Study Desk

there was as yet no wild bush on the earth, and no wild plant had as yet sprung up; for Adonai , God, had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no one to cultivate the ground.

He waited yet another seven days and sent out the dove, and she didn't return to him any more.

He spoke to him yet again: "What if forty are found there?" He said, "For the sake of the forty I won't do it."

Finish the marriage week of this one, and we'll give you the other one also in exchange for the work you will do for me during yet another seven years."

She conceived yet again, had a son and said, "This time I will praise Adonai "; therefore she named him Y'hudah [praise]. Then she stopped having children.

When Ya‘akov saw them, he said, "This is God's camp," and called that place Machanayim [two camps]. Haftarah Vayetze: Hoshea (Hosea) 12:13(12)–14:10(9) (A); 11:7–12:12(11) (S) B'rit Hadashah suggested reading for Parashah Vayetze: Yochanan (John) 1:43–51 Ya‘akov sent messengers ahead of him to ‘Esav his brother toward the land of Se‘ir, the country of Edom, with these instructions: "Here is what you are to say to my lord ‘Esav: ‘Your servant Ya‘akov says, "I have been living with Lavan and have stayed until now. I have cattle, donkeys and flocks, and male and female servants. I am sending to tell this news to my lord, in order to win your favor." '" The messengers returned to Ya‘akov saying, "We went to your brother ‘Esav, and he is coming to meet you; with him are four hundred men." Ya‘akov became greatly afraid and distressed. He divided the people, flocks, cattle and camels with him into two camps, saying, "If ‘Esav comes to the one camp and attacks it, at least the camp that is left will escape." Then Ya‘akov said, "God of my father Avraham and God of my father Yitz'chak, Adonai , who told me, ‘Return to your country and your kinsmen, and I will do you good': I'm not worthy of all the love and faithfulness you have shown your servant, since I crossed the Yarden with only my staff. But now I have become two camps. Please! Rescue me from my brother ‘Esav! I'm afraid of him, afraid he'll come and attack me, without regard for mothers or children. You said, ‘I will certainly do you good and make your descendants as numerous as the grains of sand by the sea, which are so many they can't be counted.'" (ii) He stayed there that night; then he chose from among his possessions the following as a present for ‘Esav his brother: two hundred female goats and twenty males, two hundred female sheep and twenty males, thirty milk-camels and their colts, forty cows and ten bulls, twenty female donkeys and ten colts. He turned them over to his servants, every drove by itself, and said to his servants, "Cross over in front of me, and keep a space between each drove and the next one." He instructed the servant in front, "When ‘Esav my brother meets you and asks you, ‘Whose servant are you? Where are you going? And whose animals are these?' then you are to say, ‘They belong to your servant Ya‘akov, and they are a present he has sent to my lord ‘Esav; and Ya‘akov himself is just behind us.'" He also instructed the second servant, and the third, and all that followed the droves, "When you encounter ‘Esav, you are to speak to him in the same way, and you are to add, ‘And there, just behind us, is your servant Ya‘akov.'" For he said, "I will appease him first with the present that goes ahead of me; then, after that, I will see him myself — and maybe he will be friendly toward me." So the present crossed over ahead of him, and he himself stayed that night in the camp. He got up that night, took his two wives, his two slave-girls, and his eleven children, and forded the Yabok. He took them and sent them across the stream, then sent his possessions across; and Ya‘akov was left alone. Then some man wrestled with him until daybreak. When he saw that he did not defeat Ya‘akov, he struck Ya‘akov's hip socket, so that his hip was dislocated while wrestling with him. The man said, "Let me go, because it's daybreak." But Ya‘akov replied, "I won't let you go unless you bless me." The man asked, "What is your name?" and he answered, "Ya‘akov." Then the man said, "From now on, you will no longer be called Ya‘akov, but Isra'el; because you have shown your strength to both God and men and have prevailed." Ya‘akov asked him, "Please tell me your name." But he answered, "Why are you asking about my name?" and blessed him there. (iii) Ya‘akov called the place P'ni-El [face of God], "Because I have seen God face to face, yet my life is spared." As the sun rose upon him he went on past P'ni-El, limping at the hip. This is why, to this day, the people of Isra'el do not eat the thigh muscle that passes along the hip socket — because the man struck Ya‘akov's hip at its socket.

(iii) Ya‘akov called the place P'ni-El [face of God], "Because I have seen God face to face, yet my life is spared."

Then she conceived yet again and had a son whom she called Shelah; he was in K'ziv when she gave birth to him.

The famine has been over the land for the last two years, and for yet another five years there will be neither plowing nor harvest.

I will provide for you there, so that you won't become poverty-stricken, you, your household and all that you have; because five years of famine are yet to come."'

The angel of Adonai appeared to him in a fire blazing from the middle of a bush. He looked and saw that although the bush was flaming with fire, yet the bush was not being burned up.

Look!" Pharaoh added, "the population of the land has grown, yet you are trying to have them stop working!"

No straw is given to your servants, yet they keep telling us to make bricks. And now your servants are being flogged, but the fault lies with your own people."

Pharaoh's servants said to him, "How much longer must this fellow be a snare for us? Let the people go and worship Adonai their God. Don't you understand yet that Egypt is being destroyed?"

showing grace to the thousandth generation, forgiving offenses, crimes and sins; yet not exonerating the guilty, but causing the negative effects of the parents' offenses to be experienced by their children and grandchildren, and even by the third and fourth generations."

