Shiur Israel land of Higher Living (Vayashev)
Torah Portion: Genesis 37:1 to 40:23
Shabat Shalom. We are in the wonderful time of Hanukah, eight days of rejoicing, a time of reflection, a time of thinking, a time of looking back over the past year and seeing all the good things that God has done. Maybe we have not reflected enough, maybe we have not given God his due or his glory, we have only seen the negative and the bad things that have happened. But let us look at the other side as well. There have been miracles in every body’s lives. And there have been tremendous blessings also. So, this is a time, even as we close the year, to say thank you and thank God for everything. Hanukah is a time to internalize a wonderful attitude of thanks to God.
Earlier we studied the Reconciliation of Yakob and Esav; Yakob decides to stay in the land, do things slowly. Whereas, Esav says that he does not have time, he needs to run ahead and be on the move. In continuation of that, let us look at the choices the two of them make.
Yakob’s decision is to inherit the land. God promised that the blessings He gave Abraham would come upon him: and “you, your descendants, your seed, will inherit this land’. This was the choice he made, to remain in the land. The consequences of doing that is something that has to be studied today.
Look at the choice Esav made. What did he decide? He decided that the land belonged to Yakob and he moved out. He moves out, he travels out of the land of Israel, he goes to Seir, which is Edom. From this, a kingdom arises with Edomites and their kings. He extracted himself out of Yakob, the promise and the land. He faces the consequences of the choice he made. So does Yakob.
Let us look at the inner dimension of the land of Israel. Why is it so important? The land is extremely critical in this entire story. We have overlooked or not understood the importance of this land. Why is it called and referred to as Eretz Israel? Eretz comes from the Hebrew word, Ratz, which means to run, from which we get the word, Ratzon, which means “the will”, “our inner desire”. What does Running have to do with Will? Why is the land of Israel called Eretz, which comes from the word, Will, which comes from the word, Desire, which comes from the word, Run? This is crucial. We need to look at Eretz Israel carefully. Deuteronomy 11:12 tells us something very interesting; Moses tells the people (this is the background you need to understand for today’s study): Eretz Asher Adonai Eloheikhâ Doresh Otâh: Tamid, einei Adonai Eloheikhâ Bâh—Mêrêshît Hashshânâh, Vead Acharît Shânâh. {Samech}.
This verse ends with the Hebrew letter Samech, which means a sword level masoo. In the Hebrew Bible, there are two consonants at the end of sentences. One is a Peh, the other is a Samech. If it is a Peh, it means, the sentence is open, it is Patach. It is open to interpretation, it is open for you to enter the verse and study it. If it has a samech like in this verse, it means that this verse has a sword. It is a mystic word which is not open to interpretation by everybody. It needs supervised interpretation. It is a sword level, a mystic verse.
What is so mystic about this verse? Moses says, “the Lord your God, (Doresh) is constantly caring and inquiring about this land”. This land is extremely important to the Almighty God. Then, comes the word, Tamid Eîneî, Tamid means constantly, continually, day by day, month by month, year by year, forever. In other words, the eyes of the Lord are constantly on this land called Israel, by humans. The verse continues; Adonai Eloheikhâ (the Lord your God) Bâh (in her, in this land), Mêrêshît (from the beginning) Hashshânâh, Vead Acharît Shânâh (of the year till the end of the year).
Why is God so interested in this land? If God wants to select a certain portion of the land for Himself, who is to stop Him? If God wants to separate a certain people for Himself, who is to stop Him? God has His rights! He wants His piece of land. He does not care about the land of America, the way He cares about the land of Israel. God says, “this is my land! And in this land - my eretz, my will, will work. Nothing else will work in this land except by my will. Only my will, will work in this land”. Any other nation in which you are born needs to be rectified before it can come to the will of God. But the land of Israel is already working in unison and in perfect harmony with God, not with its inhabitants.
This is the reason God calls the land, eretz; the land is doing God’s will perfectly. That is why, whoever came into the land and sinned, was thrown out. Before the children of Yakob came into the land, there were Philistines, Amorites, Jebusites and all the Canaanites. God said that they were detestable to Him; He asked Israel to go to the land and throw them out. Why? The land was beginning to reject sin and iniquity. The land itself desires to do the sovereign will of God. Everything that this particular land produces – grain, plants, fruit… -, everything is done for the glory of God.
