Toldot – Once Upon a Week

Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Yehuda Bachana.

Dear friends, today we continue our journey through the book of Genesis, which is full of interesting and didactive stories that offer us many life lessons, and the Toldot Torah portion is no exception.

Today I wanted to talk to you about Jacob, his exceptional work ethics, and a questionable Jewish tradition, which claims that Jacob was a yeshiva student. Today we will examine this tradition, and the serious question it presents.

This question concerns us all, where do we, as observant Jews, as Christian, or as Messianic believers stand before God, regarding our prayer times and study times? What should be first in our life? God? Family life? Or a career and financial success?

It is very hard to be successful and fully invested in all three spheres of life. Not only as they often contradict each other, but also because our time is limited, and we only have 24 hours a day to get it all done.

In order to achieve “real” financial success, one has to be willing to invest in work and business much time and effort, to be focused and make sacrifices. However, building a good and devoted family also requires time, focus and sacrifices.

Many of us are thankful for our mother’s willingness to give up her career for nurturing family life. But that is my point exactly — one comes at the expense of another.

And where is God in this picture? He requires us to be honest in business, to tithe from our income, and be compassionate to the less fortunate.

Can I sit and study Torah all day long, at the expense of my family? And what about work? Income?

How can we find a right balance between these three spheres of our life: family, career, and God? Do we need to choose one over the other? Shall we choose God at the expense of a family life or a career?

This is the question behind the Jewish idea that in his youth Jacob was a yeshiva student. Meaning that Jacob sat and studied the word of God all day long.

This idea is coming from the interpretation of verse 27 of chapter 25:

Many commentaries were written in an attempt to understand the phrase “dwelling (sitting) in tents”. The traditional interpretation of this phrase is that Jacob was sitting and studying the Torah. How do the rabbis describe it?

Jacob was a mild man, sitting (dwelling) in tents. Since the text doesn’t say sitting “in a tent”, but “in tents”, they interpreted it as:

For many Jewish sages “sitting in tents” means that Jacob was a yeshiva student, a rabbinical disciple. They use it as a justification of long hours, dedicated to prayer and Torah study, at the expense of taking care and providing for one’s family, or army service.

I do not think that this kind of interpretation and lifestyle is an exclusively Jewish problem, but rather a general religious problem, common to many religions. In ultra-orthodox Judaism, we see the willingness to sacrifice job and career for the sake of Torah study. It is quite common that men dedicate their lives to study and prayer, while women are left to provide for the family and to take care of children at the same time.

In Christianity, a similar mindset is found in the monastery lifestyle, when people are sacrificing a family life and material pleasures for the sake of prayer and meditation in accordance with their religious system. It is not different in the case of the Buddhist monks. So, as I said before, this is the general problem of any “religion”.

This concept is not foreign to us, as Messianic believers. We believe in God with all our hearts, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We love God, we want to serve Him, we want to invest in our faith, in prayer, in the study of the Word and good works.

To have God in the center of our lives is our ideal. So how can we keep the balance between the different spheres of life: between family, job, and life of faith and service to the Lord?

Let’s look at Yeshua’s answer, when he was asked about the greatest of all commandments:

Yeshua could’ve said “love the Lord you God” and that’s it, this is the “greatest commandment”. But He didn’t stop here, he carried on: and love your neighbor as yourself. This was absolutely necessary!

Yeshua is telling us that the commandments are not limited to our relationships with God, but our faith is expressed through the way we treat our neighbor, or a stranger passing by. Yeshua said that the entire Torah is founded on these two commandments.

Yeshua’s teaching is practical and is familiar to us as Jews, who know the expression “pikuach nefesh” (“saving a life”). And we know that saving a life comes before the Torah, before Sabbath, and before all the commandments.

Yeshua teaches us, that when there is a person in trouble, all the commandments are canceled, that it why Yeshua healed on the Sabbath (Mathew 12 and more). We cannot be only focusing upward, but need to think both about what’s above, and what’s around us.

