This week’s Torah portion: “The parshah tells of Jacob’s travels to, life in, and return from Haran. The parshah recounts Jacob’s dream of a ladder to heaven, Jacob’s meeting of Rachel at the well, Jacob’s time working for Laban and living with Rachel and Leah, the birth of Jacob’s children, and the departure of Jacob’s family from Laban.”
Here are my notes for my Monday 7pm PST discussion with Rabbi Rabbs:
* According to the Artscroll Stone chumash on Gen. 28:10-16: “Before going to Haran, Jacob spent fourteen years at the academy of Shem and Eber… R. Yaakov Kamenetsky explained that the first sixty-three years of his life he studied Torah with his father, in an atmosphere insulated from the corruption of Canaan. Now he would be living in Haran, among people who were Laban’s comrades in dishonesty. To survive spiritually in such an environment, he needed the Torah of Shem and Eber, for they too had been forced to cope with corrosive surroundings.”
* Gen. 28:16: Jacob says, “Surely God is in this place and I didn’t know it.” How often has that happened to you?
