Dec 9/06 — Parashat Vayishlach

Commentary by Chazzan Aníbal Mass

This week’s Parashah talks about the re-encounter of two brothers. It’s the Parashah where the image of a difficult Yaakov, the one who deceives and escapes, is put aside ... and a new Yaakov appears, the one who is able to deal with reality.

He deceived his brother, he lied to his father, he tried to twist reality, but fortunately that Yaakov is in the past, and our new Yaakov undertakes a different responsibility.

This is a Parashah of revealing things, and I also want to reveal something else about this Parashah.

When Yaakov and Eisav are reunited, Yaakov commands his servants to tell Eisav: “In Laban Garti va echar ad ata.” This could mean: “I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now.” But Rashi, nine centuries ago, found a hidden message in this sentence: The numeric value of the Hebrew word Garti (I have sojourned) is 613, like the number of commandments of the Torah. What does this means then? That the re-encounter of Yaakov with his brother and his real life, was a consequence of his firm resolution to preserve the Mitzvot in a land where everybody else had a lifestyle absolutely different from the Jewish ideal.

The history of Yaakov is our story, too. We lived in exile for two thousand years. And, although we inhabited many different countries with absolutely different cultures, we always preserved the Mitzvoth and the Jewish culture.

But today, in the 21st century, when we study this Parashah, can we affirm, without twisting reality, that we also continue to preserve Judaism and Jewish culture? Our ancestors kept Judaism alive based on action and not merely on feelings of belonging and “love” for the Jewish People and Israel. They lived a Jewish life day by day through Jewish prayers at the Synagogue, through study at the Beit Midrash, through Kashrut, Tzedakah, etc.

Friends, we have to re-examine our commitment to a Jewish future, and believe me — the future demands an active and real commitment. I have no doubt that every one of you feel one hundred percent Jewish. We all feel Jewish, I feel Jewish, but that’s not enough. We should proclaim like Yaakov that continuity depends on action.

The miracle of the continuity of the Jewish People for so many millennia was not only because God wanted it, but because of the mothers lighting Shabbat candles in their homes and their children later on repeating it in their own homes with their own families. It is because of the fathers studying Torah and their children imitating them.

In summary, the miracle was given because of committed people. Now it is our responsibility to generate a miracle of continuity once again and to be able to say as did Yaakov: “I continue to be a Jew because I fulfilled the Mitzvot.”

Shabbat Shalom.