Fun Facts About Parasaht Vayeitzei:
What the Haftorah has to do with the Parasha: This week’s Haftorah is connected to the Parasha in a very common way among the Haftarot. Namely, that it mentions the names of Yaakov and Yehuda. In addition, a part of the Haftorah that Sefardim don’t read, but Ashkenazim and Chabad do, says that “Yaakov went to find a wife…”, which is one of the main themes of this week’s Parasha.
This week’s Parasha has 148 Pesukim, with the mnemonic being חלק”י, and מחני”ם. The significance of the word מחנים is that it is the same word as the last word in this week’s Parasha. (After looking into this, I found out that Rabbi Dovid Feinstein states the same idea.)
Halachot And Lessons From The Parasha: Vayeitzei:
Story: In 29:7, Yaakov saw that there were shepherds (seemingly) just wasting time at the well, which happened to have a rock covering it. He told them to stop wasting time, and to just water the sheep and start bringing them to the pasture. The shepherds, to their credit, answered him respectfully. They politely explained that the rock on the well was too heavy to move without the help of all the shepherds.
Halachot And Lessons: We can learn 2 things from this. One, that when someone is employed, they may not just loiter around and waste time, for they are actually stealing from their employer - for they are being paid by their employer for work they did not do! Secondly, we can learn that even if someone is yelled at - which of course Yaakov didn’t do, for he just reproached them - one shouldn’t get angry at that person, and should respond politely, and explain their reasons for (not) doing whatever they were accused of.
Story: In 29:11, the Passuk says that Yaakov kissed Rochel in public, and that he then cried. Why did he cry? The commentators - Mefarshim - give a variety of opinions. Rashi says that he cried because he saw through prophecy that she would not be buried with him. Rashi also says that he cried because he’d been robbed of all his possessions on the way, and therefore had no gifts for her. (See Rashi “וַיֵּֽבְךְּ”.) In addition, some of the commentators add that he cried because he had just kissed a strange woman in public, and he heard some shepherds saying that “Ever since the Flood, the whole area has worked very hard to avoid anything related to immorality, and we’ve been very careful about modesty. Here is this stranger kissing a girl from our town - in public!”. Because he saw that people thought badly of him, because of course he had a reason for what he did - that people didn’t know - but he still cried, out of the shame of people thinking badly of him. (Yafeh Torah, page 449.)
Halachot And Lessons: From here, we learn that we must be extremely careful with the laws of modesty. If the people of Charan, who were a) non Jews, and b) most likely not the most righteous people, were careful about these laws, how much more so must we, Hashem’s chosen nation, be careful regarding this.Fun Facts About Parasaht Vayeitzei:
What the Haftorah has to do with the Parasha: This week’s Haftorah is connected to the Parasha in a very common way among the Haftarot. Namely, that it mentions the names of Yaakov and Yehuda. In addition, a part of the Haftorah that Sefardim don’t read, but Ashkenazim and Chabad do, says that “Yaakov went to find a wife…”, which is one of the main themes of this week’s Parasha.
This week’s Parasha has 148 Pesukim, with the mnemonic being חלק”י, and מחני”ם. The significance of the word מחנים is that it is the same word as the last word in this week’s Parasha. (After looking into this, I found out that Rabbi Dovid Feinstein states the same idea.)
Halachot And Lessons From The Parasha: Vayeitzei:
Story: In 29:7, Yaakov saw that there were shepherds (seemingly) just wasting time at the well, which happened to have a rock covering it. He told them to stop wasting time, and to just water the sheep and start bringing them to the pasture. The shepherds, to their credit, answered him respectfully. They politely explained that the rock on the well was too heavy to move without the help of all the shepherds.
Halachot And Lessons: We can learn 2 things from this. One, that when someone is employed, they may not just loiter around and waste time, for they are actually stealing from their employer - for they are being paid by their employer for work they did not do! Secondly, we can learn that even if someone is yelled at - which of course Yaakov didn’t do, for he just reproached them - one shouldn’t get angry at that person, and should respond politely, and explain their reasons for (not) doing whatever they were accused of.
Story: In 29:11, the Passuk says that Yaakov kissed Rochel in public, and that he then cried. Why did he cry? The commentators - Mefarshim - give a variety of opinions. Rashi says that he cried because he saw through prophecy that she would not be buried with him. Rashi also says that he cried because he’d been robbed of all his possessions on the way, and therefore had no gifts for her. (See Rashi “וַיֵּֽבְךְּ”.) In addition, some of the commentators add that he cried because he had just kissed a strange woman in public, and he heard some shepherds saying that “Ever since the Flood, the whole area has worked very hard to avoid anything related to immorality, and we’ve been very careful about modesty. Here is this stranger kissing a girl from our town - in public!”. Because he saw that people thought badly of him, because of course he had a reason for what he did - that people didn’t know - but he still cried, out of the shame of people thinking badly of him. (Yafeh Torah, page 449.)
Halachot And Lessons: From here, we learn that we must be extremely careful with the laws of modesty. If the people of Charan, who were a) non Jews, and b) most likely not the most righteous people, were careful about these laws, how much more so must we, Hashem’s chosen nation, be careful regarding this.
Ari Shagalow