פרשת ויצא תשל"א - יעקב

ויצא יעקב AND JACOB WENT OUT— Owing to the fact that it was because the daughters of Canaan were evil in the eyes of Isaac, his father, that Esau went to Ishmael, Scripture broke off the narrative contained, in the section dealing with Jacob, and wrote (verse 6 till verse 9), “Now Esau saw that Isaac had blessed [Jacob] etc., that the daughters of Canaan were evil in the eyes of Isaac and so he went to Ishmael” and when it finished this (the account of Esau’s further marriage) it resumes the previous subject.

ויצא [AND JACOB] WENT OUT—It need have written simply “And Jacob went to Haran’’; why then does it mention his departure from Beersheba? But it intends to tell us that the departure of a righteous person from his city makes an impression. As long as a righteous man is in his city he is its glory and splendour and beauty; when he leaves it, there depart also its glory, its splendour and its beauty. This, too, is the meaning of (Ruth 1:7) “And she went forth out of the place”, stated in reference to Naomi and Ruth (Genesis Rabbah 68:6).

וישם מראשתיו AND PUT THEM FOR A RESTING PLACE FOR HIS HEAD — He arranged them in the form of a drain-pipe around his head for he was afraid of wild beasts (Genesis Rabbah 68:11). They (the stones) began quarrelling with one another. One said, “Upon me let this righteous man rest his head”, and another said “Upon me let him rest it”. Whereupon the Holy One, blessed be He, straightway made them into one stone! This explains what is written (Genesis 28:18), “And he took the stone that he had put under his head” (Chullin 91b).

And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it.

Angels … were ascending and descending. Yaakov was afraid that he had sinned in taking the blessings, but Hashem showed him that heaven approved and that the prayers and offerings of his offspring would ascend to heaven from this spot.

The matters concerning which a prophet is informed by vision of prophecy, are imparted to him allegorically, but the interpretation thereof is engraved upon his heart simultaneously with the vision and he knows what it means, as the vision of the ladder which Jacob our father saw: "The angels of God were ascending and descending upon it" (Gen. 28.12); which was a parable, the interpretation of which is the rise and fall of kingdoms, or as the Living Creatures which Ezekiel saw (Ezek. 1. 1–27), or the Seething Pot and the Almond Rod which Jeremiah saw (Jer. 1.12–13), or the Scroll of Parchment which Ezekiel saw (Ezek. 2.9), or the Measure which Zechariah saw (Zech. 2.5). And so with the rest of the prophets; some of them relate the parable and its interpretation as these; others relate the interpretation alone; and still others relate the parable only without the interpretation, as parts of the prophecies of Ezekiel and Zechariah, but all of them are prophesying in parables and metaphors.