This is the background story you need to understand. This is why God brings a people into the land, with a set pattern of laws, lifestyle, culture, rules, regulations, which they need to live by in order to be in sync with the land. This land will produce fruit and grain for the glory of God, which will be given as a tithe in the Temple of God. God has a remarkably simple understanding with the Jewish people that we need to understand. The people are there to use the land. They are God’s partners who must work the land and give a portion to God. So tithing is a concept that is relative only to the land of Israel, not to any other land. Whatever you want to give to the Kingdom of God, whether is 2 % or 5% or 10%, give it joyfully. But technically, it is not a tithe. You can call it a tithe if you want.
The Choice of Yakob comes with its roles, its responsibilities, and its challenges. Was it wise for Esav to walk away? I think it was wise. A Jewish person once told me, “A smart person does not go where a wise person has been”. In other words, “If you are smart and realise that this doesn’t work for you, get up and leave”. The wise person will stay back, dwell, think, become philosophical and face the consequences. Esav was a man of the field, a man of the soil who knew the ways of this world. He knew the choice before him and left.
Yakob however, made the choice to live in the land and now is bound to keep the Torah. He is bound by keeping the commandments, by looking after the land, giving his 10 percent. His challenge is two-fold;
purify the land by removing detestable sin and iniquity as the heart of the land wants to serve God and
by being a people in synchronous harmony with the land to serve God.
This is the inner dimension the land has. The wars that were organized by Joshua to purify the land, continued till the time of King David. He got rid of the last of the Anakins (from whom Goliath came) as well as the Philistines. After David, Solomon had a reign of peace, shalom. That is why his name is Shlomon or Solomon.
The role of everyone within this inner dimension is to do an alea in the land. Thus, when a Jew or Yehudi comes into the land of Israel, the first thing he does is to start the process of alea. This does not mean, entering the land and worshipping it. Look at the society today in Israel. Is it the society that God wants? Who does alea in Israel today, apart from those in the old city? Because of this indifference, the ascending role of alea, the importance of the Torah, the Temple and the Land has all been washed away. The land has lost its purpose. For alea, each soul needs to ascend, each soul needs to make its presence felt. By coming into it and ascending, the land will respond and give its fruit for the glory of God. This symbiotic relationship between the land and its people is what God desires so much.
Yakob’s choice to stay in the land, includes keeping the law as well as the rules and regulations which will allow him to live in the land. If not, the people would be thrown out of the land. This is the reason the 1st temple was destroyed – because the people did not observe the law concerning the land (its Sabbath and Jubilee) as well as idolatry. Sin can be categorized into 3 heads: Idolatory, Sexual immorality and Murder. These 3 essences of sin must be removed from the land. Yakob’s role when he enters the land is huge: he needed to remove all the people who did not follow this lifestyle, then he had to teach his children, his seed how to do alea so that they ascend spiritually. This is Yakob’s role.
What was Esav’s role and why does he walk away? After his reconciliation, he could have stayed with Yakob in the land. They were twin brothers from the same womb. If Yakob was a Jew, so was Esav. He had to move away as he represents the Gentiles who were later saved by Grace. Yakob stayed in the land, following its rules and regulations. Esav represents those who first choose to live by their own law and later, choose to be saved by grace. This is what Paul keeps emphasizing in the New Testament; he tells the Jews that it is not mandatory to keep the Torah and keep all the law for we (like Esav) are saved by grace. This is Esav’s role.
The story therefore evolves in a very beautify manner. The land is at the center of the story. The Jews live in the land because they abide by the Torah, which teaches them to abide in synchronicity with the land. Whenever they do not abide in this synchronous harmony, they are thrown into exile. The challenges are huge with many inner dimensions. It is not simply a land we visit, admire, and say that we felt the Presence of God in a great way there. When we as a Gentile step a foot into Israel, it means that we are on the journey of going on alea. It lasts for a lifetime. It is not a 10-day pilgrimage tour. Get rid of this religious mindset. We go to Israel to do alea.
Paul says in Romans 11, that we are grafted in. If the root is holy, the entire plant is holy. The root (Yakob) holds us (Esav) in. So, let us not boast that we are better. Esav chose to come in via grace as he did not want to dwell in the land. And God was merciful and has brought us in by grace. This was Esav’s choice. The worldly wise made a very smart choice. But the poor Jew made his bed and slept in it. He committed to a rule and lived through it.
