A Simple Truth

A Simple Truth
D’var Torah on Parashat Vayeitze, Genesis 28:10—32:3
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

A person’s spiritual journey often mirrors his or her physical journey through life.

As the Biblical patriarch Jacob’s story begins, we find him a homeboy, cooking red lentil stew. Unlike his twin brother, Esau, Jacob does not venture far from home. He is described as an “ish tam,” a simple, whole or innocent man. The term reminds us of the third of the Four Sons that the Passover Haggada speaks of.

Yet, Jacob is far from simple. He is, in fact, cunning and shrewd. For better or for worse, he is lacking in one simple human quality—trust. We see proof of that as Jacob bargains with Esau for the birthright, where a simple “You got it” simply doesn’t cut it for him. “Swear to it!” Jacob demands, and Esau complies.

As this week’s parasha, Vayeitze, begins, Jacob sets out on the journey from his family home in Beer Sheba to his mother’s place of origin, Haran. He leaves with little more than the shirt on his back—symbolic of the emergency nature of his departure (after all, Esau has sworn to kill him). The dearth of physical comforts is paralleled by Jacob’s impoverished spiritual state. He has lost everything—home, love, security. As he lies down for his first night away from home ever, he uses a stone for a pillow. No goose down for him tonight. Jacob probably swears, as will the protagonist of another dramatic story from a much later time and place, that, as God is his witness, he will never go hungry again. But for now, he is going to have to rebuild his life from scratch.

Jacob has a dream. He sees angels going up and down a ladder; he sees God’s presence surrounding him, and he receives God’s promise to protect him along his journey and to see to it that Jacob returns home safely.

Now you and I might wake up after such a night feeling grateful and encouraged, but the practical Jacob needs more than a promise. “If you do that,” he replies, “if you safeguard me along my journeys and bring me back home safe and sound, if you do all that, then I will worship you as my God.” The sheer chutzpah takes one’s breath away.

Still, from this first encounter with God, Jacob is willing enough to learn a lesson: God is present in the least expected places. “There is a God here, and I did not know it” (Gen. 28:16). Yet he remains naive enough to believe that the very spot where he had his dream is God’s home. He has yet to learn that God is everywhere—a complex lesson that will come to him gradually during the course of this parasha and the rest of his life.

As children, our faith is similarly simple. The idea of God, even as it is mysterious and somewhat frightening, is also whole. As children, it is often clear to us what God expects of us—or at least, is made clear to us by parents and teachers. And we accept these simple truths.

I remember, as a child growing up in Israel, once praying and making a promise to God while walking somewhere. I wasn’t in the habit of wearing a yarmulke then (kippah is the Hebrew version of the word), but for days afterwards, whenever I passed by that spot, I covered my head with my hand, a simple and naïve gesture that brings to mind the physical gesture of bestowing a blessing.

Simple requests, simple gestures.

As our physical journey from childhood to maturity continues, so does our spiritual development. We leave home and encounter the world, complex, complicated, full of twists and turns and often problematic. The simplistic beliefs we had held as children are left behind. As we learn about ourselves and our growing role in life, we sometimes experiment with other spiritual paths. The many challenges of life, the losses and defeats we suffer sometimes leave us bereft of faith and trust—just like Jacob.

It’s naïve to expect that faith will protect us from all harm. The universe sometimes seems impersonal and in fact downright cruel. Life often takes away from us our most precious possessions, leaving us feeling as Jacob did that first night—alone, abandoned and hopeless.

It isn’t easy to rebuild faith or trust once they’ve been shattered. It’s easier to rebuild our lives—or at least the outer shell. Yet the void inside us cries out to us.

Among my friends and family in Israel, there are many who, following their experiences during the Holocaust, lost all faith in God. They managed to rebuild their lives, growing beautiful and vibrant families, businesses, professions. They may even celebrate holidays and follow some Jewish traditions. Yet new traditions, secular and worldly, have replaced many of the old customs. Thus, for example, in many communities in Israel, Yom Kippur isn’t a day spent in the confines of a synagogue. Rather, it is a day of going out to city streets and public squares on bicycles. With little or no business traffic going anywhere, streets get closed off to cars and are soon completely filled with children and adults alike, all on bikes. It’s an amazing phenomenon, but its purpose and function are as spiritual and meaningful as going to shul. The tragic losses of the past have been replaced by new life and new energy. Ancient rites have been replaced by new rituals, centered on family, community and new-found freedom in the Land of Israel.

Our physical and spiritual journey continues to develop throughout our life. It wasn’t until I was in college—five or six years after leaving Israel—that I first felt myself in exile. There was a physical sensation of being separated from home that was accompanied by a great emotional yearning. It took another couple of years, and another exile (leaving my parents’ home as I transferred to college in another city and state), before I began to discover my personal spiritual space, my home-away-from-home. Through various connections and turns of life, I found myself working as counselor at a Jewish summer camp in Utica, Mississippi. Shortly after I arrived, I was asked by the educational director of the camp, a rabbi, to officiate at a havdalah service. Not uncharacteristically for me, I accepted the challenge even before I asked what a havdalah service was. As the saying goes, there is no atheist in a foxhole…. That, in turn, led me to a road I followed on and off for close to thirty years, culminating in my ordination as rabbi. It’s a journey I am still on.

I discover God in places I never knew God was present: On the day I was married; in the birth of my children; in the everyday interactions between me and the world around me. I sense God’s presence when I study Torah and when I teach Jewish history; when I counsel a distraught individual or a couple lovingly preparing to join their lives together. I find God in the prayers I say, and in the questions I’m asked by simple, naïve children who just want to know if God can feel sick, and how do we know God can forgive.

We live in the house of God, and we did not even know it! It’s a place that sometimes we think we leave behind, and that, at other moments, we come back to. The truth is, however, that it always surrounds us and is always within us. We don’t ever have to feel estranged.

All we have to do is come home, back to our simpler selves.

©2010 by Boaz D. Heilman