, how he sends his servant Eliezer on a mission to find a wife for his son. The Torah doesn’t waste so much space for no reason. When it writes about something in detail, it wants us to learn from it. So let us see what we can learn from Eliezer’s mission.

The story begins with Avraham deciding to find a wife for his son Isaac. Isaac was over 37 years old at that time. He wasn’t a kid anymore! So, why couldn’t Isaac find a wife for himself?? Well, the Chachamim say that since the episode of  “Akedat Yitzchak”, Isaac entered a new spiritual level and he wasn’t allowed to leave the land of Israel for any reason, even to look for a wife. But the lesson that we can learn from here is that it’s every parent’s duty to help their children in finding a “match”, if they are unable to do so, themselves!

Then Avraham asks Eliezer to swear not to take a wife for his son from the Canaanites, among whom he dwells. Rather, to go to his birthplace and take a wife from his own people for his son Isaac. Accordingly, the Chachamim derive that every Jew should marry within his own people, which is another Jew. Some Chachamim even go as far as to say that it’s better to marry within your own community!

Then, Eliezer was left alone to make his own judgment in choosing a match for Isaac. What did he do first? He Prayed! He prayed to Hashem that He grants him success in his mission. To find your soul mate, you need the help of the Almighty, since He is the one who has designated a person to be your other half. So, praying is essential in finding a spouse, whether for yourself or for your children.

And guess what kind of characteristics was Eliezer looking in the girl for Isaac? He didn’t look for wealth nor beauty, but rather, he looked for the personal qualities of generosity and kindness. The girl who would spontaneously offer to give him water and to his ten thirsty camels, would be the one. Marriage is all about giving and forgiving, so generosity and kindness plays an important part in the union of husband and wife!

After finding Rebecca to be the suitable wife for Isaac, Eliezer seeks the approval of her father and brother, to take her back to Isaac. Once they agreed, they called Rebecca and asked her if she will go with this man? And she said: ” I will go”. From here we learn that you can never force someone to marry a person. At the end, it’s the man and the woman’s decision to marry each other.

And finally, after bringing back Rebecca to Isaac, the Torah says:” Isaac married Rebecca, she became his wife, and he loved her…” Wow, how strange is this?! Usually in any other culture, the man and the woman fall desperately in love with each other and then get married. But Isaac and Rebecca experienced the opposite; first there was marriage and then there was love! From here, our sages derive that the true love can only be achieved after you marry someone. And the love that the Torah talks about is one that lasts forever, since Isaac and Rebecca lived happily ever after!

Yes my friends, true love can only be experienced after marriage. True love is all about dedication; when you dedicate your life to someone else; when your concerns are secondary while theirs are first; and when you let go of what you want and try to meet with what she wants. You can only experience true love after you live with your spouse, when you take care of each other’s needs, when you take care of each other in sickness, when you stand by each other’s side through difficult times, when you help each other in raising the children and above all, when you still care for each other after many years of marriage. Only then you can claim that you truly love someone!

It’s very easy to say “I love you”, but you should be able to back it up with years of dedication and sacrifice. Only then, you really mean what you say.

Shabbat Shalom & Regards;

Martin