Vayetze – Once Upon a Week

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

The Jewish sages say that our traditional prayers were founded by the patriarchs, that Abraham established Shacharit (the morning prayer) after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as it says:

And that Isaac founded Mincha (the afternoon prayer) just before he met Rebecca for the first time, as it is said:

And according to our rabbis, in this Torah portion Jacob establishes Ar’vit (the evening prayer). What led our Sages to this conclusion?

But first, let’s look at the circumstances that led to our Torah portion. Jacob had to leave the home of his parents — a wealthy home, where he enjoyed security and abundance. As we know that Abraham was rich and that he made sure his son Isaac would inherit not only God’s promise, but the earthly riches as well.

In our portion Jacob escaped from his home in haste, heading for Harran with absolutely nothing. At the beginning of our portion, the Torah uses very simple language to describe Jacob’s travel to Harran:

the Hebrew literally says “va’ifga be’makom”, which means “he hit a spot”. The Hebrew doesn’t say he came to a certain place, but rather he hit a certain place, and that word “va’ifga” is close, and with the same root as “hafga”, which means intercession. So the rabbis say: “don’t read hit, but pray”.

The understanding that the Hebrew word “hit” can also mean prayer or intercession is based on many other biblical passages, including Hebrews, where its author writes that Yeshua is the heavenly Hight Priest, who can “le’afgiah” (intercede for the believers):

An additional example is found in Romans:

The Hebrew word used here is from the root “paga” (“hit”). The same word appears in the book of Jeremiah, when God asks the prophet not to plead for the people. Here again the same word is used to describe prayer, pleading or interceding.

Jeremiah is praying for this nation, when God asked him a rhetorical question: “Jeremiah, why are you praying? Haven’t you seen the actions of these people, their lack of righteousness and the decline of their morals? No shame is left in them, and if before they would hide their corrupt behavior, now it is done publicly, in the eyes of all, in the streets of Jerusalem and in towns of Judah. Stop praying and pleading for this people, because I do not want to hear them anymore.”

This scares me, when as a nation, and the rest of the world, we lose our shame, we lose our moral compass and forget about brotherly love. When hate and abuse are growing by day, when violence and taking-advantage-of-the-weak are seen as normal, when our desire to contribute and sacrifice is weakening — I feel afraid.

We are turning into a selfish society, where every man is for himself, we forget about the sacrifices made by the founders of our countries. Sacrifice is always necessary, in helping others, or when investing in the future generation.

Will God hear our prayers, when there is a deep rift, and even hatred, between religious and secular, between the political right and left? We have to work towards the healing of our society, to try to accept one another.

God created us all in His own image and we are brothers. We cannot speak hatefully and curse someone with our lips, and a minute later use the same defiled mouth to praise God and pray to Him. It doesn’t work like that.

Jacob (or James), the brother of Yeshua, says that:

Further he compares our tongue to horse bits and ships’ rudders. Jacob says that small things like horse bits or people’s tongues have great power, which controls and influences our actions.

He also compares the tongue to a fire, and we all know the power of fire and how much damage it can cause. That’s why we don’t let our children to play with fire. The same is our tongue, the flames of the wrong words or slander spread around like fire, and can destroy an entire forest.

While we are sitting here and blaming our tongue, we need to remember that our tongue speaks out loud what we think in our heart. as Yeshua says in Mathew:

Yeshua said that speech can defile a man. That is why we must express ourselves in a respectful manner, because if our speech is defiled, if we say hurtful things or curse another person, we can’t use the same mouth and the same tongue to praise God a minute later.

Let’s go back to Jacob. I can’t tell you with certainty if he prayed Ar’vit (the evening prayer) or not, since the scripture didn’t tell us about it. So ae do not know if Jacob prayed and what he prayed for.

However, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand Jacob’s mindset. His own brother wants to hurt him and his parents couldn’t protect him, and so they send him to a faraway land. He is alone, he has nothing and undoubtedly he is in great distress.

In such situations, people usually pray from the bottom of their hearts, as it is written in Psalms:

When we are desperate, we lose our defenses and our masks, we feel vulnerable and helpless. But this is exactly the time when we are open to God’s revelation.

