Shabbat Va-Yetze
Written by Kate Briggs Thursday, 04 December 2008
Following on from last week’s parashah when Jacob deceives Esau of his birthright, this parashah seems to start on a positive note: And Jacob went out from Beer-sheva (Gen. 28:10). It seems so pleasant, so innocuous. But we know that Jacob is fleeing from his home, not just wandering around, having a great comforting dream, finding a wife, meeting up with his kinsfolk. On closer examination all is not what it seems. Jacob’s wanderings are not the same as the wanderings and ac-complishments of his grandfather Abraham and father Isaac and the divine prom-ises made to them. Whilst God does repeat his traditional promise of posterity and land, gives Jacob reassurances that He will protect him and make sure he returns to the land of his birth, Jacob appears insecure—not surprising given his circum-stances! Two things are noticeable about this passage. Firstly, this is clearly a pas-sage about encounter, not re-assurance; the dream-vision is a means to emphasise the magnitude of the encounter. Secondly, there is Jacob’s vow, the conditional element of which is troublesome for many of the commentators.
So what is challenging is Jacob’s vow? And Jacob then made a vow saying ‘If God remains with me, if he protects me on this journey that I am making and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear: and if I return safely to my father’s house the Lord shall be my God’ (Gen. 28:20–21). As many biblical scholars have noted, is this not an odd reaction to a Divine promise of protection? What is interesting is that God does not verbally respond to Jacob. In fact, the only time there is a two-way com-munication between God and Jacob is in Genesis 46:2 and even then it is brief: ‘Jacob, Jacob’, he answers. ‘Here’. and that is the extent of the conversation. Thus my questions are: Should Jacob have responded to God like this? Was it not an au-dacious response?
R. Jonathan found that trying to explain Jacob’s vow was a despairing task so he concluded that the text must be in disarray! The order of the verse is con-fusing; there appears to be a time delay. We learn that Jacob lies down and dreams a dream, he then wakes from his sleep claiming how awesome is the place, then seems to go back to sleep and on waking in the morning makes a vow. Why? the 16th-century Italian commentator Obadiah Sforno says that Jacob made a vow (Gen. 28:20) is to be understood as meaning that the words are part of the vow, not conditions. Jacob is aware that difficult conditions of life such as oppression, poverty, and illness could impair his ability to keep the vow. Thus, Sforno suggests, he prays that these should not befall him and lead him away from God and if this prayer is answered then Jacob would be prepared to be judged by God, as indi-cated by the use of אלהים. Until his return, he could only hope that He would treat him with mercy and compassion as indicated by the use of the four-letter Name of God.
This to some extent is appeasing, but it seems to be illustrating how we are standing in judgement by God all the time by our very existence; how much we bargain with God; how this sort of petition-bargaining in a bizarre way is really an affirmation of our faith. We are really just humbling ourselves before God, doubt-ing not God but our own capacity to withstand certain situations. So the passage perhaps demonstrates the vulnerable ‘human’ side of Jacob, illustrating that we too can be spiritually unprepared, but at the same time we are no lesser for our failings and our need to reach out to God in times of trouble, even if we are seen to be petitioning and bargaining.
The commentators are clearly vexed by this vow. But they still do not quite answer the question. When we bargain with God, we have expectations. For exam-ple, when a relative is dying, ‘If you’ll just let him live then I will do this, this and this; if you can’t let him live, just give him a bit longer so I can say what I need to say and I will do x, y, z’. Is this really so different from Jacob? If God does not deliver then surely it is understandable to feel confused, angry that God is not there for us? Is bargaining a way of keeping safe? Surely on one level it provides comfort acknowl-edging that there is a powerful presence out there in charge of the situation.
Perhaps one can see the whole Jacob cycle as an attempt to establish him-self in the world, for it depicts so many struggles. As Michael Fishbane aptly writes, ‘the life trials of Jacob are less manifestly theological than those of Abra-ham because he is tested more by his responses to daily turmoil’. As indeed are we.
