To Leave
THE BIG IDEA
According to the Torah Omens this is an excellent time to investigate the spiritual consequences
of our actions. The story "to leave" teaches us by example that when we run from something, we are on the run. When we deceive someone, we are involved with deception. And when we desire blindly, we are at risk of being duped. This week's lesson; the reality of karmic return.
The holographic world of Jacob, the youngest and final of the 3 primary fathers in the Torah's narrative, offers unique access to what can happen when you steal a blessing before you have mastered the vessel to carry it - even if you are right to take action and have the holiest of intentions.
Jacob's early adult life is clouded by deception, jealousy, and resentment; a wedding gift from his uncle Laban who treated Jacob like a slave and a fool, and his own daughters, Leah and Rachel like pawns in a self serving game, creating the toxic family soup into which the sons and daughter of Jacob were born.
And so, if you consider yourself to be a descendent of the House Of Jacob, and occasionally find yourself plagued by resentments, anger, or emotional pain, go easy, it might just be your ancestors working it out through you.
I advise awareness, good boundaries, and lots and lots and lots of prayer to clear it from the House.
SOMATIC EXERCISES
Jacob’s blessing
Have you ever incurred a karmic debt so large that you will spend the rest of your life paying it off?
Welcome to Jacob’s world.
A world where you risked your entire life for a blessing— and it worked - you got the blessing.
Yet because of it, and the way you got it, you are on the run. But fear not, God comes right away, in a dream. And you negotiate yourself a deal for your safe return.
And it seems to work.
You show up at the proverbial well and there she is, just like your mother was for your father, first try.
If you were Jacob, in that moment that you met Rachel you must have been living inside the proof of God’s existence in the world.
Perhaps after that he thought he could never fail. Perhaps he saw the 7 years he offered to work for Rachel’s hand in marriage as a cunning way to hide out while his brother Esau cools down. Whatever it was, he suggested it and Laban, Rachel's father says yes.
And so bring yourself to that moment.
The 7 years are up and you are about to marry the woman that represents
God’s revealed blessing in this life. And then take yourself to the the moment you understand that you have been cheated, and you are not to the woman who represents your true love, but to her older sister Leah.
What happens to your faith in that moment when it all comes together?
When you realize you have been f’d and still don’t have the woman that represents your love.
Jacob seems to teach us how to work with our lowest parts, the people that take advantage and cheat and steal and accumulate karmic debt.
If nothing else, Jacob teaches us that marrying sisters (or taking more than one wife) is a recipe for a life of strife.
RACHEL'S ANGER Exercise
There you are, the fulfillment of a man's dream. the beloved.
The man that seemingly has nothing to offer, and enslaves himself to your father for 7 years in order to earn your hand in marriage. And, at the end of those 7 years, on what was supposed to be your wedding night, your father gives your sister to your betrothed and milks another 7 years of slavery out of him for you.
Sister wives because your father is an idiot, and you are now to spend your life with a man that no one asked if you wanted to marry in the first place and your sister.
And it doesn't actually go well.
He is married to you both but only wants to be married to you. And your sister is hated.
So God literally helps out your sister and gives her 4 children, while you remain infertile and your husband (who has a direct line to God) doesn’t seem to want to help.
You, Rachel, doomed to live in soup of bitterness that brings the ugliest parts of you out to be seen. You are jealous of your sister. You are angry at your husband (for not praying for you to have a baby). You try giving your husband your hand-maiden as a surrogate, and then so does your sister.
And then, when God remembers you and you finally have a baby, it is time to pick up and go.
Again, you have no choice, and in truth, neither does your sister.
Your father has sold you both to the same man, who has now decided it is time to run, again.
And so you do this one last thing, likely to get back at your father, or perhaps because your life is so out of control.
You steal his gods.
Perhaps he would miss them more than he missed you.
Perhaps you wanted to take his power with you, or make him feel as desperate as you have felt your whole married life.
whatever it is, you took them, and your husband who clearly never sensed your anger and resentment --
(perhaps because he had blocked it from feeling it in himself) unknowingly curses you to die.
And that is the legacy of resentment. Not that I can see, even for a moment, how Rachel might have made peace with her situation.
And so if you have any anger at your father for not better protecting you, or the Patriarchy for selling women like slaves, or men in general for their lack of awareness or sensitivity, you might have some Rachel fire moving through you.
Be sure to take some time this weekend to be gentle, see it’s origin, hold it, and her, with compassion.
Feel your way through Rachel’s rage, and soothe her as you take time to soothe your precious self.
Shabbat shalom and good luck!