Torah · Weekly Parasha VideoParashat VayishlachRabbi Uri Nahum · June 19, 2017 · Vayishlach · וישלח · 15 Min Parasha RoundupSave⌄ShareParasha class with Rabbi Uri Nahum, from BSD Productions’ 15 Min Parasha Roundup.Transcript0:06Parashat Vayishlach. This week's parasha is the longest parasha in Sefer0:10Bereishit, and the fourth longest parasha in all of the0:13Chumash. It has 1540:15pesukim. This parasha primarily deals with how to deal with the non-Jewish world,0:19as we'll see, Esav has to deal with many different people from the non-Jewish world.0:23Also, the Torah in this week's parasha tells us about Yaakov Avinu's road back home0:30from Laban Arami's house in Padan Aram back to Hebron in Eretz Yisrael.0:35We divide the parasha into five parts.0:37The first part of the parasha is the major part of the0:40parasha, where the Torah tells us about the meeting between Yaakov and Esav.0:43The second part of the parasha is when Yaakov settles in Shechem.0:46Third part of the parasha, a small part, Yaakov moves and travels to Beit El.0:50And the fourth part is Rachel Imenu passing away in this week's0:56parasha. And finally, the Torah concludes with the list of the children of Yaakov and Esav.1:02One mitzvah in this week's parasha, the mitzvah is1:06a mitzvat lo ta'aseh. It's the third mitzvah in Sefer HaChinuch and the final mitzvah in Sefer1:10Bereishit, and the mitzvah is the mitzvah not to eat from gid hanasheh.1:14And there are no mitzvot aseh in this week's1:17parasha. The next mitzvah will surface again in Sefer Shemot, in Parashat1:22Bo. Let's get to the parasha a little bit more in depth.1:25Torah tells us in the first part of the parasha about the meeting between Yaakov and Esav.1:28Yaakov is coming home from Laban's house,1:34and on the way he sends messengers, according to different opinions1:37it's really malachim mamash, it's angels.1:41Yaakov sends angels to Esav,1:44notifying him that he spent all these years in Laban's house, 20 years in Laban's house,1:48and he kept all the mitzvot.1:51And not only that, he didn't even learn from the ways of Lavan1:55HaArami, and he wants to tell Eisav that he wants to make peace with him.1:59Eisav shouldn't be upset about the blessings that Yaakov took,2:01because they haven't come to fruition.2:03All he has is a shor, is a chamor, a few animals here and there,2:06not much to make a big deal about it.2:08The message that comes back to Yaakov is2:11that Eisav is coming to you with 400 men,2:14and some opinions say in the Midrash that really these were 400 armies.2:19Each one was a general; 400 men were generals,2:21each one had an army with him.2:23So now Yaakov Avinu prepares himself to meet Eisav, and he doesn't know what to expect.2:29He thinks that there's going to be a war.2:31So the Chachamim tell us Yaakov Avinu prepared himself in three ways:2:35milchamah, to a war,2:37he prepared himself by praying,2:39and the third way that he prepared himself is to offer a gift.2:43The first way to war, Yaakov Avinu takes all his possessions and he divides it up into half.2:48He divides his family, he divides everything.2:50Why? Because Yaakov Avinu thought that we're going to battle,2:54and if we battle, then what might happen is one person, one side might lose,2:58and if, chas v'shalom, if we lose, then we'll be wiped out.3:01So therefore he decided that if Eisav attacks one camp,3:05then the other camp, the other part of my possessions will be saved.3:09The second thing that Yaakov Avinu prepares himself for is tefillah.3:14He starts praying to Hashem, and the main thing that Yaakov Avinu prays for, besides protection,3:20is that he shouldn't be killed, and also Yaakov Avinu prays that he should not have to kill either.3:27And the third thing is a3:29gift. Yaakov Avinu takes animals, as well as, we're going to see, six types of... Six types of gifts,3:38four types of animals Yaakov Avinu prepares in order to give to Esav,3:41and we’re just going through the details as it says in the3:44parashah. Yaakov Avinu gave 200 female goats and 20 male goats, 200 female sheep and 20 rams,3:5230 female camels and 30 male camels.3:55Some say it was their babies, some say it was actually male camels, adults.4:0040 