Netvort: parshas Vayeitzei, 5771
Taking Leave
By Rabbi Joshua
infusively known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
The Torah tells us, at the beginning of parshas Vayeitzei, that Yaakov left
Beer Sheva and went to Charan ( Bereishis, 28:10) As the Netziv points out,
this entire verse seems to be superfluous, since we already know these
facts from the end of the previous parsha. Why, then, the repetition? In one of
his answers, the Netziv ppoints out that Onkeels here translates the words
"Beer sheva' as as referring to the oath taken by Avraham to Avimelech at
that location, promising that neithwer he nor his descendants would settle
there for several generations. Usually, says the Netziv, Onkeles merely repeats
the name Beer Shava as it is written in the Torah. The change here would seem
to be an allusion to the midrash ( Bereishis Rabbbah, 68:7) which says that
Yaakov did not make an oath of this nature.
Rabbi Hillel Lieberman, H'yd, who was murdered by Arab terrorists during the
second Intifada, trying to defend Jewish rights to the Tomb of Yosef, writes,
in his commentary Ahavas HaAretz, without citing the Netziv or the
midrash, makes a similar point about our verse, and elaborates on the
significance of Yaakov refraining from making an oath to Avimelech. He writes
that the oath constituted the ceding of the rights of the Jewish people to a
part of Eretz Yisroel, to non- Jews, and the first step a Jew must make if he
wished, as Yaakov did, to merit an audience with God is to repudiate any notion
of making a covenant with non-Jews, and sharing our rights to Eretz
Yisroel with them.
Interestingly, the Ramban , in his Torah commentary, mentions another rmidrash,
which says that Yaakov went to Beer Sheva before leaving Eretz Yisroel
because that was the place that his father Yitzchak used to pray, as we see at
the end of parshas Toldos, and Yakov wished to ask permission of God before
leaving the Holy Land. The midrash cited by the Netziv, and Rabbi
Lieberman's comments, take on additonal meaning in light of this midrash.
Before leaving Eretz Yisroel, Yaakov wanted to reaffirm his dedication to the
land, and, so he repudiated the oath made by Avraham to Avimelech, as if
to say ythat he was leaving Eretz Yisroel only out of
necessity, because his brother was chasing after him to kill him, but he intended
to return as soon as possible, and was not in any way relinquishing any rights
to the land by leaving.
The Ramban mentions another midrash according to which the stones that Yaakov
used to place under his head before going to sleep that night were taken from
the altar that avraham built to use for the akeidah of Yitzchak. In
context of Yaakov's emphasis of his dedication to Eretz Yisroel before leaving
the land, this midrash takes on added significance when recalling the remarks
of the Rashbam, which, he says, he later found in the Midrash Shmuel, in regard
to the akeidah. The Rashbam in parshas Vayeira says that God tested
Avraham with the akeidah as a direct result of the oath he made to Avimelech.
In the aftermath of that oath, says the Rashbam, God said to Avraham, "do
you think that the land belongs to you to give away? I will show you that even
your own son does not belong to you.' By taking stones of the altar to
use as a pillow before his departure from Eretz Yisroel, Yaakov was indicating
that he understood the mistake that Avraham had made and its
consequences, and that he would not repeat that mistake, even though he
was now leaving the land, due to force of circumstance. Another midrash tells
us that Yaakov used these stones as a pillow, rather than using a regular
pillow, because even the stones of Eretz Yisroel meant more to him than all the
riches in the world. It was with this single-minded devotion to the land that
Yaakov took his leave from it, hoping to return as soon as possible.