Parshas Vayeitei

This week’s Parsha is called Parshas Vayeitei (VAH-YAY-TZAY.)

In this week’s Parsha, Yaakov runs away to the house of Lavan (Rivka’s brother) his uncle, by the word of his mother Rivka. He spent 14 years learning Hashem’s holy Torah before reaching his destination. Yaakov casted his eyes upon the most beautiful woman he had ever seen…. Rachel. Yaakov went to his Uncle Lavan, Rachel's father, (who is not the nicest guy around) and asked him if a shidduch (match) could be arranged between them. Lavan told Yaakov, only on condition that Yaakov works for him for seven years. Well, Yaakov really didn’t have much of a choice because Yaakov really wanted to marry. Rachel but couldn’t marry her unless he did his part in the deal. So they reached an agreement.

Seven years passed and Yaakov and his new wife were together and in the morning he realized that it was not Rachel but to his chagrin her older sister Leah.
 

Yaakov realized that Lavan tricked him and confronted him on the matter. Yaakov went to ask Lavan what happened. Lavan explained to Yaakov that it was their minhag (custom) that Leah the older sister should be married first or it would not be proper. After all was said and done Yaakov and Lavan end up agreeing that Yaakov would work for Lavan another seven years and Yaakov would get to marry Rachel. The passuk tells us that those next seven years seemed like only a few days to Yaakov.

After a total of fourteen years of hard work Yaakov finally married Rachel.

After settling down, Leah had six sons named, Reuven, Shimon, Levi, Yehudah, Yisachar, and Zevulun. After seeing Leah have so many children and Rachel was barren Rachel suggested to Yaakov to marry her maidservant Bilah, so that maybe she could have children, and it would be “like” Rachel having her own children. So Yaakov goes ahead and marries Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant. Bilhah has two boys named Dan and Naphtali. Then Leah offers to have Yaakov marry her maidservant Zilpah. Yaakov does, and she gives birth also to two boys named, Gad and Asher. Rachel feared that if she did not give Yaakov children he would divorce her and she would have to marry Asav (Esau) his evil brother. Finally, after so many years of witnessing other wives give birth and feeling so down about it, Hashem rewarded Rachel for her virtues and Rachel gave birth to a boy named Yosef. (In next week’s Parsha she will also have a son named Binyamin.)

These boys grow up to form the twelve sh’vatim (tribes).
 

During the 14 years of Yaakov’s employment with Lavan, Yaakov always stayed honest and never took advantage of Lavan. It was because of Yaakov’s learning and good middos(character traits) that made Yaakov merit to be the father of the B’nai Yisroel (Jewish people).

May we all learn from this Parsha that we too have great potential similar to Yaakov, all we need to do is put in our effort and Hashem will make the rest happen! –Amen!

HAVE A GREAT SHABBOS AND WEEKEND!

Stay tuned for next week’s Parsha called,
Parshas Vayishlach (VAH-YEE-SHH-LACH).