cows and 10 bulls, 20 female donkeys and 10 male donkeys.4:04According to the Medrash, he gave him also a special gift, a bird called a falcon,4:09or we know today as a falcon.4:11And according to Seder HaDorot, he also gave him silver and gold and crystal,4:15and that was also given as part of the gift to Esav,4:18that hopefully if he sees the gifts, he won’t be able—he won’t come to attack Yaakov4:23Avinu. And then, Yaakov, the Torah tells us, Yaakov Avinu was left alone.4:27Why? Because as he was crossing his family in the middle of the night4:30from one side of the river to the other side of the river, or the stream,4:34Yaakov Avinu forgets some pachim ketanim, some small vessels,4:39according to Rabbeinu Bachaye. Those small vessels were the children’s cups that they needed to drink with.4:44And there’s obviously much more explanations to this,4:47but that’s what Rabbeinu Bachaye says. So he goes back to get these cups,4:50and who does he meet there over there? The angel of Esav.4:53And the angel of Esav battles against Yaakov4:56Avinu. Now, there’s many explanations to this, whether it’s a spiritual battle or a physical battle.4:59In any case, the Torah does tell us that the angel was not able to overcome Yaakov5:05Avinu. The only thing he was able to do was that he was able to hit Yaakov Avinu by the side,5:13by the hip socket, and dislocating Yaakov Avinu’s hip socket.5:17After the battle, Yaakov Avinu asks the malach to bless him,5:20and there the angel of Esav— Blesses him,5:24and he tells him that your name will become, from Yaakov, will turn into Yisrael,5:28and he also agrees to him about the blessings that he took,5:34and he confirms it. He says, You had the right to the blessings that you took from Esav.5:39And Torah continues and says that Yaakov was not able to walk so good5:43after, because his hip socket was dislocated.5:46And Torah points out that this is when the mitzvah comes from of gid5:49hanasheh. There is a certain vein in the back of the animal that we don't eat,5:54and the reason why we don't eat it is because that's the place where the malach hit Yaakov5:59Avinu. Then the day comes, and Esav is here.6:03In daytime, and Esav comes to meet Yaakov6:06Avinu, and here Yaakov Avinu takes his family and he divides them into different groups.6:12Dinah, Yaakov Avinu takes and he hides her in a box.6:14He didn't want Esav to be attracted to her, that he might take her to be married.6:19And then Yaakov Avinu comes first, and he comes to greet Esav.6:22He bows seven times until he reaches Esav.6:25As the Zohar explains, he was not bowing down to Esav,6:28chas v'shalom. He was bowing down to the Shechinah that he saw in front of him until he met Esav.6:32There the two brothers finally meet. They hug.6:36Yaakov gets a kiss from Esav, and they both cry together.6:40Afterwards, the next group that comes were the shefachot, Bilhah and6:45Zilpah and their children. They come, they bow down, and they come to greet Esav.6:50Afterwards, the third group that meets Esav is Leah and her children, again bowing down.6:56And finally Yosef comes in front of his mother. He bows down, and then afterwards Rachel also approaches Esav.7:04After he meets the whole family, Yaakov and Esav discuss the gift that Yaakov prepared for him.7:09Esav trying to refuse it. The end, the Midrash explains that Esav takes the gift for himself. He gives it to his family.7:20And Esav offers Yaakov, now that we made peace, he offers him to live together. Come,7:24let's go, my brother, let us come and live together.7:28But Yaakov Avinu was much smarter than that, and he made an excuse:7:32my children, my animals are too slow. I'll meet up with you when we meet up.7:37As the Gemara says in Avodah Zarah, he pushed him away. He told him, We'll meet up. I'll meet you by7:41Se'ir. Now Se'ir was much further than where Yaakov was planning to go.7:44Yaakov was planning to go to Shechem, but he wanted to push away Esav,7:48so this way he shouldn't have any contact with Esav.7:50And that's the last that we hear about Esav as far as encountering Esav in the Torah,7:58as far as the pesukim. The Torah does discuss Esav.8:01Esav, at the end of the parasha, and we