This brings us to the Parakshed Vayeishev, which in the Torah, begins at Genesis 37:1- Yayyêshev Yaakov, Beerets Megureî âvîv—Beerets, kenâan (Now Jacob settled and lived in the land that his father had sojourned, the land of Canaan). This is a simple verse with a deep meaning: Yakob chose to live in this land, unlike Esav. Verse 2 says, Êlleh Toldot Yaakov (And these are the generations…). Toldot means “Generations”; it comes from the word, Yulad which means “to generate life”. There is a difference between “generating life” and “generation”. Yulad means “to generate life, a child, to give birth, for life to be created in a woman’s womb”. The next part starts with Yosef. Yosef Ben-sheva esrêh shânâh hâyâh roeh et-echav batzon, yehu naar et beneî vilhâh Ve’et-beneî zilbâh; The verse does not mention Reuben or any other of Yakov’s sons. This is who Yakov generated - Yosef.
Yosef tended the flock with sons of his father’s wives, Bilhah and Zilpah. Yosef brought bad reports of them to their father. Yosef was a snitch, a rat, a mole. That may not be a good trait of Yosef. What is important is that he was tending the flock with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah. Not the sons of Leah. He was roaming about with the sons of the concubines, not the sons of the wives. You must be aware of the strange relationships which exist between the brothers. This is one of the challenges of staying in the land. Let us go step by step.
One of the challenges is Sinach Kenav - mindless, baseless hatred. The sons of Leah hated the sons of Rachel. And the sons of Bilhah had some issues with Leah’s maid, Zilpah’s sons. This led to a toxic mix. Yosef was the youngest now. He had something incredibly special about him which his brothers never understood. The Bible says, “Now Israel loved Yosef” Not Kakov but Israel. Whenever the Bible uses the term “Israel” to refer to Yakov, it is referring to a higher, elevated spiritual level of existence in comparison to Yakov; the latter is an old man, who is unrepentant, the old self. He will have to fulfil the destiny God has given to him and only at this point will he be called “Israel”. If he lives without fulfilling his destiny, he will be called Yakob. The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah use this concept too; “Yakob who I have called and Israel who I have formed”.
Yakov loved Yosef the most as he was born of his old age and he made him a ketonet passim. You know the entire story – his dreams and his brothers’ jealousy... Let us not get into that. The biggest challenge is to love your brothers and sisters; sinach kena. To live in unity and oneness with each other. These brothers do not do that. Let us look at what is important from verse 11 – Vayekanu-bô, echav; Veâvîv, shâmâr et-hadâvâr. Vayyelkhu echav, Lireot et-tsôn avîhem, bishekhem. -Yosef’s brothers went to Shechem to graze their father’s flock. Yakob sent Yosef to go and see what they were doing. Yosef agreed.
Why was Yakob sending a young 17-year-old boy, to travel almost 50 km? (today, the distance between Chevron and Shechem is about 50 km). In those days, whatever means of transport he used (walk, donkey, horse…), it would have taken him a week or more. What was so important that Yakov wanted to know what his sons were doing in Shechem? Earlier, we see that Levi and Simon took their swords and slaughtered the entire city of Shechem, over their sister, Dinah. They slaughtered all the men, and brought away all the cattle, sheep, and women. So now, you can understand why Yakob is anxious about what his sons are doing there: are they alive? are they at war? are the people of Shechem rebelling for what the brothers had done to them? That is why Yakob sent his favourite son, Yosef to Shechem.
Just like this picturesque narrative, God sent His Son down to the earth, to find out what His Jewish brothers were doing in the land. Jesus came and rebuked his brothers, telling them that what they were doing was not the way to keep the Torah. He rebuked the Pharisees and the Sadducees, saying “This is not the right way. Listen to me. I have come to give you life, abundant life but only if you listen to me”. However, the majority, did not listen to him. Jesus, just like Yosef, was ready when his Father asked Him to come down.
Yosef was ready and came to Shechem as his father asked him to go see how his brothers were, how the flocks were faring and to bring back word to him. Yosef set out from Chevron and went to Shechem. In one of my last studies, we looked at these places – Chevron and Shechem. The word, Hebron in English, comes from the Hebrew word, Chevron which comes from the word Chever which means friend, which comes from the root word chiboor which means to be chained, to be linked, to have intimacy. So Yakov and his entire family is in oneness, in achdut in Chevron; the sons have travelled to Shechem, from where the tribes dispersed. All bad things happened in Shechem. So, basically, in life, you are either in Chevron or in Shechem. Disunity is in Shechem, unity is in Chevron. Yosef travels from Chevron to Shechem to search out his brothers and see what they were doing. He could not find his brothers here. A man saw him walking in the field and asked him what he was doing there.
