Special thanks to community member Elizabeth Danziger, founder of Worktalk Communications Consulting, for assisting in transforming this sermon from last year into an essay for this year.
The Jewish Home
Vayetze 5769
This week marks the first anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Chabad House in Mumbai, India. I dedicate this learning to the memory of the Holzberg, who were brutally murdered at that time.
This week’s Torah portion begins with the flight of Yaakov. He is a fugitive, having just snatched the primary blessings of Yitzchak from under his brother Eisav’s nose. Yaakov begins his exodus en route to the home of Lavan his mother’s brother to find his soul mate and marry her.
Does this storyline sound familiar? Did any other biblical characters leave their parent’s home recently? Of course we know that Avraham had just recently departed from Ur Kasdim and began his life in Eretz Yisrael. This week Yaakov begins his spirit walk from Eretz Yisrael to Charan.
There is one major difference however in the types of journeys that Avraham and Yaakov make. Avraham leaves with his entire family and entourage in tow. Avraham was a made man who just needed to make his life in a holier place. His life and family as a Jew were established – they just needed to move. Yaakov was running and he was running penniless, lonely and scared. This is a stark contrast to the Abrahamic journey. Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch points out this contrast to note that this is central to us as Jews.
Yaakov is also known as Yisrael and the only names for the Jewish people found in the Torah are the Bnei Yisrael and Beis Yaakov. We are named for Yaakov. The Jewish people are the children of Yisrael and the House of Yaakov. Today we read about the emergence of the House of Yaakov. Avraham traveled with his family and his home. Yaakov leaves with nothing and he travels to create and family and a home. He established the first Jewish home to bring the Shechina into that home through its existence. The home of Yaakov is a home where Hashem can rest His presence. And the journey to create that home begins in our Parsha. That journey has continued throughout the millennia as we ourselves embark on that same journey to build a home and bring the Shechina into that home.
On the night of Yaakov’s first stop he sleeps on the Temple Mount. Before resting his head he builds a rock formation to protect himself;’ this is the first home of Yaakov. During his slumber Yaakov experiences tremendous Divine revelations with eternal meaning. He witnesses angels ascending and descending a ladder. They are traveling from the Home of GD in the Heavens into the first home of Yaakov. Every Shabbos we greet angels into our home as well.
When Yaakov awakes he exclaims that this place is Home of God, a Beis Elokim. It is a place where God rests His Shechina. The Jewish home is a place where God rests His presence, and thus, is a place where we can find God.
Conversely, other cultures and religions preach going outside the home to “find”God. They look at nature, beauty, philosophy and they search for God. We always hear and know about people searching for God. We don’t hear too much about observant Jews “searching” for God. The observant Jew has no need to search. The message to the Jew is that God is out there but he is in fact much closer as well – he is right here in the home. God resides in the spiritual home and we create that environment for Him. This gives us tremendous power and an important opportunity that not to be missed!
Truthfully, our enemies knew this to be true as well. Later on in the Torah the gentile (pseudo) prophet Bilaam attempts to curse the Jewish people but is unable to do so. Despite his best efforts, he is only able to speak words of blessing. One of the most poetic and moving sections of the entire Torah is where Bilaam exclaims “Ma Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov Mishkenosecha Yisrael,” “how excellent are your homes,” and he mentions Yaakov. Yaakov is the home and when we allow Hashem to enter we continue the journey that Yaakov began in our Parsha.
The most important asset to Jewish continuity is the Jewish home, which was established outside the land of Israel for the first time by Yaakov. Each one of us is maintaining that home every day. There are some people who raise the ante and are superstars in Jewish home building. Not only do those people establish a home for spirituality, they also share that home with everyone that comes their way.
This week is the anniversary of the terrorist attack on the Chabad House in Mumbai, India. The Holzbergs, previously of Mumbai, took home building to its most positive extreme. They were completely in a spiritual wilderness and managed to bring the Shechina to a spiritually dark corner of the earth. The Holzbergs were tremendous performers of Chesed. Rabbi Holzberg personally shechted chickens each week for all the Jews of Mumbai and for all its guests. Mrs. Holzberg baked 600 rolls per week to give the Jewish people of Mumbai and its visitors. That amount of chesed is a very strong prescription to bring the Shechina into one’s home. Working that diligently to bring Hashem into their home brought a light to their home and to India and to the world that is missed.
One observation I have is that this is the first time I know of that the Jewish home has been under attack. We have gone through attacks on buses, yeshivas, malls, airplanes etc. all in public places. This was the first time we were attacked in the Jewish home. To me this is something to think about. It could be the message here is that our homes are supposed to be immune to attack – but that is only when the spirituality of our collective homes is strong. Our homes have been under siege spiritually for some time now. The pitfalls of Western culture relationships and notions of love and child rearing enter our insulated homes and perhaps it has weakened us to the point where we are now vulnerable to physical attack. As long as our homes are fortresses of spirituality, we are protected but it could be that our homes have suffered from the unyielding onslaught of impurity that permeated our world, leaving us susceptible to attack.
In light of this view our response to terror is not – we must prevent this and raise awareness etc. or maybe if we had more political clout this would not happen or we need to fortify our homes with guns. Our response is purely to replace the missing spirituality from the world that results from their demise. We, as observers, are now charged with the task of replacing the lost chesed and the lost shechina through our own efforts. Incredibly, this is not that hard a task. What it requires from us is a commitment to the Jewish home. To reinforce those barriers that protect us from the spiritual holocaust that is our world. The commitment to continue Yaakov’s journey of building the Jewish home on our own by integrating Torah principles into our home gives the shechina its resting place in our world. The lesson of our Parsha and the lesson of lives lost is the eternal message that we don’t need to find GD – we just need to invite Him into our homes and He will find us.
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