Parshat Vayeitzei - The mission of the Chosen People

In Parshat Vayeitzei, Genesis 28: 10-22, God promised Jacob, in a dream, that his children, his nation, would inherit the land that is known today at the State of Israel. God proceeded to promise, in that same dream, that through the nation of Jacob, who became known as Israel, all of the families of the earth would be blessed. The term families was meant to describe the sovereign nations of the earth.

The specific borders of that land would be meticulously delineated later in the Torah as lying between the Jordan River and the Great Sea, or the Mediterranean, and from Dan to the north to Beersheva to the south. Indeed, when Joshua approaches the River Jordan after the captivity and the 40 year sojourn in Sinai, the text clearly notes that two and a half tribes were allowed to live on land on the east bank of the Jordan even though this was not part of the land promised to Abraham, Issac and Jacob. Israel today exists exactly within those biblical parameters, from the Jordan to the Great Sea and from Dan to Beersheva. The only portion of Israel today that lies outside the Promised Land is a stretch of desert, known as the Negev, which runs south of Beersheva and on to the Gulf of Eilat.

The idea of the Chosen People, the people that would provide the vehicle by which the nations of the world would be blessed, has been a grossly misunderstood concept. Israel was not chosen to rule over any other nation. This in spite of generations of sinister conspiracy theories about this concept. Rather Israel is asked by God to do two things. Those are to take possession of that tiny and inscrutable land between the Jordan and the Sea and to then serve God, not serve man, as a priestly sect. This meant that emanating from that promised land, Israel would bear an extra layer of sacramental responsibility such as maintaining Kosher laws, Sabbath observance, other ritual requirements, and a higher moral and ethical standard as presented in the Book of Leviticus and elsewhere. Thus Israel was chosen to serve God, not control the secular world and, as such, the priestly nation of Israel would serve as a light among the nations.

The mission of Israel, and of the Jewish people as the people of the covenant between God and Abraham, Issac and Jacob, is thus to take posession of that tiny land as a holy place, one where the messianic age would be ushered in at a time appropriate to God, and to serve God by operating on a higher spiritual and ethical plane. This is a spiritual mission, not an earthly and material mission.

May Israel and the nations of the world wake up to the central and potentially miraculous mission of Israel and my they work diligently to foster that success of that mission for the good of all of humanity.

Toldot -Two aspects of man

Toldot, Genesis 25: 19 - 26:5, defines the physical and the spiritual nature of the human being. While Esau, the older of Issac and Rebecca's twins, represents the physical body, Jacob, the younger twin, who was born grasping the heel of Issac, represents the spiritual nature. Esau represents the human animal, warlike, seeking earthly satisfaction, instinctive, a hunter and thus a killer of animals. Jacob represents the spiritual, contemplating the divine, peacefully shepherding the flock.

Both men represent the dual nature of every human being and their struggle represents the struggle that exists within each one of us as we balance earthly pleasures with our more spiritual nature. Esau lives for the immediate moment, very much in the present, to the degree that he is willing to surrender his destiny, his birthright, in exchange for food. Jacob contemplates the future as he tricks Esau into selling out his birthright so that he, Jacob, could inherit the nation. Yet the paradox of Esau, honest, simple, unassuming, and Jacob, smart, devious, and cunning is obvious.

Rebecca clearly sides with Jacob in the struggle between the two brothers and Issac clearly sides with Esau, who provides him with material pleasures. The conflict further establishes the general differences between men and women. The male orientation, as established by Issac and Esau, is the hunter, the fighter, the creator of physical things. The male, as represented by Esau, is aggressive and tends to be amoral in the pursuit of ambition. Rebecca and Jacob, on the other hand, represent the female orientation in that they seem to put a brake on the male aggression of Esau and they seem to act on a greater moral principle, a consideration of the future of the nation. Yet, paradoxically, Esau is the unwitting honest broker while Jacob, with the support of Rebecca and believing that his deception was conducted for the greater good, engaged in a deception that was a far greater act of aggression than any Esau was capable of.

