Our parashah begins with the account of Yaakov's journey to Jaran: "And Yaakov left Beer Sheba and went to Jaran." Why does the Torah bother to remind us where Yaakov came from, if we already know that Isaac and his children lived in Beer Sheba? What additional meaning does this detail add? And what can we learn from this for our daily service to HaShem?
Beer Sheba symbolizes the state of rest and tranquility for the Jews. In that place Abraham Avinu made the pact of peace with Avimelech, and by that pact he called the place Beer Sheba "Because there both swore." Yaakov left a place of spiritual rest, a place of Torah study, the place where Yitzchak, the generation tzadik, dwelt and went to Jaran, a name that comes from the Hebrew "jarun af shel Makom" ("place that awakens Divine wrath”), The lowest and lowest place with respect to the spiritual.
Every Jew has times in his life when he must abandon the "four cubits of Torah and study" to deal with the affairs of this world, how should he prepare to take care of himself and be successful in his spiritual work also in "Jaran"? He must learn from Yaakov: The first thing Yaakov did after his departure was “got to the place,” he made tefillah. He did not search for himself "appropriate clothes" for the new place, or went to learn the language of the country. He knew that the key to preparing for spiritual and material success was tefillah. He had to pray and plead with G-d, to be able to overcome and face all the new challenges that he did not meet during his time in the yeshiva. "If I return in peace to my father's house", if I succeed in staying whole and faithful to HaShem.
Yaakov Avinu set out for Jaran to build a kosher Jewish home in Israel. His goal was to fulfill G-d's will, respecting what his parents Yitzchak and Rivka asked of him. However, since he knew that he would face challenges and experiences outside of Shem and Heber's yeshiva that he did not know about, he did tefillah to be successful and for protection. We too at each stage of our service to HaShem in our daily life, even after many hours of Torah study, must pray to HaShem, to be successful in fulfilling his will to sanctify our portion of the world.