find in the Midrashim and the Gemara that Esav surfaces again, but in the Torah itself, to speak about any encounter with Esav, this is the final time that we hear about him.8:11We move on now to the second part of the parasha, Yaakov comes to Shechem,8:14and the Torah tells us Yaakov purchases the second property to be purchased by the Jewish people, the city of Shechem.8:21It's bought for a hundred kesitah. That's how much Yaakov Avinu pays for it, and he establishes a mizbeach over there.8:29Then something horrible happens to Yaakov's family.8:32Dinah goes out, and seems from peshat that she went out together with all the other girls of the family.8:37They went out to see there was some sort of a dance that the ladies of Shechem were doing.8:42As she went out to see, Dinah was beautiful, like all Yaakov's children were.8:47And there's a man, Shechem, who's the son of Hamor. Hamor was the governor, if you want to say, of the city of8:53Shechem. This guy Shechem comes and he sees Dinah. He takes her and he violates her.9:00Dinah at the time was about nine to ten years old,9:04and now after he violated her, Shechem tries to convince Dinah to marry him, and he offers her the world.9:11And then he takes his father Hamor, and they go together to Yaakov9:15Avinu. Yaakov Avinu finds out what happened. He keeps quiet because his boys were not home yet.9:20And Shechem and Hamor, they come and they offer a great deal: we'll marry into each other.9:25By this time, Yaakov's children come back, and when they found out what happened,9:29they realize that this man Shechem has committed an aveirah, which even according to mitzvot Bnei Noach has chayav mita.9:36And because the people of the city didn't stop him from doing it, this was something that even the goyim were careful with.9:42How come they didn't stop him? They're also guilty of it, as we know.9:44Anybody who assists in an aveirah is considered like he took part of9:48the aveirah. So they decide that, oh, chayav mita.9:50So Levin, Shimon, they speak to Shechem, Hamor, and they tell them,9:53Fine. Why don't you guys circumcise yourself? This way you'll be like us,9:57and now, then we can make a deal, then we can be married into each other.10:02Shechem and Hamor go back to their city. They convince everybody to have a brit milah.10:07Meanwhile, on the third day after the brit milah, Levi and Shimon, who were about the age of thirteen,10:12go into the city of Shechem and they kill everybody.10:16Shimon takes Dinah out of the house of Shechem and Hamor,10:22and Dinah is married to Shimon.10:25And then once this happens, they come back.10:27The Midrash says that the Canaanim, the non-Jewish people around, wanted to retaliate.10:34How could—here you have two people who destroyed the whole city,10:36and different opinions what happened, if there's actually war10:39or if they just held back and they didn't fight. That's discussed in the Midrash.10:43In any case, what happens, one thing that for sure happens10:46is that there was a fear that fell upon all the non-Jewish people living around the family of10:52Yaakov. They realized that this was a very powerful family.10:55It's a family that's protected by God, and we should stay away from them.10:58Then we move on to the third part of the parashah, where Yaakov moves and travels to Beit El.11:03Here the Torah tells us that Yaakov is told by Hashem to go to the place called Beit El,11:07and Yaakov tells his family to collect all the avodah zarah that they took from the city of Shechem,11:13things that were of idols, even though they were silver and gold, and they buried it under the tree.11:16And Yaakov travels with his family to a city called Luz,11:19which he himself renames to this name of Beit El.11:23Then the Torah tells us that Rivkah sends her maiden, her deborah, her nurse—you want to call her11:31Deborah—and she comes to inform Yaakov that he should come back home.11:34And on the way, Deborah passes away.11:35And when Yaakov hears the news, he also hears that his mother also passed away.11:40Rivkah passes away around the age of 122, according to some opinions. And she's buried also.11:47Torah hints it by saying, Alom Bachut. There was a tree of