Who was this man? Yosef replied that he was looking for his brothers and asked the man if he knew where they were pasturing the flock. In real life, if you were looking for your brother in a different part of town and asked a man if he knew where he was, he would reply that he does not know him. But this man knew the brothers and Josef. Who was this man, this ish? It had to be a divine being, which is why he knew. The sages say that this was angel Gabriel. He finds Josef not vice versa. The sages conclude that this angel came to warn Josef to be careful as the road ahead of him was going to be dark. The man tells Josef that his brothers have moved from Shechem to Dothan, which was probably a worse place than Shechem, which was in the vicinity.
Yosef goes to Dothan, sees his brothers, and walks towards them, while they conspire to kill him. This is human trafficking; just because they hate him, they strip him, beat him, and want to kill him. But Reuben intervenes, saying that he is the eldest, he would be responsible and should answer to his father. Reuben gave the idea of keeping Yosef in a secluded pit, so that he could not see what they were doing in the land. Reuben planned to free him from the pit, after they had satisfied their adulterous behavior or lust. Plans change. They decide to sell him, and he goes into exile.
Let us go on to chapter 38. What have we seen till now? Murder, hatred, sinach kenav, for their brother, human trafficking. These are the challenges Yakov had to face in Canaan. It was not easy then. It is not easy now to come into the kingdom of God and keeping our commitments. We will face challenges. It will not be easy. Your role is to do alea but these are the challenges you will face.
Chapter 38:1, “At that time, Judah left his brothers and camped near a certain man of Adullam named Hirah.” – Vayehi Baet Hahiv, Vayyered (the word Vayyerd is the opposite of the word ola which means to rise and Yarad is to descend). Why is the Torah saying that Yehudâh descended to the land, should it not be “ascended”? The answer is seen at the end of chapter 37. After they sell Yosef, they dip his robe in the blood of a kid goat and show it to his father, who thinks he is dead and mourns deeply for him. How can they live with each other after this? The guilt is very heavy on them. Whose idea was it to sell Yosef? It was Yehudâh. He convinced them to sell Yosef to the Ishmaelites. They could not live in peace with each other. In fact, later, when they meet Yosef in Egypt and get into trouble, they turn to Yehudâh and accuse him, that it was because of him that they had sold Yosef and because of that they were suffering.
Chapter 38 states that around this time, when this sin was separating the brothers, Yehudâh left his brothers. When you have sinned and backslidden, you need to leave as the land is pushing you out. He started descending. This explains why the Torah uses the word Vayyered for he left the unity and peace of Chevron and descended to the place where he meets Hira, the Adullamite. The word Hira signifies wealth - he was a very wealthy gentile. The first thing you do when you turn away from God is to look at what you want to do. You look probably for a rich friend who you can pass your days with or do business. You want to do something for yourself now.
I tell everyone in the ministry the same thing; the moment your mind starts going in this direction, be careful, extremely careful, for you are going down the wrong route. Like Yehudâh, you will have to descend. Here, he saw a Canaanite lady called Choua and married her. He had three sons – Er, Onan and Chela. He gets the eldest married to Tamar but he dies as he displeases God. So Yehudâh gets Tamar married to Onan, to get sons for his eldest brother. But he too dies, and Yehudâh does not want to give his 3rd son to Tamar. Now, instead of getting Tamar married to the youngest, Chela, as he feels she is bad luck, and his youngest son will also die, he asks her to go to her father’s home, with the promise that when Chela is older, he will get them married. So, she agrees.
However, he does not keep his word. The story says that Choua dies and Yehudâh becomes lonely. He goes to shear his sheep near Adullam and Tamar hears of this; she dresses up as a prostitute, goes and sits near the place he is shearing his sheep. He sees her and pays her for sex, thinking she is a prostitute. See the level to which Yehudâh has fallen? This is repugnantly bad. Isn’t he from the kingly line? Isn’t he supposed to act like a king? He is in a negative situation, but God takes this situation and uses it to turn Yehudâh and bring him back to the kingdom. He himself acted in an adulterous manner but gets into a rage when three months later, he is told that Tamar is pregnant. His self-righteousness makes him order her to be burnt.
We saw the sin of murder at Shechem in chapter 34. We see adultery now. We will come to idolatry later. Now, sexual immorality in the land is being focused on. As Tamar is being brought to be burnt, she comes to Yehudâh and shows the pledge (that he would send her a kid goat later as payment) she had taken from him, when he had slept with her - his rod, his cords and signet ring. She shows them to him and says, “please examine them for they belong to the man whose child I bear”.
