By Rabbi Moshe Pogrow
If Avraham represents the root of the Jewish people, and Yitzchak the continuation toward the stem, then Yaakov represents the stem itself. This is why Yitzchak told him “Vayitein lecha es birkas Avraham,” for Yaakov is the one who will give the future nation its name and destiny. We are not called “the people of Avraham,” but rather, “bnei Yisrael.”
Yaakov, like Avraham, experienced a lech lecha. But his departure differed from Avraham’s: Avraham left to go into exile as the head of a family, bringing along his wife, household, relatives and wealth. Yaakov, owing to the circumstances, had nothing. He left everything for Eisav, to prove that he had not been seeking any material gain when he purchased the bechora.
To establish a Jewish home, Yaakov needed only himself. He was the first to express to the idea that Hashem can be found within the home, the first to articulate the profound idea of Beis Elokim, Beis-El, “the house of God,” which essentially means that the place where man blossoms, where he brings everything he owns, where he builds his life – that is the place for revelation of G-d. Yaakov fulfilled what Noach had envisioned: though the culture of Yefes ennobles souls through tbeauty, the mission of Shem is to pitch tents in which the Shechinah may dwell.
The Sages have expressed an idea that contains a complete worldview: ikar Shechina b’tachtonim, the principal place of the Shechina is on earth (Bereishis Rabba 19:7), or “The angels laugh at those who raise their eyes toward heaven, imagining they have to seek God up above” (Sefer Chasidim, 18, end), or “He who is walking outside while studying and interrupts his study to say ‘How beautiful is that tree!’ or ‘How beautiful is that field!’ (revealing that, for him, the beauty of human life lived in accordance with God’s will does not overshadow the beauty of nature) is regarded as though he has forfeited his own soul” (Avos 3:7).
These statements are our legacy from Yaakov. Under Yefes, man runs away from ordinary life to the beautiful poetry of nature. The heirs of Yaakov find Hashem in the home, in ordinary life. That is the difference between the spirit of Judaism and non-Jewish culture.
Through the power of spiritual influence, by example, one man and one nation serve as a source of blessing for the entire human race. Yaakov, and his descendants as a nation, will be such a blessing. Yaakov exhibits the first Jewish world. Yaakov teaches how, without inherited wealth, one can build and live a family life upheld by the blessing and dignity of work, with all its worries, troubles, and griefs.
How to lead a family life, a national life, upheld by the grace of G-d and refined in accordance with His Will – this, mankind learned from him and from his descendants, the Jewish people.
Based on the commentary of Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch zt”l on Chumash, with permission from the publisher.