But if the scab spreads further on the skin after he has been examined by the cohen and declared clean, he is to let himself be examined yet again by the cohen.

"‘Keep my Shabbats, and revere my sanctuary; I am Adonai . Haftarah B'har: Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) 32:6–27 B'rit Hadashah suggested readings for Parashah B'har: Luke 4:16–21; 1 Corinthians 7:21–24; Galatians 6:7–10 [In regular years read with Parashah 32, in leap years read separately] "‘If you live by my regulations, observe my mitzvot and obey them; then I will provide the rain you need in its season, the land will yield its produce, and the trees in the field will yield their fruit. Your threshing time will extend until the grape harvest, and your grape harvesting will extend until the time for sowing seed. You will eat as much food as you want and live securely in your land. (LY: ii) "‘I will give shalom in the land — you will lie down to sleep unafraid of anyone. I will rid the land of wild animals. The sword will not go through your land. You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall before your sword. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand — your enemies will fall before your sword. "‘I will turn toward you, make you productive, increase your numbers and uphold my covenant with you. (RY: v, LY: iii) You will eat all you want from last year's harvest and throw out what remains of the old to make room for the new. I will put my tabernacle among you, and I will not reject you, but I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. I am Adonai your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, so that you would not be their slaves. I have broken the bars of your yoke, so that you can walk upright. "‘But if you will not listen to me and obey all these mitzvot, if you loathe my regulations and reject my rulings, in order not to obey all my mitzvot but cancel my covenant; then I, for my part, will do this to you: I will bring terror upon you — wasting disease and chronic fever to dim your sight and sap your strength. You will sow your seed for nothing, because your enemies will eat the crops. I will set my face against you — your enemies will defeat you, those who hate you will hound you, and you will flee when no one is pursuing you. If these things don't make you listen to me, then I will discipline you seven times over for your sins. I will break the pride you have in your own power. I will make your sky like iron, your soil like bronze — you will spend your strength in vain, because the land will not yield its produce or the trees in the field their fruit. "‘Yes, if you go against me and don't listen to me, I will increase your calamities sevenfold, according to your sins. I will send wild animals among you; they will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock and reduce your numbers, until your roads are deserted. "‘If, in spite of all this, you refuse my correction and still go against me; then I too will go against you; and I, yes I, will strike you seven times over for your sins. I will bring a sword against you which will execute the vengeance of the covenant. You will be huddled inside your cities, I will send sickness among you, and you will be handed over to the power of the enemy. I will cut off your supply of bread, so that ten women will bake your bread in one oven and dole out your bread by weight, and you will eat but not be satisfied. "‘And if, for all this, you still will not listen to me, but go against me; then I will go against you furiously, and I also will chastise you yet seven times more for your sins. You will eat the flesh of your own sons, you will eat the flesh of your own daughters. I will destroy your high places, cut down your pillars for sun-worship, and throw your carcasses on the carcasses of your idols; and I will detest you. I will lay waste to your cities and make your sanctuaries desolate, so as not to smell your fragrant aromas. I will desolate the land, so that your enemies living in it will be astounded by it. You I will disperse among the nations, and I will draw out the sword in pursuit after you; your land will be a desolation and your cities a wasteland. Then, at last, the land will be paid its Shabbats. As long as it lies desolate and you are in the lands of your enemies, the land will rest and be repaid its Shabbats. Yes, as long as it lies desolate it will have rest, the rest it did not have during your Shabbats, when you lived there. As for those of you who are left, I will fill their hearts with anxiety in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf will frighten them, so that they will flee as one flees from the sword and fall when no one is pursuing. Yes, with no one pursuing they will stumble over each other as if fleeing the sword — you will have no power to stand before your enemies. And among the nations you will perish; the land of your enemies will devour you. Those of you who remain will pine away in the lands of your enemies from guilt over your misdeeds and those of your ancestors. Then they will confess their misdeeds and those of their ancestors which they committed against me in their rebellion; they will admit that they went against me. At that time I will be going against them, bringing them into the lands of their enemies. But if their uncircumcised hearts will grow humble, and they are paid the punishment for their misdeeds; then I will remember my covenant with Ya‘akov, also my covenant with Yitz'chak and my covenant with Avraham; and I will remember the land. For the land will lie abandoned without them, and it will be paid its Shabbats while it lies desolate without them; and they will be paid the punishment for their misdeeds, because they rejected my rulings and loathed my regulations. Yet, in spite of all that, I will not reject them when they are in the lands of their enemies, nor will I loathe them to the point of utterly destroying them and thus break my covenant with them, because I am Adonai their God. Rather, for their sakes, I will remember the covenant of their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt — with the nations watching — so that I might be their God; I am Adonai .'" These are the laws, rulings and teachings that Adonai himself gave to the people of Isra'el on Mount Sinai through Moshe.

then I will go against you furiously, and I also will chastise you yet seven times more for your sins.

Yet, in spite of all that, I will not reject them when they are in the lands of their enemies, nor will I loathe them to the point of utterly destroying them and thus break my covenant with them, because I am Adonai their God.

But Moshe said, "Here I am with six hundred thousand men on foot, and yet you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!'