Israel - Living In and Living Out

Shabbat Vayetze 5768 - 7 Kislev

Fascinating really.

Israel is deeply embedded in the consciousness of our people. Those who are more observant pray for her three times a day and whenever they eat. Even those who are not as pious care deeply about her and think about her often. As we have learnt in our course, "The Land and the Spirit"- Israel is our mission, Israel is our destiny.

And yet so much of our history, from our very inception as a people, occurred outside Israel! The first completely Jewish family - Jacob's - was founded outside of Israel. It was in Charan that Jacob was married and his children were born!

Let's try to understand this apparent paradox.

This week's parasha, Vayetze, is the parasha of Exile. At the beginning of the parasha, Jacob leaves Israel. At the end he returns. In the intervening 22 years he works, marries, has his children and becomes extraordinarily wealthy. One could say, that it is in the parasha of Vayetze that he becomes a mensch. It is here that he reaches the peak of his life's accomplishments.

But Vayetze is unique in another way. It is the only parasha in the Torah where there are no paragraph breaks. It is one long paragraph from the beginning until the end. Imagine reading it the way it is written - you would be out of breath long before you reached the half-way mark!

So why is it written this way? Because Jacob did not "settle down" in Exile. He was there for a reason - to fulfil his goal of establishing himself, marrying, and having children. Jacob may have been in Charan, but his heart and mind never left Israel. He didn't even take a breather! As soon as he had accomplished what he set out to do, he was back in Israel.

Paradoxical isn't it? On the one hand, Jacob's greatest accomplishments were in Exile. On the other, his heart, mind and the deepest recesses of his soul, never left Israel.

When you consider it deeply, however, it is not contradictory at all. It is precisely when you are not swallowed up by your work - when you keep sight of your ultimate goal and constantly check your daily involvement against what you really wish to achieve - that you achieve the most.

As Jews, we must never be concerned for only ourselves and our own ethnic group. We have a message for the entire world. It is for this reason that G-d, in His Providence, has caused us to go into Exile - it is His way of "compelling" us to share that message.

However while fulfilling G-d's mission, there is a real danger that we will be influenced by the mores of the world. To avoid this, it is imperative that we never lose sight of the fact that we are not at "home". Our true home is Israel in both the physical and spiritual sense. We are merely in Exile on a "business" trip - to do G-d's business.

Just like Jacob, our souls were sent down into the world to accomplish G-d's mission. Just like Jacob, we were exiled from Israel to make the world a better place.

Through his conduct, Father Jacob has taught us, his children, a very powerful lesson. In order to succeed in our mission and achieve our goals, we must learn to be in our work and out of our work, "in the world" and "out of the world" - at one and the same time!

Hatzlacha Rabba - Much success in your life's work!

Rabbi Benzion Milecki OAM
November 16, 2007