Dear SHA Community,
We are looking forward to Sunday’s Maccabeats concerts and our SHA First Grade performance prior to the 1pm concert. Thank you to Benjamina Menashe and Morah Nomi Winderbaum for their work on arranging the concerts and the special performance.
Story from this week’s perasha - VaYetze
Our patriarch, Ya’akov, leaves Israel to find refuge from his brother, Esav, in Charan. He arrives at HaMakom – The Place – to sleep for the night – the place of his famous ladder dream. Morning comes. Yaakov takes the stone that he slept on, makes a monument to G-d with it and anoints it with oil. He renamed the place Beit E-l – House of Hashem.
The Torah records that Ya’akov made a neder – a vow. Ya’akov declares, “If the Lord will be with me and will guard me on this path that I am going and will give me bread to eat and clothes to wear and will return me in peace to the house of my father … then I will give one-tenth of all that I have to Hashem.”
About Vows
The Talmud teaches noder nikra cho’te – one who makes a vow is treated like a sinner.
Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch explains about vows that at worst a vow elevates trivial matters to the realm of the Divine and at best robs all discretion from the one making the vow.
The Midrash teaches that Yaakov's vow was unique because he vowed to do a mitzvah in a moment of existential crisis. Therefore, Yaakov’s vow was appropriate.
Questions
What does Rabbi Hirsch’s explanation teach us about the Jewish view on decision-making?
In our lives, when might it be appropriate to make a vow and when would it be less than ideal?
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Owen