​Parashat Vayetze 5785, 2024: "Be’er Sheva and Yerushalayim"

Rabbi David Etengoff


ה' יעזור וירחם על אחינו כל בני ישראל, בארץ ישראל ובכל חלקי הארץ
 
The name “Be’er Sheva” appears nine times in Sefer Bereishit and is found in the opening verse of our parasha: “And Ya’akov left Be’er Sheva and went to Haran.” (28:10) The nine-fold recurrence of Be’er Sheva suggests that it was a sacred place during the time of the Avot. Little wonder then that Avraham, Yitzchak and Ya’akov each lived in Be’er Sheva at different points in their lives.
 
My rebbe and mentor, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zatzal (1903-1993), known as “the Rav” to his students and disciples, expands upon Be’er Sheva’s singular significance in this manner: “Be’er Sheva was rooted in a wellspring of kedushah. It was a fulcrum for offerings to God and a conduit for the Divine Presence.” (This, and the following quotations, are from Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Darosh Darash Yosef: Discourses of Rav Yosef Dov Halevi Soloveitchik on the Weekly Parashah,” Rabbi Avishai C. David, editor, pages 74-75) As such, this holy place was the center of pre-Sinatic Torah and prophecy, and the center of many of the beliefs and practices associated with Judaism until our present day.
 
Now that we are familiar with ancient Be’er Sheva’s striking spiritual standing, we can better understand why the first pasuk of our parasha emphasizes “Ya’akov left Be’er Sheva,” instead of simply stating, “and Ya’akov went to Haran,” as we find in an earlier pasuk: “And Ya’akov listened to his father and his mother, and he went to Padan Aram [that is, Haran].” (28:7)  As the Rav explains: “And Ya’akov left Be’er Sheva, denotes that Ya’akov was severed somehow from Be’er Sheva… uprooted by forces beyond his control, compelled to leave a place he loved… a place to which he had become bonded.” Moreover, “Ya’akov and Be’er Sheva had merged into one symbiotic entity, and now Ya’akov had to leave… and wander.”
 
What was the nature of the symbiotic relationship that obtained between Ya’akov and Be’er Sheva? In the Rav’s view:

Be’er Sheva… was the first home of the covenantal community, the center of spiritual life for the adherents of Abraham’s teaching. When Jacob left Be’er Sheva, he pulled away from this spiritual center. Perhaps he was frightened that if he left the home of his father and grandfather and the center of their teaching, he would also lose his role as leader and teacher of the covenantal community.
 
Clearly, as much as Ya’akov needed Be’er Sheva, Be’er Sheva needed Ya’akov. As the Rav states in a comment based on Midrash Rabbah, Bereishit (68:6): “…when Jacob left, Be’er Sheva lost its glory. Once Jacob had gone, Be’er Sheva resembled Mount Sinai when the shofar sounded, and the sanctity of the mount dissipated.” Therefore, according to Rav Soloveitchik, Ya’akov’s departure from Be’er Sheva had a two-fold effect: it created fear and anxiety in his psyche as to whether or not he would continue to be the “leader and teacher of the covenantal community,” and it diminished Be’er Sheva’s kedushah forevermore. Based upon Hashem’s chesed, however, its kedushah was not lost for all time, and instead “found its home in the place that Ya’akov encountered on his journey from Be’er Sheva: the holy city of Jerusalem.”

Armed with the Rav’s penetrating analysis, “and Ya’akov left Be’er Sheva” takes on new meaning, for Ya’akov did far more than physically leave Be’er Sheva, for without Ya’akov, Be’er Sheva became just one more place on the map of ancient Israel, ceasing to be the spiritual center of our people.

With Hashem’s help, may we be zocheh to witness the coming of Mashiach and the kedushah of the rebuilt Beit HaMikdash in Yerushalayim soon, and in our time. V’chane yihi ratzon.
​
Shabbat Shalom
 
Past drashot may be found at my blog-website: http://reparashathashavuah.org
 
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*** My audio shiurim on the topics of Tefilah and Tanach may be found at: Tefilah and Tanach
 
*** I have posted 164 of Rabbi Soloveitchik’s English language audio shiurim (MP3 format) spanning the years 1958-1984. Please click on the highlighted link.

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