cryings, plural, that was the crying of11:53Devorah, as well it was hinted to the crying of Rivka, who passes away at the same time.11:58Afterwards, Hashem blesses Yaakov, and He changes his name from Yaakov to12:03Yisrael. And we move on now to the fourth part of the parashah. Another tragedy that befalls Yaakov Avinu, Rachel's death.12:10Torah tells us that Rachel was pregnant and she went to labor.12:13But when she went to labor, there were complications, and she gave birth to one boy and two girls, triplets.12:20The boy, when she hears that there was a boy that was born, she names him Ben Oni,12:25and they were born on Yud Aleph Heshvan, the same day where Rachel Imenu, unfortunately, was not able to make it,12:30and she passes away. According to some opinions, she was 45 years old when she passes away.12:35Yaakov Avinu, however, names the boy Binyamin, because Yamin means the right,12:40and the right represents the south, and since they were in the south,12:44so he was called Binyamin, the son of the south.12:48And Rachel is buried along the way in the city called Beit Lechem, until today we know12:53the kever Rachel, which is found in Beit12:56Lechem. Afterwards, Yaakov moves his primary tent, which was together living with13:00Rachel, he moves it to the tent of Bilhah, who was the shifchah of13:07Rachel. But Reuven was very upset because his mother Leah should have come next,13:11so he switches the beds, and it was considered a mistake by13:17Reuven, which we find in Parashat Vayechi, Yaakov admonishes13:20Reuven. Now we finally move to the last part of the parashah. Although there are many13:24pesukim, we could summarize it in short. Torah lists the children of Yaakov first, and then Esav.13:28Torah first tells us about the names of each of Yaakov's children and who their mother was.13:34And then tells us Yaakov settled in Hebron together with his father13:38Yitzchak, and it tells us about the passing away of Yitzchak at the age of 180.13:41Now, although Yitzchak doesn't pass away until way after Yosef is sold,13:46the Torah mentions it over here. And then Torah comes to tell us about Esav's13:50descendants. Esav, who is also known as Edom, settles in Seir. He didn't want to be close to13:57Yaakov, and the Torah tells us about all his children and about all the heads of Esav,14:02who were called alufei Esav, and that's how we conclude the14:05parashah. The lesson from this week's parashah is a very important and powerful lesson.14:08In this week's parashah, we learn how to deal with the non-Jewish world.14:12We find that Yaakov had to deal with Esav. We find that also Yaakov had to deal with Shechem.14:16So throughout the whole parashah, Yaakov is dealing with the non-Jewish world.14:21When Esav was coming, Yaakov knew that he has to keep his distance,14:24and he did whatever he can to stay away from Esav.14:26When Esav offered to live in peace together with him, Yaakov pushed him away.14:32By Shechem, however, Yaakov was not so careful.14:35He didn't take such precaution, and unfortunately what happened?14:38In Shechem, where he didn't take precaution, we find that dinah was violated,14:43and Yaakov went through tremendous tzaar and suffering.14:47However, when it comes to Esav, when he pushed him away, Yaakov was at peace,14:51and that's a lesson. We have to know how to keep our distance from the non-Jewish world.14:55This doesn't mean to say that we can't deal with—yes, we have to work,14:59but we have to understand we're Jewish, we're special, we have different laws and different things,15:02not to mix together.15:03We're approaching the holiday of Chanukah, and we light the menorah with oil and water.15:11Some people put water. Water, as the Midrash says, represents the goyim, and oil represents the Jewish people.15:16Oil and water do not mix. They stay higher, they stay above.15:19Not that one is greater than the other. I mean, we'll say that to ourselves,15:22but the idea is that oil and water do not mix.15:26We as Jews have to remain pure,15:29shemen zayit zach, and we should be careful when dealing with the non-Jewish world15:32not to integrate too much, that we shouldn't mix together and be like them.15:55Shabbat shalom.