Parshas Ve’eschanan - Divine Gifts

As Moshe recounts the days after the Jewish people conquered kings Sichon and Og, he recalls a personal moment: “I pleaded (Ve’eschanan) to Adonoy at that time, saying: Adonoy, Elohim, you have begun to show your servant Your greatness and your powerful hand, that there is no power in Heaven or Earth that can perform Your deeds and Your acts of power. Please, let me cross over and see the good land that is across the Jordan, this good mountain and the Lebanon.” (Deuteronomy 3:23-25).

Rashi, noting the use of the uncommon term Ve’eschanan, explains that the root of the word is HeeNoon, which signifies an undeserved gift. Rashi states that while the righteous might seek rewards from God based on their exemplary service and their many good deeds, they don’t try to seek favors from God based on their merits; instead, they see anything they request as an undeserved gift. I believe the patriarch Jacob expresses a similar sentiment, when he prays to God in the hours before he meets up again with Esau: “I am not worthy of all the mercies and of all the truth which Thou hast done with thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan (river) and now I have become two camps. Deliver me, I pray Thee, from the hand of my brother … ” (Genesis 32:11-12). Despite the fact that God made an explicit promise to Jacob to protect him in his journeys (Genesis 28:15), when Jacob prays for God’s help in his coming encounter he does not invoke God’s prior promise or seek credit for his years of faithfulness despite all the travails he experienced; all Jacob sees is that he is unworthy.

We can learn a great deal from Moshe and Jacob’s approach in prayer. We, who cannot stand on a mountain of merit as did our biblical role models, certainly should not seek God’s gifts based on our inherent goodness. It would serve us well to adopt a similar attitude of humility and recognize that whatever blessings we seek of God fit in the category of Divine gifts. If we take such an approach, our prayers may achieve greater poignancy and our appreciation of God’s beneficence can grow deeper.     

VaYechi - All in the context

Sometime a single phrase can increase bitterness in one setting and lead to reconciliation in another.

Jacob’s wife Rachel, frustrated that she is seemingly unable to become pregnant, complains to Jacob that he should do something about it. Jacob replies: “Am I in God’s place?” (HaTachat Elokim Anochi?) Who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” (30:2).  We can presume that Jacob’s response, though it was accurate, probably did not assuage Rachel’s anxiety and pain.

Decades later, after Jacob has died and his sons return after his burial to their new homestead in Egypt, the ten sons (of Leah and the handmaids) fear that now – with Jacob gone – Joseph may take revenge on them for selling him into slavery. They send a message requesting his forgiveness and then appear before him, where they kneel down and state: “Behold, we are your slaves.” Joseph replies: “Fear not, for am I in God’s place? (HaTachat Elokim Ani?)” (50:18). He proceeds to reassure his brothers that he is not carrying a grudge and intends to act towards them only with kindness.

Nehama Leibowitz, in her essay “What If Joseph Hates Us?” notes that the Midrash Tanhuma picks up on this striking similarity in phrases and sees a connection. Perhaps Joseph’s magnanimous act of forgiveness was the ideal counterbalance for a moment of great insensitivity his father had shown to Joseph’s mother. In the best circumstances, we see our children learn and grow from our mistakes. And that is one of the greatest blessings.

VaYigash - Righteous Grumblings

Shortly after his family resettles in Egypt, Joseph brings his saintly father to meet Pharoah. Struck by how old Jacob looked, Pharoah asks him one question: “How many are the days of the years of your life?” Jacob replies: “The days of the years of my travels are a hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have been the years of my life and I have not attained the years of life of my fathers in the days of their travels” (47:8-9). Accepting that Jacob faced many trials in his life with his brother Esau, his wives, and his father-in-law, as well as the abduction of his daughter, bitter infighting between his sons, and the disappearance of his son, his response to Pharoah is still perplexing. Is this the way a righteous man, who (we would think) models an acceptance of God’s will, speaks about his life to a major world leader?   

Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Ramban), a noted community leader and scholar in 13^th century Spain, asks this very question. He suggests that Jacob’s answer was intended to address Pharoah’s puzzlement at Jacob’s aged appearance, which was uncommon in Egypt. Jacob’s reply stated, in essence: “I look older than most people because I’ve faced many painful situations.”

