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We are grateful to Rabbi Shmuel Lesches of Young Yeshivah for sharing this with us!
I am unworthy of all the mercies and of all the truth which You have shown Your servant (32:11)
The meaning of this is that every kindness bestowed by G‑d upon a person should cause him to be exceedingly humble. For a divine kindness is an expression of "His right hand embraces me"—G‑d is literally bringing the person closer to Himself. And the closer a person is to G‑d, the greater the humility this should evoke in him, for since "all before Him is as naught," the more "before Him" a person is, the more "as naught" does he perceive himself to be.
This is the manner of Jacob. The very opposite is the case in the contrasting realm of kelipah (evil). There, the greater the kindness shown a person, the more he grows in arrogance and self-satisfaction.
(Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi)
Jacob went out from Be'er Sheva, and he went to Charan (Genesis 28:10)
The story of Jacob's journey to Charan is the story of every soul's descent to the physical world.
The soul, too, leaves behind the spiritual idyll of Be'er Sheva (literally, "Well of the Seven"—a reference to the supernal source of the seven divine attributes, or sefirot, from which the soul derives) and journeys to Charan (literally, "Wrath"): a place of lies, deceptions, struggle and hardship; a place in which material concerns consume one's days and nights, sapping one's energy, confusing one's priorities, and all but obscuring the purpose for which one has come there in the first place.
Yet it is in Charan, in the employ of Laban the Deceiver, not in the Holy Land and its "tents of learning," that Jacob founds the nation of Israel. It is here that he marries and fathers eleven of the twelve sons who will become the twelve tribes of Israel. Had Jacob remained in the Holy Land, the life of this pious scholar who lived 3,500 years ago would have been of no significance to us today.
The soul, too, achieves its enduring significance only upon its descent into "Charan." Only as a physical being, invested within a physical body and inhabiting a physical environment, can it fulfill the purpose of its creation, which is to build "a dwelling for G‑d in the physical world."
(From the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe)
In last night's evening prayers, preding Dec. 5, 2024, we began inserting the request for rain, "v'tein tal umatar," in the amidah. We continue adding this request into the weekday prayers until the holiday of Passover.
In tonight's evening prayers, preceding Dec 5., 2024, we insert the request for rain, "v'tein tal umatar," in the amidah. We continue adding this request into the weekday prayers until the holiday of Passover.
