Rachel's Death
Describing his journeys, Jacob says, "Rachel died unto me." (Gen.48:7) "To me" shows the depth of his grief.


The rabbis say that when a wife dies, God forbid, "ein ishah metah ella l'va'alah" - "she

Only a part of us can laugh and sing and be normal; deep down, we are still crying.

dies only for her husband." (Sanhedrin 22b) They know full well, and need no reminding, that her death affects the whole family, not only her husband, but it is he with whom her soul had been most deeply bound up (Genesis 2:24 calls them basar echad - "one person").


Jacob and Rachel are symbolic of the Jewish people; when one Jew suffers, every other Jew is in pain. This is why we Jews all still hurt from the Holocaust.


Outsiders may say impatiently, "Can't you move on? Why are you still so obsessed with these old events?" We have moved on; we have picked up the pieces and reestablished Jewish life. But the pain is still there. It is our pain, not theirs. Only a part of us can laugh and sing and be normal; deep down, we are still crying.


God Save Us
A verse from today's parashah has been borrowed and brought into the liturgy. It says "Liy'shu'at'cha kivviti HaShem" - "For Your salvation I wait, O Lord." (Genesis 49:18) It is part of the night prayers, and at some point, the three Hebrew words have been arranged so as to come in three different sequences.


Before asking what the verse adds to our prayers, let us look at how the sages explained it. Since it comes at the end of Jacob's blessing of his son Dan, Rashi says it alludes to Dan's descendant Samson. When Samson was captured and his eyes were put out, he needed God's protection and salvation.


What the verse is doing in the night prayers is to remind us that anything can happen whilst one is asleep, so we pray that God will watch over us and keep us safe. It suggests our hope that problems we take to bed at night will feel better in the morning. It also applies to the black times in history when we yearn for God to deliver us from evil.


Teachers on Strike
Weeks and weeks of education were lost in Israel recently because of a teachers' strike. Whether it is halachically permissible for teachers to strike is a moot point. For teachers of Torah, it is probably forbidden unless there is absolutely no other way of drawing attention to grievances. But we'll address a different issue - that of whether children can still manage to be educated if they are not in school.


There is an indication of an answer in this week's sedra and in the haftarah. Both describe the bedside scene in which a dying father bestows a last blessing on his children. The drama and poignancy are almost unbearable, but there is a question which not many readers of the story ask. Can a dying parent expect his or her children to maintain the family values unless they have instilled those values through the years that preceded this moment?


In olden days, parents who worked on training their children in Judaism had nothing to

Children can still manage to be educated if they are not in school.

regret in later years. How did they train the children? In two ways - informal and formal. The informal education was the way of life that was lived in the home. Jewishness was all around the child. No Jewish occasion failed to involve the child. No Jewish practice went unmarked.


When the child went to school for formal education, the teacher too provided an atmosphere of Jewish observance. The alphabet, written in honey on the child's slate, was licked off by the pupil to get a taste of the sweetness of Torah. The teacher would take the class for a walk beside a stream, to show how the Torah, like water, carries a person along towards the Divine blessing.


If in those days the school went on strike - a highly unlikely event - the child would naturally follow the impetus to personal study because of the inspiration of the educational atmosphere; and the parents would see to it that the home never lost its Jewish taste and savour.