December 3, 2011 | 7 Kislev 5772 | Genesis 28:10-32:3

When I was working at the Neuro-psychiatric hospital at the University of California, Los Angeles studying the effect of Methamphetamine, I had the unique opportunity to spend a lot of time developing relationships with heavy drug users.  Since our research involved a 35 day inpatient stay at the hospital, I was able to learn a lot about this diverse group of people and their lifestyles. Although many of them didn’t come into the study looking for addiction counseling, the conversation would eventually turn towards the future. As their heads cleared and they experienced a relatively loving environment, many of them would begin seriously considering turning their life around and giving up illicit drug use. Although I was not involved in treatment, I did have contacts in the treatment world and would always help those who were desirous to make those connections. When people would ask me about the best treatment programs, I didn’t have an answer for them.  In truth, different treatment regimens work for different people.  The only common denominator for assessing success was a person’s willingness to leave the environment that had encouraged their harmful behavior. For many this was the most difficult hurdle  Those who were able to leave their home, their community, and in some cases, even their families, had the best chance of getting clean and staying clean. Those who found their way back to the old neighborhood almost always found themselves back on drugs. Of course, this didn’t mean that once a person left their home, the rest was easy.  On the contrary, their uphill climb was just beginning but those first steps were almost always the biggest.

This is where we find our patriarch, Jacob, in the beginning of our sidra, Parshat Va’yetzei.  These several chapters are filled with iconic stories that have enchanted, intrigued and disturbed storytellers and theologians for millennium. Of course, Jacob was not battling an addiction but he was fleeing from a destructive environment, one of his own making. By the end of Jacob’s life, we find a very different person; a family man and leader. An important question for all of us who are looking to the Torah for wisdom and guidance for our own spiritual and ethical journeys is what event in Jacob’s life made the greatest impact on his remarkable change?  How did Jacob go from the boy who deceived his blind father and stole the blessing from his brother to the man known as Israel and the father of the Twelve Tribes?  Was it his dream about the ladder? Was the moment of change brought about through Laben’s deception which resulted in his marriage to Leah instead of Rachel? Maybe the turning point was his struggle with the Angel? All of these events clearly played an important role in making Jacob into the man he eventually became. However, I believe our Haftara tries to point us to the single moment in Jacob’s life that had the greatest impact on his remarkable transformation.

For most of us who follow the weekly Torah and Haftara readings, we know that there is usually some connection between the two selections which make them an obvious pair. Sometimes, the connection is rather small. In this week’s Haftara, we read the final chapters of Hosea (Chapters 12:13 – 14:10). As the prophets so often do, Hosea is urging the Jewish people to return to fidelity with God. As we read through almost three whole chapters, we find very little that ties Hosea’s words to the story of Jacob. The apparent connection seems to be a single sentence that begins our Haftara:

Then Jacob had to flee to the land of Aram; there Israel serviced for a wife. For a wife he had to guard sheep. (Hosea 12:13)

Why is this lone sentence the hook that inspired our rabbis to connect Hosea’s admonition to the story of Jacob? Although the line seems irrelevant, I believe that our rabbis are trying to highlight and draw attention to the opening words of our Torah reading, words we might overlook: Jacob left Beer-Sheva and set out for Haran (Genesis 28:10)

So many events in Jacob’s life seem to capture our imagination.  With such vibrant and illustrious stories, our Rabbis obviously felt the need to bring attention to these first steps which turn out to be the bravest action of Jacob’s life.

There is a common expression, “Change your place, and change your luck.” For Judaism, it isn’t luck that is changed when we leave our destructive behaviors; our harmful environments, it is our lives that are changed for the better.

Shabbat Shalom.