Cushions and Monuments – Vayetzeh 5777

Cushions and Monuments

Stones From Start To Finish

Vayetze is one long closed paragraph. It is the longest such paragraph in the Torah, being over 7500 letters long. It is not surprising therefore, that there is a direct correlation between its start and finish, even though over 34 years had passed in the interim.

 

We begin with Yaackov stopping for the night on his midnight dash fleeing from his brother Esav. This of course had been pre-empted by the sudden setting of the sun, thereby prompting him to stop on Mount Moriah, which would later on become the Temple Mount. Before going to sleep, Yaackov takes from the stones on the mountain top and arranges them around his head as protection.

 

The Sedra ends with Yaackov once again taking stones and arranging them. This time it is when he makes a pact with his father-in-law Lavan, who was disappointed that he had not been able to send off his daughters in a fitting manner. This monument of stones was in essence a permanent truce between Yaackov and Lavan as well as their descendants for all time.

 

What though is the correlation, if any, between these two incidences?

 

The Biblical Grammarians point out the use of the letter ‘vav’ as a dynamic introduction on both occasions. ויקח מאבני המקום “and he took from the stones of the place” (Gen 28:11), and then again והמצפה אשר אמר – “and the watch tower” (Gen 31:49).

 

When Yaackov stopped to rest at the beginning of his epic journey, he makes a conscious decision to take from the stones of the place and arrange them as a protection around his head. He was heading out into the wide world with which he was going to have to interact, but he took from that world and asked the Almighty to work together with him and protect him on his journey.

 

34 years later, at the end of that journey (and our Sedra), he was being challenged by Lavan; he was told that he could not take back that which he had made in the Disapora with him to the Holy Land. Yaackov responded by once again taking from the stones of the place and this time setting them up as a witness, with the Almighty acting as the guarantor. He told Lavan that all his achievements, everything that he had gained whilst away from his father’s house, whilst in exile away from the Holy Land, was specifically for use back home.

 

{Lavan tried to then corrupt it by calling the monument by a local name, but Yaackov gave it its Hebrew and spiritually significant name.}

 

This Sedra in essence mirrors our life.

 

When we are born, we are like Yaackov at the beginning of his journey and it is our duty, often played out by our parents, to take from this world and ask the Almighty to grant us the protection to enable us to do our job. After 120 years, when we prepare to return to our Father in Heaven, we need to be able to say to the world, ‘everything that I have achieved whilst on my journey here has a purpose, it wasn’t just for use whilst in exile, but is actually a watch tower that guards over me whilst I go back home – and the Almighty is my witness to this.

 

Shabbat Shalom,

 

Rabbi Dovid

 

{Thanks to my Hebrew Professor C Fierstone for the inspiration for this article}