Boulder Aish Kodesh

Ya’akov, as we know, represents the Divine attribute known as tiferet. A misunderstanding of tiferet will lead us to a misunderstanding of Ya’akov’s life. It is usually understood as “the balance between chesed and Gevurah”. This is only partially true – tiferet is not merely the holding of two options and deciding which one is best, it is having a center beyond the two from which a person can choose the best course of action – or inaction. In the words of the famous Kabalistic piece entitled “Eliyahu began to speak”, Ya’akov and his contribution to the Spiritual Body is called “amudah d’emtza’ita” – the middle column. In the depths, his is the capacity to have a middle, a center, from which to act.

Much of Ya’akov’s early life is a struggle to attain and retain that center. He is pushed in both directions to keep him out of balance. His wives are struggling with the same difficulty.

A person may be kept off balance in one of two ways – things go extremely well, or extremely poorly. The danger when things go well is being lulled into an artificially bolstered self-image – ‘I am the one to whom good things happen’. And when something that is not so clearly good happens, we might have trouble relating to that event and adapting accordingly – it might be seen as a ‘string of bad luck’ or a ‘momentary fall’. In such circumstances, a bad situation can get increasingly worse without our ever really acknowledging that it is happening, because we still understand ourselves, and G-d, in light of more fortuitous events.

An example of this is Ya’akov’s fortuitous encounter with Rachel – he is in love, he is feeling so many emotions, it was effortless, it brought out something very strong in him, a side of himself that he liked. Meanwhile, he ends up marrying Leah, and cannot seem to recover. In fact, while his relationship with Rachel is marked by a sense of frustration, Leah is silently having child after child, giving him the legacy he wants. Ya’akov himself cannot seem to gain perspective – his relationship with Leah is marked by the harshest of words – “and G-d saw that she was hated” – the Gemarra Baba Batra 123a has to ask, “Is it possible that the Torah would say such a thing?” It is understandable that she feels hated – “G-d has heard that I am hated” – but for the Torah to present it as narrative fact is a shocking revelation of Ya’akov’s inner confusion.

In this type of lack of balance, one perpetuates one’s own imaginary self-image - it is Ya’akov himself who keeps that image of himself alive. On the other hand is a person who allows himself to be controlled by another. This is certainly something Ya’akov deals with. His hated wife Leah struggles with this as well, but she breaks through it. If Ya’akov had not been so busy hating her, he could have learned from her.

It is clear that Leah has been wanting recognition from Ya’akov since the start. Her children are named after that desire – “Now my husband will notice me” – “now my husband will accompany me”. By her fourth child, however, Leah turns a corner and ceases naming her children after her desire for her husband’s attention and favors – “Now I will thank G-d.” She escapes the vicious cycle of competition and vying for attention. Proof of this comes in the birth of her seventh child, a daughter. The Gemarra tells us that she was to have a son, but realized it would be embarrassing to her sister (thus paying her karmic debt to her sister, who acted to save her sister from embarrassment). The fetus thus turned female, allowing Rachel to have two sons.

Ya’akov was not able to learn so quickly, as Lavan manipulated Ya’akov’s self-perception until the very end of the parsha.

Lavan’s manipulation of Ya’akov’s life and self-image begin soon after they meet. Lavan switches Leah for Ya’akov’s intended bride, Rachel, and that is the beginning of a long series of deceptions. We even find Rachel and Leah trading intimacy with Ya’akov like a commodity, worth approximately a bundle of mandrakes. But the clearest understanding of Lavan’s domination of Ya’akov comes toward the end of the parsha.

We know that Lavan has switched the terms of Ya’akov’s payment ten times (giving us echoes of Avraham’s ten tests). Each time must have been an equally disempowering experience, leaving Ya’akov feeling less and less in control of his life. When he finally decides to leave, he is given the opportunity to reclaim not only some wealth, but a degree of sense-of-self as well. He performs the mystical task of changing the identities of sheep and goats – a task to which he has become all too accustomed - while performing the necessary task of ripping off his uncle. But even here, he is left without the transformative victory he needs, and ends up leaving by the back door, effectively running away with his wives and children from Lavan.

He has a six-day lead over Lavan as he runs toward his hometown. And yet Lavan catches up – we find a sort of kfitzat haderech – a miraculous shortening of travel time. Hashem seems to want Ya’akov to have a direct encounter with Lavan in order for Ya’akov to truly reclaim his center. And this is what happens. But not before a fight.

When Lavan shows up, he pulls out the heavy artillery in violating Ya’akov’s center. “What have you done, stealing my heart, and forcing my daughters away, like captives, by the sword?” This leaves Ya’akov plenty of room to doubt his decision, end even to doubt whether his conversation with Rachel and Leah was coercive or not. “I would have sent you off joyfully, with drum and lyre!” Ya’akov is allowed to think: maybe I was wrong about Lavan. Ya’akov’s impacting response: “I was afraid you would steal your daughters (not “my wives”, notice) from me.” What kind of man lets his wives be stolen without fighting to the death?

Lavan then pushes Ya’akov over the edge by searching through every corner of Ya’akov’s property, which, in Lavan’s hands, is surely a humiliating affair. Finally, Ya’akov has had it with Lavan. The anger we’ve been sensing and waiting for the entire time, a far cry from the “Why did you deceive me?” that we got after the switching of the daughters. “These twenty years I have been with you…”

Lavan tries one more dig: “The daughters are my daughters and the sons are my sons. And everything you see is mine.” But Lavan, perhaps sensing that Ya’akov has been pushed beyond his limit, offers a covenant – you do not go past this rock into my territory, I will not go past this rock into your territory. This is exactly the covenant that Ya’akov needs: I am mine. I am not yours. I own my center: you can do whatever you want with yours, but you can no longer have access to mine. And Ya’akov vowed by “pachad aviv Yitzhak” – literally, by the (object of) fear of his father Yitzhak. For this is the relationship to G-d he needed the whole time – from the first time G-d appeared to him and said “G-d of your father Avraham and G-d of Yitzhak” with no reference to Yitzhak his father. For at that point he had not inherited the spiritual heritage of his father – good, healthy boundaries characterized by Yitzhak’s (post-akeidah) relationship to G-d. And he did not inherit them until that moment of covenant with Lavan.

So, what we have seen in Ya’akov, specifically in his epitomizing tiferet, is a struggle for center. As we said, tiferet is not merely a balance between chesed and gevurah – it is the holding of space outside both from which a person can choose which route to pursue. This is an art in itself, and requires far more than a familiarity with the properties of each choice – it requires the capacity to choose without pressure from outside. It requires a sense of self-validation independent of validation coming form others. It requires a sense of purpose that is self-generated. In our story we see Ya’akov and those around him struggling with this – we see Leah vying for Ya’akov’s attention. We see Rachel needing children. But most importantly, we see Ya’akov allowing others to run his life on all levels, from the sexual (you will lay with me tonight) and the financial (you have changed my wages one hundred times) to the psychological (I was afraid you’d steal your daughters). Finally, when he is able to express himself to Lavan he is saying, “You can no longer step into my life like this. Do not cross this line.” In that moment is a reclaiming of the center – “I will not let you dominate me anymore” – that will give him the momentum to confront his brother, who even more closely occupies his center.