I would suggest another rationale for Jacob’s seemingly bitter response to Pharoah. Jacob’s practice was to keep a distance from people who he viewed as unsavory or as potentially poor moral role models for his children and grandchildren. We can see this practice reflected in Jacob’s negative response to his brother Esau’s offer that they travel together (33: 12- 14), and his quick flight from his father in law’s house (Chapter 31). Jacob may have sensed that Pharoah would take a keen interest in the elderly father of his top official, Joseph. So Jacob did what he could to discourage Pharoah’s interest, by offering a sour and bitter outlook on life in their first encounter. It seems that Jacob’s tactic was successful, because the Torah records no further contact between the two men.

VaYishLach - Expecting struggle

I’d assert that one of the unfortunate downsides of modern Western culture, with its remarkable advances in technology and its focus on personal independence and the pursuit of happiness, is an expectation that – for the most part – good things will happen to us. In the extreme we can see this attitude in alarming social ills like road rage, drug abuse, and alcoholism, as well as the frighteningly high rate of divorce. More commonly, we might see this attitude in the low national rates of civic involvement and voter turnout, as well as the correspondingly high rates of TV viewership. All these troubling developments reflect a bias towards bliss and a collective retreat from the difficulties of regular life.  As a society we think that life should be happy, even easy, and we recoil when troubles come our way.

At the other end of the spectrum, a truly righteous and intellectually sophisticated person expects there to be struggle and challenge in life. He does not expect a life of ease. And he is actually surprised when he’s achieved a string of successes, wondering if something is amiss.

This perspective is illustrated nicely in this week’s Torah reading.  Preparing for his encounter with his brother Esau after 20 years absence, and fearing that his brother is murderously angry with him, Jacob prays to God. Despite the Lord’s recent promise to him, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your family, and I will be with you.” (31:3) Jacob worries and states in his prayer: “I am not worthy of all the kindnesses and all the truth which you have done for your servant” (32:11).

Jacob does not see his successful escape from the home of his deceitful father-in-law, days earlier, nor the wealth and large family he’s built in the intervening 20 years, as his due. Nor does he take God’s promise for granted. Rather, he prays with genuine concern because he understands that life is often difficult and – even with God’s explicit blessing – a person can still face searing challenges and will need Divine favor to succeed.

Vayetzei - Difficult tradeoffs

In last week’s Torah portion we read how our patriarch Jacob, urged on by his mother Rebecca, presented himself as his brother to his near-blind father Isaac so that he (Jacob) could receive the blessing Isaac intended for Esau. Commentators through the ages have grappled with this difficult episode, as it appears to present one of our ‘founding fathers’ as a deceitful person taking advantage of his father’s infirmities, rather than dealing directly or honestly, in order to gain an advantage – however justified Jacob might have been in claiming the preferred blessing.

Nechama Leibowitz, in an essay “Your Brother Came with Deceit,”¹ suggests that scripture itself attests that while Jacob’s ends were just, the means he used to achieve them were quite unsavory. In a similar vein Rabbi Francis Nataf, in an essay “The Inevitability of Choice,”² draws on a number of sources and makes the claim that the personalities in Genesis were often faced with difficult choices. He asserts that they understood implicitly that a course of action favored by God could, nonetheless, involve painful trade-offs and difficult consequences. We can see this in the deceptions that afflict Jacob in this week’s Torah portion, such as the switch of Leah for the desired Rachel on the wedding night and his father-in-law’s repeated changes of his wages. We can also see this in the deceptions that befall Jacob later – his two sons’ peace treaty with and then stealthy massacre of the town of Shechem and the eleven brothers’ sale of Joseph and cover-up story that an animal devoured Joseph.

The message of the Torah is clear – if you start your ‘career’ with deception, it will gain a life of its own.

1.     New Studies in Bereshit (Genesis), by Nechama Lebowitz. Published in Israel, 1977 (?); p. 264–270.   

2.     Redeeming Relevance in the Book of Genesis: Explorations in Text and Meaning, by Rabbi Francis Nataf. Published in Jerusalem, 2006; p. 41-56.