Thus the struggle of human life is finding the imperfect balance between our animal instinct, aggression, pleasure, hedonism, living strictly for the moment, and our spiritual side which recognizes greater realities beyond our narrow sphere and which tries to do right and good for the greater good. The problem arises when one side stops listening to the other side. When the aggressive side is not balanced by the more civilized side, when male aggression is not tempered by the civilizing female influence, than tens to be an increase in injustice, amorality, and a breakdown in law and order.

Conversely, the spiritual side, which at the end of the day is actually the more aggressive side when left unchecked and unbalanced by the physical side, can become arrogant and over-powering as it justifies and assumes the habits of behaving deceptively and secretively as it works to achieve what it believes to be lofty goals, goals that may, in fact, be not so lofty.

Study the weekly Parsha....Interview Chuck Morse

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Parsha Hayyei Sarah and the Birth of Capitalism

Parsha Toldot: Two aspects of Man

Boston author and radio host Chuck Morse writes weekly commentary on the Parsha. "My analysis of the Parsha, which is the portion of the Torah that is read and discussed in Synagogues around the world each Shabbat, has a secular and a political orientation as I am not a Torah scholar" says Morse who, while expressing immense admiration for the incredible work of generations of Rabbinic Torah scholars, approaches the Torah as the everyman. "I find that studying the Torah has similarities to studying the Constitution as both documents speak to me in terms of who I am and who we are as Americans. Both documents get to the essence of western civilization" notes Morse. "I hope that in some modest way my analysis encourages others to study the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, as well as the Constitution" says Morse.

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Parshat Hayyei Sarah and the birth of Capitalism

Parshat Hayyai Sarah, Genesis 23: 1 – 25:17, contains a detailed description of the world’s first recorded real estate transaction thus providing the moral foundation for capitalism. The purchase by Abraham of the Cave of Machpela in Hebron, which he purchased as a family plot to bury his wife Sarah, from Ephron the Hittite established private property ownership and the laws of social transaction.

Capitalism, the principle of private ownership of property and the social means of trading private ownership for mutual benefit, is not only natural to man but capitalism exists in the animal and even in the plant kingdom. Birds, for example, establish property when they build nests and beavers when they build dams. Plants establish property when two trees compete for sunshine and when one prevails while the other withers.

Trade and competition are natural elements of property ownership.  Property is either physical, as in the Cave of Machpela, or abstract, as in the 400 shekels of silver that Abraham paid Ephron for the deed. Abstract property includes money, ideas, education, the creative arts, invention, labor, contracts, time, or anything else that is created and voluntarily traded. The Torah spends considerable time dwelling upon the transaction between Abraham and Ephron, a transaction that was conducted in the presence of the Hittites and Abraham’s family. The real estate that Abraham purchased from Ephron, located in Hebron, remains part of the eternal property of his descendants, the Jewish people, to this day.

Capitalism is based upon defined entities, or properties, both real and abstract, and the proper means by which such entities interact with each other. Indeed, The Torah, which is filled with such definitions of properties and laws regarding their proper interaction, beginning with the separation of the heavens from the earth which established the first two properties. This definition is quickly followed by the separation of the land from the seas, plants, animals, and finally man which is then separated between men and women. In the natural world properties are amoral, they exist. Human beings possessed the ability to reason which led to the perception of the moral and spiritual nature of property and their proper relationship s to each other.

The Torah proceeds to the physical separations of tribes and nations and the abstract and at times intricate rules of moral engagement between individuals and nations. The establishment of property at Machpela brought separation of entities to a human level as the transaction between Abraham and Ephron was negotiated between two men, without the intervention of either the divine or nature, for the mutual benefit of each party operating consciously and voluntarily.

The transaction at the cave of Machpela occurred at a time when mankind was just beginning to emerge from what Frederic Engles accurately referred to as primitive socialism. In the times of Abraham, mankind toiled in a semi-conscious state of collectivism, not yet conscious of morality or individual identity.  In this sense, it could be said that the transaction at the cave was the first fully conscious act in human history. The struggle for individual identity has continued, with fits and starts, ever since.