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Stairway To Heaven

Parashat Vayeitze (Genesis 28:10-32:2)

This week’s Torah portion begins with one of the most mysterious and little-understood events recorded in the Torah. When Jacob spent the night in what he later calls Beit-El he had a curious dream charged with spiritual import:

And he came to a certain place and stayed there that night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep. And he dreamed, and behold, there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven. And behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it! (Genesis 28:11–12)

Unlocking The Secret To Immortality

Parashat Vayeira (Genesis 18:1-22:24)

Followers of Yeshua generally understand the concept of life-after-death. Our eternal hope is in the resurrection of the dead and the life we will enjoy in our immortal bodies. Yeshua speaks of this eternal life in Matthew 25. Paul explains this reality by saying, “For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53). Our eternal resurrection will be the defeat of the ultimate enemy: death. This is the understanding many have of immortality and how we enter into it. However, there may be another aspect of immortality and a way we can achieve it now, even while we live in this world. Let’s turn to our parashah to help us understand this concept.

Leaving A Legacy

Our parasha opens with the words, “These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9). In this passage, the word “generations” is the Hebrew word toldot (תולדת). Most of the time the word toldot is used in the Scriptures it is in relationship to genealogy, since its primary meaning is descendants or offspring. For instance, toward the end of this week’s parasha we read, “These are the generations of Shem” (Genesis 11:10). Immediately following is a list of Shem’s descendants. When it comes to Terach it repeats this pattern saying, “Now these are the generations of Terah” (Genesis 11:27) followed by a list of his children. It is the same when it lists the sons of Ishmael in Genesis 25, etc.

Parashat B’reisheet is always filled with fascination and intrigue whenever we study it. There are so many facets of the Creation account to explore that it would take a lifetime to begin unraveling them. For instance, on the first day of Creation, we read about the creation of light:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. (Genesis 1:3–5)

The Hidden And The Revealed

This week’s Torah portion is a continuation of Moses’ adjuration to the Children of Israel to faithfully obey the instructions the LORD has given them in the form of the commandments. The Children of Israel are about to renew their covenant with the LORD before entering into the Promised Land. In the midst of this, Moses tells them:

The hidden [things] belong to the LORD our God, but the [things that are] revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this Torah. (Deuteronomy 29:28 [29])

Will your going be like your coming?

Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. (Deuteronomy 28:6)

When the Torah says things in an unusual way, it’s usually to teach us an important lesson. Normally, when we think of a person’s comings and goings, it is from the perspective of first leaving a place and then returning to it. The Torah, however, has a different frame of reference. A person first enters and then departs. Rabbi Yochanan interprets this to mean that our coming in and going out are the points by which we enter and depart from this world:

“Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out” — that thine exit from the world shall be as thine entry therein: just as thou enterest it without sin, so mayest thou leave it without! (b.Bava Metzia 107a)

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