This week’s Torah portion is Vayetze: Genesis 28:10 – 32:3
Nowhere do we find the God of immanence more than in the stories of Jacob, the grandson of Abraham. There is no such thing as a transcendent God, one who is unapproachable. The God of Jacob is an ever-accessible God, always at the ready to respond to the one who loves and needs Him.
Anyone who thinks, incorrectly, that the God of the Hebrew Bible is a God of vengeance and rebuke only needs to see how near, caring and devoted is the God of Israel.
Anywhere that we might look in our Torah reading of Vayetze, we will find examples of the intimate relationship that Jacob enjoys with God; we will focus on one.
Jacob is spending an extended sojourn in the land between the two rivers of the Tigris and Euphrates. He has fallen in love with Rachel, married her and her sister Leah, and is given two other women as concubine wives, Bilhah and Zilpah.
His stay in Mesopotamia has been tumultuous, especially due to his father-in-law, Laban. It seems that everything that Jacob attempts to accomplish succeeds beyond his wildest dreams, and he prospers as his family grows.
He comes to a point where he returns home to Canaan where his grandfather, Abraham, and his father, Isaac, established the future for their descendants.
Jacob, who is responsible for the flocks of his father-in-law, needs to come up with a method of coming to an amicable solution to receive a just payment for his devoted labor. The Torah tells us, “But Laban said to him, ‘If you will indulge me, I have learned by divination that God has blessed me on your account.’ And he continued, ‘Name the wages due from me, and I will pay you.’” (Genesis 30:27-28)
The method of his choosing is difficult to comprehend, no matter how many times one rereads the Torah text. It involves the separation of his wages in animals of a certain coloring, from the general herd.
Jacob follows the method to the letter, as explained to him by the angel of God, and succeeds in working out his wages. Through no fault of his own, he appears to have defrauded his somewhat unsavory father-in-law.
It is noteworthy that all of the decision making for future action in the lives of the avot (patriarchs) is based in faith and a most intimate relationship with God. God reassures Jacob of the steadfastness of His promise to him
This promise hearkens back to God’s original promise to Jacob at the time of his flight from the hands of his brother Esau in Be’er Sheva, where later at Beth-El “He had a dream; a stairway was set on the ground and its top reached to the sky, and angels of God were going up and down on it.” (Genesis 28:12)
At the very beginning of the Torah portion, God gives His clearest and strongest assurance to Jacob, in this dream, that He will never abandon him. “God was standing beside him [Jacob] and He said, ‘I am God, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring. Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants.” (Genesis 28:13-14)
And so it is, as he readies himself for his return journey, that he proclaims: “And in the dream an angel of God said to me, ‘Jacob!’ ‘Here,’ I answered … I am the God Beth-El, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to Me. Now, arise and leave this land and return to your native land.’” (31:11, 13)
The God of Jacob is a God who is, as the psalmist sings, “God is near to all who call, to all who call to God in truth.” (Psalms 145:18)
Rabbi Dr. Sanford H. Shudnow served 22 years as a Navy chaplain, with his last duty station at the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, known today as Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
