Vayeitzei - 7th Portion

Join me in learning together for Shabas the seventh Torah reading of parishes fet chapter 31 verse 43. Yesterday we learned as Lavan pursues Yakov and reaches as Yakov tries to run away from love with his family. Lavan accuses Yakov for running away with deceivingly and is for stealing the idols. Yakov rebukes Lavan for the very fact that he accuses him of stealing the idols and tells him how hard he worked and how he cheated him all the time. And now Yakov and Lavan continue their discussion. And loving now responds to Yakov and he says and he says to Yakov the daughters are my daughters and the sons are my and the children are my children and the flock are my flock whatever you see over here belongs to me is mine and as to my daughters how can I even do anything to them to hurt them day of name or even their children that they have born for 43 Rashi says how can you even imagine that I would even do something bad to them. Verse 44 now. So come now, let us make a covenant. I and you may hashem be a witness between me and you. The Reb explains if you look at Loven's argument, Love says Yakov went to Love for 20 years and he understood that Loven was a Rami. Love was a Aramite. But the same word comes from he was a cheat and he had to make sure that while he was by love and to not forget where he comes from because he was always countered with this idea that love was telling him that the children are mine the daughters are mine when you have children why do you have to teach them about Torah teach them the ways of the land like love and the Aramite. He goes on to say and he says even if you want to educate your children but but when it comes to business you got to follow ways of trickery and not follow the ways of the Torah and therefore has to constantly have this struggle while in exile while he was in he constantly had to fight with love on on the ideals and the values for his children and for what the stands for. So to us in exile, we have to remember not to listen to the love and to say to be able to go in the ways of and do the work honestly and ethically according to the ways of the Torah. Verse 44, who should be this witness? And over here Rashi tells us the word terminology is a male terminology referring to that Hashem should be the witness. Verse 45 then took a stone and he made it as a monument. Verse 46 said to his kinsmen, to the people that were with him, gather stones and they took stones and they made a mound. They formed a mound and they ate there on the mound. Who does it mean? His kinsmen, his people that were with him. That's his children. that they had brothers amongst themselves and they are like brother like brothers to him because since they participated in everything he did they were there to help him at any trial or tribulation whether it was war or suffering that he was going through and then called this the Aramaic word for mound of testimony Yakal and Yakov called it agal. You could add this to your trivia that if you want to know where is there an Aramaic word in the Torah is one of the only Aramaic words found in the Torah. Sadus Rashi says is the translation in Aramaic of the word galid which means mound of testimony. Verse 481 said, "May this mound be a witness between me and you today." And therefore they called it Galade as a testimony for Galade splitting the word Gal a mount of testimony. Rashi Galade the mount of testimony for verse 49 Omar and also the mitzvah the lookout that he said for love and had said may God keep watch between me and you. that if we were to be that between me and you when we were out of each other's sight when we couldn't observe another to see if we are violating violating the covenant or not with the well-known lookout which is a gill which is a mount as it says in the book of judges it says that they travel they traverse over the lookout of Gilad. And therefore the first comes to explain why was it called like looking out because love and said to each other that Hashem should be the one to observe to make sure that we should not uh desecrate and we should not we should not violate the covenant that we made with one another. What is it? What is that covenant? And now he continues if you will ill treat my daughters are you going to marry other women in addition to my daughters there is none among there there may there may be no one else present who knows only Hashem is witness to see what will happen between me and you over here in Rashi verse 50 if you notice he uses the terminology he says Benoi twice He mentions his daughters twice because he's referring to because Bill and Zilpa were the maid servants. Technically, they were also Lavan's daughters. However, they were daughters from a concubine, not from his real wife. So therefore, they were considered as bondswoman in his home. What does it mean if you're going to make them suffer? Meaning refusing to be intimate with them. Verse 51. Here is the mound and here is the monument that I've erected between me and you. See Rashi says like the word like if we find in the book of Exodus it's like somebody who shoots an arrow something that comes up you're bringing it up you're making it uh you're erecting something. Verse 52, the mound will be a witness and the monument will be a witness as well that I will not cross over to you beyond this mound and this monument to do anything bad to do to you. Verse 52 if I in this case is that not if as a condition if I do or not but that I will not cross over the mound to come to you to do anything hostile like we mentioned before in chapter 24 when alazar said and that I have to first say my words I am not allowed to cross to do something terrible to you, hostile. However, I could cross over to do something of peace of business that uh that is allowed, the God of Ara and the God of and the gods of should judge between us, the jud the the gods of their father which is includes at this point of with the dread of his father and over here if you notice there's different gods that they may be referring to in this case it's referring to a godly it's talking about but when he talks about this talking about his idolatries because was an idolatrous which is talking about the father of which was he also served idols and therefore in this case it's also not referring to God and then slaughtered animals on the mountain and he called his kinsmen did break bread to eat a meal together and they ate bread and they had a meal and spent the night on the mountain. He slaughtered the animals to have a meal. Before it was about bringing sacrifices, but now we're talking about making a meal. Not that it means literally his brothers, but for his friends, his kinsmen that were there together with anything that is eaten is called bread. It doesn't mean that they literally had bread. Chapter 32 verse one came and love and got up that morning and he kissed his grandchildren and to his daughters and he blessed them and he went and love and returned to his home. Verse two and continued on his way and the angels of God went out to greet him. Which angels of God? So as we recall in the beginning of this para it says that there were different angels that left Israel and then angels from outside of came to greet him. Now the angels of Israel are coming to greet him as well. The angels of came out to greet him to greet him to escort him home to the land of Israel. Verse three and said when he saw them this is a god's encampment and he named that place which means twin camps tells us two camps. Why two camps? Because you have you have the ones that escorted him from outside then the ones of Israel that came to greet him now to escort him into the land of Israel. The Reb explained something fascinating. If you look at the difference when the angels came here and the angels previously the angels previously were in a dream and over here the angels come to greet him in person. The difference is that over here Yakov spent 20 years in exile. So over here we learned something very important two important lessons especially for us the Jews in exile that now that we're in the time of preparing the world for Mashiach that we have to remember when going into Gulos when doing our job in gulus we're not going alone God tells us and sends angels with us in gulus that we should be able to overcome the gullus overcome the love of our time and if we are and if and when we are successful in gulus we then are able to see not only the angels in a dream but the angels there taking us and bringing us to the ultimate redemption. This concludes the Torah reading for Shabas.