When someone hurts us, when we are alone in the darkness, and the darkness completely overcomes us, God reveals Himself to us.

God is found not only in our prayer houses, not only on the Day of Atonement, but He is present in the wilderness, where we journey alone. When we are exhausted and can’t go any further, in this very last moment He reveals Himself to us.

And the same as Jacob, we say:

And here I want to jump to a different Jacob — the brother of Yeshua from the New Testament. Jacob, or James, knows that when facing difficulties, people often don’t know how to deal with them.

In his letter, Jacob asks us to look beyond our current circumstances, beyond our trials and challenges. As we go through hardships, we become mature, and develop patience and strength.

Yes, life can be hard, nevertheless James tells us that everything that happens is done according to God’s will. That is why James, Yeshua’s brother, tells us to focus on the goal ahead.

As parents, if we’ll overprotect our children, they will grow up weak, fragile, and bored. We are obligated to let our children take calculated risks, to raise them mature and strong.

In Israel, There is a huge difference between a teenager before enlisting into the army and a young man who had served as a combat soldier. Training, difficulties, challenges, and the danger he faced changed him completely, granted him manhood, tremendous inner strength, and important tools for life.

Obviously, as parents we shouldn’t put our kids in danger, and as commanders in the army we shouldn’t overload our soldiers. The test shouldn’t be harder than what they can bear.

In a similar way, it is promised to us in the New Testament that God will not test us beyond our abilities:

From this Torah portion and from the New Testament we learn to have confidence in God. We understand that everything is under His authority. And when facing troubles and difficulties, we learn to lean upon the Lord and to trust Him.

This reminds me of a short story, which I first read written on the wall of an ultra-orthodox school, but it is a famous story, known to all — Orthodox Jews, Christians, and Messianic believers:

A man has a dream, and in this dream, he sees two sets of footprints on the sand, passing all through his life. One set of footprints was his and the other belonged to the Lord, who is walking hand in hand with the man, leading him through his life.

When the man looked back, he noticed that during the hardest periods of his life, there was only one set of footprints on the sand. He then asked the Lord:

“You told me, that if I will dedicate my life to you, you will never leave me. So, why did you leave me when I needed you the most?” God smiled and said:

“At the most difficult times of your life, when you see only one sets of footprints on the sand, it is when I carried you in my arms”.

As Messianic believers we see Yeshua walking together with us. He, Yeshua, fills us with strength and with hope, as it is written in Philippians:

Let’s get back to Jacob and our Torah portion. If Jacob did pray that night, the answer from God came to him in a dream. There in Bethel Jacob saw the famous vision, he saw angels coming up and down the ladder, and God revealed Himself to him.

I think we can say that God answered Jacob’s prayer when He blessed Jacob, reconfirming the blessing of his father Isaac. I am not talking about the blessing that Jacob “stole” from his brother, but the second blessing that Isaac gave him, just before he left for Harran.

I want to remind you that at the end of last week’s Torah portion, Jacob left for Harran, running from the rage of his brother Esau. And just before his departure, Isaac blessed Jacob with the blessing of Abraham:

There, at the end, Isaac bestowed the promised land and blessing to Jacob.

I believe that this is the truly important blessing that Isaac intentionally gave to his son Jacob. In my opinion, the blessing that Jacob “stole” while wearing a young goat’s skins, he did not enjoy, because it didn’t belong to him to begin with. That’s my opinion.

Back to Jacob. The next morning, after seeing the famous vision of the ladder, Jacob understood that there is God in this place, there is someone who listens to him:

We remember Yeshua saying in the New Testament:

We understand that Yeshua is God’s answer to our prayer. Yeshua is the ladder that connects us to heaven, and through Yeshua we can connect to the living God.

And similar to the way in which God promised Jacob the inheritance, a future for him and his descendants, He promised to walk with him and to protect him on his journey.Through Yeshua the Messiah, God is giving the very same promise to us.

In the same paragraph, from John chapter 1, Yeshua is asking two of his disciples, who follow Him: “what do you seek?” Both disciples, who followed Yeshua, proclaimed, “We have found the Messiah” (John 1:38,41 [NKJV]).

And this is also what we proclaim, with the words from John:

We have found Yeshua the Messiah.