Vayetze: rocks

 Vayetze: rocks

 

Rocks appear at the beginning, middle and end of Vayetze.   

Yaakov surrounds his head with rocks, awakes from his dream with his head on a rock that he anoints and dedicates as the marker of the site for the Temple.  It sounds quite uncomfortable to me.  Why didn't he find a softer pillow?

Yaakov was tough ( like my parents in the Holocaust)

 

Yaakov then sees a rock that covers the well from which the community's sheep are watered, and he removes the rock for RAchel. The Rashbam says that the rock was a barrier so that animals and people could not fall into the well.  It was also a barrier so that, usually, no individual could use the well without community cooperation.  Yaakov (ancestor of Ayn [note the name means wellspring] Rand) usurps this collectivist idea.

 

Yaakov and Lavan make a treaty defined by a pile of rocks: Gal Eid ( Yigar Sehadutha).  It seems flimsy, easily moved.  Is this an act of trust?  Relatives!

 

Rocks are a marker, a border a barrier.  Rocks are a foundation .  Rocks can generate dreams, especially in Israel.
 

Chaye Sarah: to life

 

Chaye Sarah: to life

 

Men have lgeacies (toldoth).  Women give life.  Thus, when Sarah dies, her summation is the life she gave.   This idea is confirmed by the blessing that Lavan  and Milkah give to Rivkah:   אֲחֹתֵנוּ אַתְּ הֲיִי לְאַלְפֵי רְבָבָה . 

The legacy of the people has come through the men and the life of the people has come through the women 

So where does Lechai Roi  come into all of this?  The place that Yitzchak settles, the place where the angel ( genie) appeared to Hagar ( twice).

Perhaps the feminine concept of Gd is  more tied to life.  When life is granted and assured for Yishmael, Hagar calls to her concept of Gd.  The one who sees ( to it) that there is life.

 

 

This Shabbath is the Yahrzeit of my mother, the one who gave me (and my father and sisters) life.  May her life be a multiplied blessing.

 

 

Vayera: negotiations

Vayera: negotiations

 

 

Vayera is full of contradictions ( I think that the contra of contradiction may be conceptually related to the neg of negotiation).  Sara implicitly contradicts the annunciation of the angels that she will bear a son in her old age ( by laughing [ or whatever tzachok means]).  Then Avraham negotiates with Gd about the fate of the 5 towns ( including Sodom and Amorah), admitting that he has no right to question the Ultimate Authority.  Lot negotiates with the angels ( to bring them to his home) and with the  lecherous towns people of Sodom ( offering his daughters who become his wives).  Lot negotiates for the rescue of Tzoar. Lot's  daughters  deal with their vision of the negation of the world and use the age old negotiator's trick of intoxicating the other party.   Sarah asks that Gd judge between her and Avraham and gets him to send away Hagar and Ishmael. ...etc

 

But Avraham does NOT negotiate with Gd about the sacrifice of Isaac! What is that about? Why  is this a moment of blind faith?

Perhaps every parent realizes that they have limited input into the fate of her children.  All children are born to eventually die.  Avraham and Yitzchok felt that this, the sacrificial act,  was their best fate  ( at the time).  Anyway, it worked out.  Things always worked out for Avraham.  We pray that Gd protect us like Gd protected Avraham.