November 27, 2006/  6 Kislev 5767

Parshat Vayetze

by David Berger 

Jacob sleeps to dream the future of a nation he is soon to found at the beginning of this week’s parsha.  But he likely does not see that, generations hence, an eager convert will view his inspired slumber as a vital step in her march to join the nation bearing his name. Ruth famously declares to Naomi: “Where you travel I will travel, where you sleep I will sleep, your nation is my nation, and your G-d is my G-d” (Ruth 1:16).  Her statement not only demonstrates her dedication to the Jewish faith, but also captures the historical development of the Jewish people.

Just as evolutionists once believed that “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” (i.e. the development of the individual within the species follows the same path as the development of the species as a whole), so too Ruth recounts the genesis of the Jewish people and patterns after it her own rebirth as a Jew. “Where you travel I will travel” echoes the original call of G-d to Abraham to “travel forth” (Genesis 12:1).  “Your nation is my nation” refers to the forging of national identity under the hot sun of slavery in Egypt, and “your G-d is my G-d” recalls the eternal covenant sealed at Sinai. 

What remains unaccounted for, however, is Ruth’s second phrase: “where you sleep I will sleep.” Perhaps no figure in Jewish history sleeps with more purpose than Jacob. In his sleep, mysteries are woven and revealed; the future is plotted and planned. But most importantly, Jacob arises from his sleep refocused and reenergized. He arises with a sense of mission made concrete through an oath (Genesis 28:20-22). He awakens with newfound vitality that carries his legs to meet the challenge borne by the rising sun. And after twenty years of hard labor in his father in-law Laban’s house, it is again a night’s slumber, a new dream,  that clears the haze and straightens the path back to Canaan (Genesis 31:10-13).

Ruth, in invoking the sleep lesson of Jacob, reminds herself that she will not remain motivated forever, that her energy will wane and her focus will wander, and that she too will need moments of rest to restore herself. It is fitting that her story turns during a dark night on the threshing house floor of her dead husband’s kinsman, Boaz. Boaz has lived a long life and will not easily commit to beginning a new chapter. But in his slumber he recovers the passion of his youth, and Ruth finds him rested, advanced in years but young in spirit. Much like Jacob, Boaz awakens with purpose solidified in the form of a promise to Ruth to fulfill his duty as a “redeeming kinsman” (Ruth 3:9) reaffirming for Ruth the sleep lesson that she learned early in her journey.  

And what about us? Carl Sandburg in “Good Morning, America” wrote about the country: “Speed, speed, we are the makers of speed.” If that was true eighty years ago, it is doubly true today. Our society is animated by the spirit of Abraham that urges us to “travel forth,” pushing for speedy progress, but producing at least two unintended consequences. The first is that sometimes we cannot keep pace with the promises we make. The second and more worrying result is that occasionally we are more concerned with how quickly and efficiently we meet our goals and less concerned with what they are, endorsing what Henry David Thoreau called “improved means to unimproved ends.”
 

It is here that the sleep lesson of Jacob enters the picture. Like most valuable lessons, it can be summed up in a few words: slow down. Not as an escape, and not as an excuse, but as an ideal. The lesson is to sleep, literally or figuratively, in the service of the future that demands our fullest focus. Jacob sleeps to dream, to plan, to wake with purpose. Ruth learned the sleep lesson – and what about us? 

David Berger is a third year rabbinical student at Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, an affiliate of Yeshiva University (www.riets.edu). A native of Los Angeles, California, he is serving as a rabbinic intern at Riverdale Jewish Center in Riverdale, New York. He would like to thank his friend, Rabbi Chaim Strauchler, spiritual leader of Beit Chaverim Synagogue in Westport, Connecticut, for his help in developing some of the ideas in this piece.

UJC Rabbinic Cabinet Chair: Rabbi Ronald Schwarzberg
Vice Chairs: Rabbi Jonathan Schnitzer, Rabbi Steven Foster
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