Welcome to our new blog. Allow me to introduce myself… My name is Rabbi Josh Hearshen. I am the Associate Rabbi at Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, NY. I have created this blog to create another avenue for more people to learn תורה/Torah. I hope you will enjoy this.
This week we will be reading the words of פרשת עקב. I have always found it to be rather interesting that this פרשה is named with the letters of the root of our patriarch יעקב’s name: Notice that this is פרשה עקב, and that Jacob’s name was spelled יעקב. Now why was he called יעקב? Here is the story of how it all happened:
This is from בראשית כה Genesis 25:
19 This is the story of Isaac, son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac. 20 Isaac was forty years old when he took to wife Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Paddan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean. 21 Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord responded to his plea, and his wife Rebekah conceived. 22 But the children struggled in her womb, and she said, "If so, why do I exist?" She went to inquire of the Lord, 23 and the Lord answered her,
"Two nations are in your womb,24 When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. 25 The first one emerged red, like a hairy mantle all over; so they named him Esau. 26 Then his brother emerged, holding on to the heel of Esau; so they named him Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.
Two separate peoples shall issue from your body;
One people shall be mightier than the other,
And the older shall serve the younger."
27 When the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the outdoors; but Jacob was a mild man who stayed in camp. 28 Isaac favored Esau because he had a taste for game; but Rebekah favored Jacob.
יעקב was the name that he was given at birth, and it is a name that is dependent on his brother… We all have many names, we all have names from birth, but there are also the names that we make for ourselves. We have names that we acquire through education and attaining a level of learning, for instance I am a rabbi. We have names that we receive from friends that are nicknames and are usually tied to an event. We have names that we receive from those who love us, pet names, and these have an ability to make us feel loved… All sorts of names. Jacob went all these years being known as the heel grabber, because he was holding his brother’s heel at birth. Eventually he acquired his own name in that he had a great struggle with a Godly creature. This is the episode in chapter 32 of בראשית/Geneis:
23 That same night he arose, and taking his two wives, his two maidservants, and his eleven children, he crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 24 After taking them across the stream, he sent across all his possessions. 25 Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. 26 When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he wrenched Jacob's hip at its socket, so that the socket of his hip was strained as he wrestled with him. 27 Then he said, "Let me go, for dawn is breaking." But he answered, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." 28 Said the other, "What is your name?" He replied, "Jacob." 29 Said he, "Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with beings divine and human, and have prevailed." 30 Jacob asked, "Pray tell me your name." But he said, "You must not ask my name!" And he took leave of him there. 31 So Jacob named the place Peniel, meaning, "I have seen a divine being face to face, yet my life has been preserved." 32 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping on his hip. 33 That is why the children of Israel to this day do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the socket of the hip, since Jacob's hip socket was wrenched at the thigh muscle.
This name that he earned was one of respect and one of awe. It spoke of his relationship with God and his demand for more than just blind acceptance. In our weekly פרשה we find in the opening words: “12 And if you do obey these rules and observe them carefully, the Lord your God will maintain faithfully for you the covenant that He made on oath with your fathers: 13 He will favor you and bless you and multiply you; He will bless the issue of your womb and the produce of your soil, your new grain and wine and oil, the calving of your herd and the lambing of your flock, in the land that He swore to your fathers to assign to you.” The word עקב that refers to יעקב’s having held his brother’s heel, that was our patriarch’s birth name, is now being used as a demand that we “heel” to God’s commandments. These commandments were not meant to be easy, they were not meant to be simple… They were meant to encourage dialogue and debate. The תלמוד where we find the rabbis arguing and debating the laws of the תורה teaches us all a great deal about struggle with the Infinite, and with the human desire to understand. God is at the center of יעקב as a person and as a lesson, and God is at the core of our being. There are many descriptions of God in this week’s פרשה. I have chosen a handful for you to study and then in the comment section to tell us what you think.
All of the following texts are from the JPS translation of the book Deuteronomy/דברים. What type of image of God do they paint?
| Chapter 7 12 And if you do obey these rules and observe them carefully, the Lord your God will maintain faithfully for you the covenant that He made on oath with your fathers: 13 He will favor you and bless you and multiply you; He will bless the issue of your womb and the produce of your soil, your new grain and wine and oil, the calving of your herd and the lambing of your flock, in the land that He swore to your fathers to assign to you. 14 You shall be blessed above all other peoples: there shall be no sterile male or female among you or among your livestock. 15 The Lord will ward off from you all sickness; He will not bring upon you any of the dreadful diseases of Egypt, about which you know, but will inflict them upon all your enemies. |
| Chapter 7 16 You shall destroy all the peoples that the Lord your God delivers to you, showing them no pity. And you shall not worship their gods, for that would be a snare to you. 17 Should you say to yourselves, "These nations are more numerous than we; how can we dispossess them?" 18 You need have no fear of them. You have but to bear in mind what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all the Egyptians: 19 the wondrous acts that you saw with your own eyes, the signs and the portents, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God liberated you. Thus will the Lord your God do to all the peoples you now fear. |
| Chapter 8 2 Remember the long way that the Lord your God has made you travel in the wilderness these past forty years, that He might test you by hardships to learn what was in your hearts: whether you would keep His commandments or not. 3 He subjected you to the hardship of hunger and then gave you manna to eat, which neither you nor your fathers had ever known, in order to teach you that man does not live on bread alone, but that man may live on anything that the Lord decrees. 4 The clothes upon you did not wear out, nor did your feet swell these forty years. 5 Bear in mind that the Lord your God disciplines you just as a man disciplines his son. 6 Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God: walk in His ways and revere Him. 7 For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with streams and springs and fountains issuing from plain and hill; 8 a land of wheat and barley, of vines, figs, and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey; 9 a land where you may eat food without stint, where you will lack nothing; a land whose rocks are iron and from whose hills you can mine copper. 10 When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. |
| Chapter 9 11 At the end of those forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the Tablets of the Covenant. 12 And the Lord said to me, "Hurry, go down from here at once, for the people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted wickedly; they have been quick to stray from the path that I enjoined upon them; they have made themselves a molten image." 13 The Lord further said to me, "I see that this is a stiffnecked people. 14 Let Me alone and I will destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven, and I will make you a nation far more numerous than they." |
| Chapter 10 12 And now, O Israel, what does the Lord your God demand of you? Only this: to revere the Lord your God, to walk only in His paths, to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, 13 keeping the Lord's commandments and laws, which I enjoin upon you today, for your good. 14 Mark, the heavens to their uttermost reaches belong to the Lord your God, the earth and all that is on it! 15 Yet it was to your fathers that the Lord was drawn in His love for them, so that He chose you, their lineal descendants, from among all peoples — as is now the case. |
So which one do you feel closest to?
Which do you feel most distant from?
Would you like to combine any of them?
How do you think יעקב would have reacted to these words?
צא ולמד – Go and Learn
