Parshat Vayetzei by Karen Knie-Cahana
A ladder. A dream. A promise. A well. A love story. A deception. A maturing Patriarch. Parashat Vayetzei.
The parasha opens with Yaakov running from Be’er Sheva, after having tricked his brother out of his birthright and bracha. He heads to Haran, where his Uncle Lavan lives, seeking a wife from the mishpacha and encountering the unknown. As night comes, he falls asleep on a pillow of stones and dreams of the well-known ladder rooted in the earth, reaching up to heaven, with angels ascending and descending upon it. Hashem appears in the dream and promises Yaakov: the land, protection, and the everlasting covenant. Yaakov wakes up in awe: “Surely G-d is in this place, and I did not know.” The ladder becomes the image of his soul’s journey, forever bridging the earthly and the Divine. Metaphorically, Yaakov steps onto the first rung. (28:10-22)
Arriving in Haran, Yaakov meets Rachel by the well—a Biblical scene, which tips us off that a romance is to follow. However, Yaakov’s path is not simple: Lavan’s deceit forces him into years of toil: seven years of animal husbandry work for his older daughter, Leah, then seven more to wed his true-love, Rachel. The house of Lavan will be the crucible for Yaakov’s emotional and spiritual growth. Each child born to Leah, Rachel, and their handmaids, Bilah and Tzilpah, gives voice to a different facet of longing and Divine connection—Reuven’s seeing, Yehuda’s praise, Yosef’s hope—mapping the emergence of what will be the twelve tribes of Israel. (29:1-30:43)
Through hardship and ingenuity, Yaakov learns that blessing flows not from manipulation but from alignment with divine purpose. After six more years of work, ingeniously increasing the flocks, he senses the time has come to return home. Without telling Lavan, he packs up his family and leaves, but Rachel, still attached to her past, takes her father’s idols. Following a major pursuit and huge confrontation about Yaakov having absconded with his family and stolen his idols, Yaakov and Lavan make a pact, a brit, to separate with honour, making a boundary, in effect, between what was and what must be left behind. (31:-32:54)
Yaakov leaves Haran as a changed man. He is no longer only a fugitive but a patriarch in formation, carrying within him the discovery that exile itself can become the ladder to holiness, and struggle the vehicle for integrity and maturity.
May we all continue to climb the ladder of greater integrity and spiritual connection, while remaining firmly rooted in this world.
Shabbat Shalom!
Karen Cahana