Shabbat Parashas Vayishlach - 5782

Shabbat Parashas Vayishlach - 5782

Rabbi Hal Miller So Yaakov said to his household and to all who were with him, "Discard the alien gods that are in your midst, cleanse yourselves and change your clothes. [Bereishit 35:2] How could the household of Yaakov the righteous have idols in their midst? Did Yaakov just now discover this? If so, why was he blind to it before, and if not, why did he tolerate it? Rashi, Sforno, Rashbam and others tell us that these idols were part of the spoils that Yaakov's family acquired when they destroyed Shechem. But they do not tell us why Yaakov's family and people would stoop to doing such a thing, nor why Yaakov did nothing about it until now. Radak says similarly, but with a bit of a twist that may at least excuse Yaakov, saying that the gold and silver taken were inscribed with idols, so Yaakov might not have easily noticed. This is not the first instance of Yaakov's clan possessing idols. When Yaakov left his family home after the blessings incident, he had no material goods. He ended up at Lavan's home, which was full of idols. Two-plus decades later, when Yaakov departed, his wife Rachel had in her possession some of Lavan's idols, and Yaakov did not know. Why she had them is not clear, perhaps to goad Lavan into chasing after them to force a confrontation with Yaakov. Perhaps Yaakov did something wrong in that episode, and at the point in time of our verse, he was presented with a second chance to make things right with God. None of these really address our question of why Yaakov had to order this divestment. Rav Hirsch redefines both the verse and our question in a way that gives us an answer, and a lesson for today. The wording of the verse is chasro et elohei haneichar. Chasro is to remove. Elohei haneichar can be either as usually translated here, foreign gods, it can mean foreign judges, or it can mean foreign or strange alarm. In times of the Tanach, a judge was also a human ruler thus Yaakov could have meant that they should cast off the rulership of those around them, but other than Lavan and Eisav, nobody was trying to subjugate them. If, however, we look at the alarm/panic idea and combine it with this concept of rulership, Rav Hirsch is telling us that Yaakov wanted his followers to remove the influence of alien ideas that were among them, that they should be very concerned about maintaining attachment to ideas that are not Torahdic. Despite the popularity of these things in the non-Torah world, they remain wrong. This fits with the rest of the verse, that they should cleanse themselves from their past and be ready for the future.