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Orchard of Delights                                                                                                                                                 Vayeitzei


                 From the story of  Isaac digging  the wells we learn that                                                      £Transformations£TransformationsTransformations
               metaphorically speaking human beings have three options: (1) to re-                                              £
               dig the wells of their forefathers; (2) to dig their own wells; (3) to re-
               dig the wells of their forefathers in such a way as to make them their
               own. We need to achieve a balance between how much to accept from                          Towards the end of the portion, the Torah records in great detail how
               our ingrained nature and nurture and how much to strike out on our                         Jacob managed to get just recompense from Laban for his labors
               own. Isaac was able to both heed the traditions of his father and                          by breeding Laban’s flock in such a way that much of the offspring
               strike out on his own, sometimes at one and the same time. In this                         became legally his own. Once again Jacob’s actions seem deceitful,
               lies the secret of the survival of the Torah and the Jewish people.                        although, in this case, the Torah goes to great pains to demonstrate
                                                                                                          that all his actions were straightforward and above board. Jacob was
                                                                                                          merely able to use his greater knowledge of breeding to outwit Laban
                                                                                                          and based on the agreement he had with Laban “transform” Laban’s
                                                                                                          flocks into his own. The Torah provides a fairly detailed description
                                     £Isaac Became Old £Isaac Became Old Isaac Became Old                 of the exact manner in which Jacob bred the sheep. One wonders
                                     £
                              and His Eyes Became Dim
                              and His Eyes Became Dim
                              and His Eyes Became Dim                                                     why the Torah reveals this process in so much detail. The  Zohar
                                                                                                          explains that this matter, like the entire Torah, conceals great and
                                                                                                          lofty secrets beneath its surface.
               “And it was when Isaac became old and his eyes became dim from                               Jacob’s breeding process is actually a direct application of many of
               seeing” (Genesis 27:1). With these words one of the most enigmatic                         the lessons he learned from his dream of the ladder, especially the way
               incidents  in the  Torah begins: Isaac intends  to bless  Esau, but                        in which spiritual concepts and processes can be translated into the
               blesses Jacob instead. In  Lech Lecha (“Why  God Took Abraham                              material realm. He was quite literally infusing the physical with the
               Outside”) we demonstrated how the Rabbis’ four-tiered system of                            spiritual and instilling the earth with Divine energy. By transforming
               biblical interpretation,  PaRDeS, systematically explained a  verse                        Laban’s sheep and goats through clever breeding practices, he was
               on four different levels: the literal  peshat, the allusive  remez, the                    demonstrating  to  the  Jewish  people  how  to  fulfill  their  spiritual
               homiletical  or allegorical  derash, and the  mystical  sod. Here  too,                    mission: to extract sparks of goodness and holiness entrapped in the
               Rashi’s interpretations mirror the PaRDeS structure. He offers three                       shells of our broken and unrectified world and transfer them to the
               explanations for why Isaac became blind and (in two cases) explains                        side of light and righteousness. He was also bringing to fruition God’s
               why the Torah provides us with that information here.                                      promise in the dream that he would grow physically and spiritually.

                 The simple reading of the text, the peshat, clearly assumes that                           This deep process is alluded to in two ways: by the three different
               Isaac’s blindness was a function of his old age. Elderly people often                      trees  used  to  make  the  rods  that  Jacob  placed  among  the  flocks
               lose their sight. Therefore, Rashi does not even bother to explain                         when they mated and by the physical descriptions of the animals
               the peshat, as it is already clear from the text. Presumably, he also                      themselves. The three trees were poplar, hazel, and chestnut: livneh,
               assumes that there is no need to mention that Isaac’s blindness is                         luz, and armon. The Hebrew word for the first tree, “livneh,” shares
               crucial to the upcoming plot, explaining how Jacob could make off                          the same root as Jacob’s father-in-law’s name, Laban. This allusion
               with the blessings, rather than Esau.                                                      teaches us that just as Jacob was forced to play according to the
                                                                                                          same rules as Esau, beating him at his own game, so too with Laban
                                                                                                          he had to play by Laban’s rules while still making every effort to act

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