This is the turning point for Yehudâh as he recognizes what he has done. He is aghast because even at this point, when she is to be burnt as a prostitute, her virtue is mind blowing as she does not reveal the identity of the person she slept with. Yehudâh recognizes his belongings and states that “she is more honorable than I am for I did not give you to my son, Chela”. He realizes that she is more honorable than he is, not because of what she had done or what he had done, but because even at the point of being burnt, she did not reveal the name of the man (the daughter from a Levitical family would be burnt alive, not stoned, for prostitution; Tamar was from a priestly family).
Yehudâh was amazed that even in a court of perhaps 100 people, she did not reveal his name. To his credit, he could have shown an evil side and say that he did not recognize the tokens she sent him, thus sending her to her death. But instead, he took this opportunity to repent and come back. He remembered the goat he had sent to her as payment and linked it to the goat they had killed, to dip Yosef’s coat in. It broke him. From here on, Yehudâh starts taking the role of the leading son of the brothers. Even when they go to Egypt, it is always Yehudâh at the front. He is the spokesperson. He is the one who talks. And it was Tamar who was responsible for this rectification of his character. God flipped the sin and iniquity of the not good action of Tamar and Yehudâh, using it to turn the situation around and become a merit, to bring repentance and rectification for Yehudâh so that he could come back.
Let us look at chapter 35:22. Here, Reuben does something bad, he sleeps with his father’s concubine, Bilhah. Israel found out about it and the next phrase is very bizarre. It says that “the sons of Yakov were 12 in number”. Why such a statement after Reuben does such a terrible action? Why did Reuben do this? Earlier in this chapter, we see that Rachel had died. Now, Reuben is Leah’s son, the first born of all the children. So, the first instinct of Reuben is, “Father, you have a wife, Leah; don’t go cohabit with Bilhah. Live with your wife, my mother”. But Yakov did not listen. Therefore, Reuben violates Bilhah so that Yakov can no longer go to her. He desecrates the relationship between Yakov and Bilhah. Look at the level of iniquity among these people.
Why does the Torah conclude vs 22 by saying that Yakov had 12 sons? It does so to show that even after doing such a terrible sin, his name is not struck off the list or thrown out. There are still 12 of them, in spite of all their sin, immorality, sexual immorality, murder, prostitution, hatred (sinach kenav). In chapter 35, after they kill everyone in Shechem, when Yakov is really frightened because he does not know what will happen, God says to Yakov in verse 1; “Arise, go to Bethel and remain there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esav. So Yakov said to his household and to all who were with him, rid yourselves of the alien gods in your midst. Purify yourself and change your clothes.”
Who is he talking to? His 12 sons, their wives, his concubines, and everyone who was with him. Maybe around 500 people. He asks them to purify themselves. He says, “Come with me to Bethel and there, I will build an altar to God who has been with me in distress and answered me whenever I have called”. This was idolatry. Despite everything they have seen - Parashat, Vayishlach and Vayashev, his sons were in some way or some level, occupying themselves with some form of idolatry (the Torah does not tell us, because there is no need to specify it).
The choice that Yakov made was to live in the land. And when we are living in the land, the full brunt of testing, will be very great. There are two types of people in this world; those who stand up and face the music as well as those who turn and run. On a worldly level, it is better to run. Run, maybe you can sneak in somewhere through grace, like Esav. But if you are like Yakov, you will face the challenges, take up the cudgels and say, “This is my role, and I am going to do it”.
Do not look down on Jewish people. They were brave enough to take the Torah from God. And after choosing it, they said, “Yes Lord, we will keep your commandments and we will live in the land”. We need to love them a lot more. If we were in their place, would we have done a better job? I doubt that we would have stayed in the land.
Another thing we need to do is look at and reflect on Tamar. Ignore her decisions. Look at what she did after that; she was willing to die, rather than disclose the identity of Yehudâh, who said, “this woman has saved me for she has kept my honour”. Because of this honour, she gave birth to twins and from this lineage we have Boaz, Ruth, and King David.
Friends, I wanted to share something amazingly simple with you today, something to reflect on and think about, something to bring us closer as one person: the Jew and Gentile need to come closer. And if we talk of the land of Israel, the role is alea and keeping the commandments for the Jewish people. This challenge is what we are facing every day. The Jewish people are facing this everyday too. So, look up, reflect, study these portions in the right context. Understand what the Bible is telling us. Remember Parakshed Vayeishev, read the story of Yehudâh and Tamar. (Incidentally, the date palm tree in Hebrew is called Tamar. The date palm fruit represents kingdom. So, Tamar is someone who has contributed to bring the kingdom into this earth. This can be the subject of a future study).
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