The greatest challenge of our lives is to find the right balance between heavenly matters and earthly responsibilities. Both the Bible and the New Testament teach about relationships with our neighbors, about proper attitude to those near us. And although God comes first, the most important aspect of serving God is serving others around us.

What am I trying to say here, is that we believe in God and we want to serve Him, but in what way can person serve God? He serves his neighbor in the name of God. A believer serves his neighbor, because he believes in God.

Let’s go back to Jacob:

Can we explain and understand the expression “dwelling in tents” differently? Yes, as we find the similar expression only a few chapters earlier:

Dwelling in tents means being a shepherd. Genesis 4 tells us about two brothers Jabal and Jubal, one invented music instruments, the other was the founder of shepherding — of animal domestication, the first rancher, so to speak.

When we think of what did Jacob do in his youth? Did he study Torah? Pray? Care about his spiritual wellbeing? Search for God? The answer to all these questions is found in the rest of Jacob’s story, so let’s examine his behavior.

Upon his arrival to Haran, even before entering the town, Jacob met a large group of shepherds sitting near the well, doing nothing. What was Jacob’s fist question?

What are you doing here, he asks them, why are you wasting your time, go back to pasture! Jacob is lecturing local shepherds about work.

Could he do it, if he was not a hard worker himself? From this conversation we can assume that Jacob grew up working as a shepherd, and it bothers him to see others not doing their jobs.

Jacob proves himself as a person of action:

Here we discover that Jacob was very strong, stronger than average. While all the shepherds were waiting to gather together to move the heavy stone from the mouth of the well, Jacob was strong enough to do it by himself.

Later he will fight the angel on the planes of Jabbok River; he is strong! We also discover that he knew how to water the flock. We learn that being a shepherd is what he does, it is in his blood, that’s what he is good at.

The scripture tells us that after meeting Rachel and the rest of the family:

What did Jacob do during his first month with Laban? Was he sitting and studying Torah? Did he search for answers to empiric questions, like: what does God want from me? Why am I in Haran? How did I get into this trouble? What is the meaning of my life?

Not at all, and the next verse gives us an answer.

We understand that Jacob didn’t rest for a minute, all this time he was working, diligently watching Laban’s flocks. Laban saw Jacob’s work and offered him a job. Why, because he was impressed by Jacob’s work ethic.

He wanted this diligent worker for himself, before his neighbors would make Jacob an offer and steal from him this good employee. Jacob was successful in everything he did.

Jacob stayed and worked for Laban for 20 years. In chapter 30 we read about the trick he did, when he and Laban decided to split the flocks, so every family will have what’s theirs. They decided to divided flocks by color, separating spotted animals from even-colored. In order to get desirable results, Jacob placed rods with stripes by the place where animals were conceiving.

We are dealing here with an expert in sheep herding, who knew how to manipulate the circumstances in order to get what he wants:

This is written about Jacob. Jacob was herding Laban’s flocks with diligence and endurance, often in harsh conditions. We learn it from the conversation between Jacob and Laban:

It was because of Jacob’s work ethic that God has protected him all these years.

…says Jacob to Laban.

Discussing Jacob, the Jewish sages teach us the following principle, that is worthwhile applying to our lives as well:

This saying means, that a man can’t say “I will eat, drink and enjoy myself, without working and God will bless me” No, a man needs to work, to do things with his own hands, and only then he will receive God’s blessing.

I believe that this Torah portion teaches us the correct balance in life. As we all need to find a healthy balance between family, job, and our faith.

Yes, maybe my career will not be on the top of my abilities, but so what? if I am surrounded by a loving family. And maybe, I am not the greatest Bible scholar, but I am doing pretty well at my job, and I am a decent and honest person.

Life in this world requires us to work and earn our living, to build our future, to invest in the family and in the next generation, and to teach them about faith and God. We must remember that we are accountable before God.

Shabbat Shalom.