פרשת ויצא
This week’s Parsha opens with Yaakov Avinu being on the move again, this time from Beer Sheva to Charan. Along the way, Yaakov stops to rest for the night, and he has an epic vision, through which he is shown many details about the coming events which will befall his progeny – the Jewish people. Certainly this revelation that Yaakov witnessed, worked on many different levels which ranged from practical, to esoteric, and all the way into the mystical, but one particular explanation that I would like to focus in is from the Midrash. The Midrash says that Yaakov was essentially being shown a vision of Har Sinai, and that all the angels traveling up and down were referring to Aharon and Moshe who went up and down the mountain to varying degrees. The Midrash goes on to say that the ladder in Yaakov’s dream represents the idea that if a person wants to grow in Torah, there is no shortcut to exempt him from the tedious step by step, rung by rung growth necessary to reach the top. A Jew must always be moving forward if he wishes to mature in Torah, and in reaching a stage in which he would be deserving of receiving the Torah at Sinai. Just as in climbing a ladder, trying to skip levels could result in disaster, so is the same with spiritual growth. I must admit that this notion is not very popular in today’s culture, where we have become accustomed to looking for the quickest and shortest way to accomplish any task, but this is what Chazal taught us is a necessary component in proper Torah growth.
Along a parallel vein, R’ Reuven Fein points out that from Yaakov Avinu, we learn that a Jew must never be satisfied with the spiritual level he has reached, but must rather foster a sensation that he is always just below his optimal performance, yet simultaneously strives to reach the next stage. Yaakov Avinu fell asleep after learning incessantly in Yeshiva for 14 years, reaching unimaginable heights, and dedicating his entire life to Hashem. He was then shown in a vision that basically, he was the first person in human history to be called a “resting place” for the Shechina, and he merited to discover that his offspring would be Hashem’s chosen people, and would offer up sacrifices to Hashem in the very place he was sleeping. One can only imagine how exhilarated Yaakov might feel after waking from such a dream, and how he might have paused to delight in the incredible accomplishments he had reached. Yet what is Yaakov’s reaction upon waking? He begins to shake and shiver, and has a terrible fright that Hashem may not forgive him for desecrating the sanctity of the place he had chosen to make camp due to an oversight. Wasn’t he being overly harsh on himself? R’ Reuven explains that from Yaakov we see an important foundation in Torah growth. A Jew must be on constant vigil to determine where he can tweak his service, and never sit back on his laurels with the sensation that he has reached a plateau in his growth and is therefore able to spiritually “retire.”
In fact, R’ Reuven adds that Yaakov’s primary merit which enabled him to witness this spectacular vision was his excellence in this trait of never being satisfied with his spiritual growth. The Gemorah in Chulin, (91b) tells us that he was on the way to Charan and he realized that he had passed the place where his forefathers had prayed without stopping himself to pray there. This thought caused him tremendous anguish, and he therefore backtracked his steps in order to rectify his error. After he did this, Hashem miraculously enabled him to reach his destination in record time. R’ Reuven concludes by saying that for us, the message is quite clear. If we do our best to always be on the lookout for how we can evolve and improve our service of Heaven, Hashem will certainly give us the tools we need to reach the levels our hearts have desired with relative ease.
This point is illustrated as well from the biography of R’ Isser Zalman Meltzer. R’ Isser Zalman studied in the first Yeshiva ever built, under the tutelage of R’ Chaim Veloshiner. It once got back to R’ Isser Zalman somehow that the Rosh Yeshiva was very fond of him and that he felt that he had tremendous capabilities to reach untold heights in Torah study and leadership. R’ Isser Zalman responded to these “accusations” with a very worried look. His friends asked him what was wrong and he explained that if this were the case, he now had to redouble his efforts in his spiritual development, because if Hashem had given him such gifts, then his potential was equally great, and if he neglected to take full advantage of what he was given, he knew that he would be held accountable in Heaven. This realization galvanized his already powerful will to intensify his efforts in regard to his religious endeavors.
As I mentioned earlier, I know that this type of attitude is extremely unpopular in today’s society, and will always meet with a fair amount of resistance, but I cannot lie that I don’t see any shortcut which will obviate the need for hard work and powerful drive to move forward and succeed. Obviously, one’s service needs to be done out of happiness and inner contentment, but one must always be striving for more and systematically testing his week points in order to determine where he can grow. If he does not, his mind and growth will certainly atrophy and he will lose much of the ground he has worked so hard to conquer.
I will just conclude with a newspaper article that was printed in Yiddish around seven years ago. A big Rabbi in America wrote that he had just come back from a trip to Switzerland, and he observed a fascinating phenomenon. Switzerland is a beautiful country with endless forests, winding rivers, and breathtaking scenery in almost every turn of the land. Switzerland hasn’t had a war in around 700 years, adding to the general state of calm and serenity. The people there are almost as tranquil as the scenery, and nobody raises their voice above an amicable tone. Even the teenagers seem completely docile and friendly with each other. Upon returning to the United States, the Rabbi was so moved by the qualities of this incredible country that it was the only thing he could think about for weeks. But then something began to bother him. He felt certain that Switzerland would be the uncontested world leader in producing the finest scientists, journalist, artists, and L’havdil, the greatest Torah scholars ever to live. Yet this wasn’t the case at all. After fair bit of research, he couldn’t even find one person of note to have ever come from Switzerland in any field. He realized that the only way to explain this phenomenon, is that the human being needs a certain amount of resistance, conflict, and pressure in his life to motivate him to grow, without which he will be content to do nothing his whole life. Based on what we have said, the concept is readily understandable. A Jew needs to feel like he is constantly moving forward, and assessing how to achieve that forward movement, and if he does not, he will certainly fall backward into the annals of irrelevancy.
May we all merit to always advance in every area of our lives!