Each year, We/I read the stories of Ya’akov as the darkest days of the year have come and the trees, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, have fully emptied; then we read about Yosef.
So many questions about how to read the Saga of the Birth of the Israelite Nation that gave rise over Millennia to the Jews of the Twentieth and Twenty First Centuries. We learned about Ya’akov striving with his brother in the womb and how his parents aligned themselves … Rivka with Ya’akov and Yitzchak with Eisav “because he had the taste of hunt in his mouth.” The passage (Ge 25:27) is unclear … because Eisav had the taste of the hunt in his mouth or because Yitzchak had that taste after nearly being the object of an unsuccessful killing on Mount Moriah at the hand of the Brutal Avraham?
In any case, we learn that Ya’akov wanted to win … first the Birthright (25:29-34) and then their Father’s Blessing which he stole by blatant stealth with the cooperation of his Mother, the once-sweet Rivkah (Gen 27). We learn that Ya’akov was frightened either by his Brother’s anger at having been cheated or by his own guilt and ran away from both. We learned that Sweet Rivkah got into that state of mind that says my kid better marry in my tribe … קצתי בחיי מבנות חת … “I’m done with my life (ready to end my life) due to (my son Eisav marrying) those daughters of Ches. (As a Yeshivah student, I found that the above Hebrew expression worked rhythmically quite well with the opening line of “Deck the Halls … קצתי בחיי מבנות חת … fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la!) How many an unobservant Jewish parent has bemoaned their child dating, nevermind marrying, a non-Jew!
We then are put through readings about how Lavan pulls a switcheroo on Ya’akov, talking pretty to him about how he wouldn’t want him to work for nothin’ (29:15) … and then … just desserts, aye! … giving him the dull-eyed Leah instead of Hottsy-Tottsy Rachel. Ya’akov (29:23). Lavan finally gives this little stinker a taste of his own stealthiness.
And as the Winds of Wintewr blow colder, we read of Ya’akov working to get even with Lavan in years 7-14 of his being Lavan’s Ranch Foreman. and he does. He rips off Lavan for much of the herd with Genetic Modifications (Gen 30) that he learned, purportedly, while studying in his tent (Gen 25). And his wives rip off the idols (Gen 31), too, completing the ironic intersecting circles … his Mom Rivka didn’t want him “marryin’ no idol-worhipping fereigner,” and her Ya’akov marryin’ daughter-in-laws bring the idols with’em! (Damn: Everythin’s up-to-date in Kansas City). Ya’akov gets further comeuppance with his women. If he and his Big Brother Eisav fought in the womb of Rivka, Ya’akov’s camp was equally full of striving and hatred and bad feelings and a sense of being neglected or unfavored. God! It’s hard to read these stories … and the leaves are bare, the winds blow strong and, as the Psalmist said: לפני קרתו מי יעמוד … “in the face of His icy chill, who can even stand?!”
But nothing is so difficult for me as reading about Ya’akov as a Father. Is it that my WW2 SoldierBoy Father could’ve been warmer? Maybe, but still, this is as tough as all the other stories of underhandedness in the Scriptural presentation of Ya’akov. No “spoiler here” … read on, my fellow Scripturalists.
Read on how Ya’akov’s only reaction to Shim’on and Levi’s genocide against Shchem the Hunk and his Father, Chamor the Ass and their whole tribe.
I may originally be from Coney Island but this is no Side Show on the Fairway but smack-dab in the middle of it … the Writer/writer giving us a clinic on how not to be … It’s The How Not to Be a Parent Freak-Show … Starring Ya’akov!
Read how Ya’akov’s only concern is how he’ll be seen by the neighbors (Gen 34:30).
Read how he cultivates the strivings and enmity of the Ya’akov-Eisav insanity onto his own children by favoring only Yosef and festooning him with Brooks Brother Suits!
Read how Ya’akov remains willing to throw this special Yosef Under the Bus to find out if his other sons are conspiring against him.
Read how, in the end, he kvetches to Pharaoh that his live “coulda been betta!”
I learn in the Winter how not to be a Father. I suppose, in the end, Baruch/Benedictus Spinoza and others who have said the same are correct: All definition is negation. Tell me how not to be … Carve away the Bad from the Good and, perhaps … just, perhaps, something of beauty will remain.
When I want to know how to be a Father, I often pull out Gibran’s paragraph.
And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
