This is the week the Jewish people are born.
Jacob leaves home and moves to Haran to escape the murderous intentions of his twin brother Esau, as well as to find a wife. In the end, because of the duplicity of his uncle and father-in-law, Laban, he marries more than one wife. Leah and Rachel and their handmaids bear 11 of the 12 tribes of Israel in this week’s reading, Vayetze. Only the youngest son, Benjamin, will be born later.
Laban is a crook and con man of note. Money was his god, and he was not very nice to his own daughters—never mind his son-in-law, who he cheated constantly. But somehow, through thick and thin, the girls managed. They were loving sisters who made great sacrifices for each other.
It was quite extraordinary then that despite their father’s wrongdoing and terrible parenting, they turned out as well as they did, going on to become the beloved matriarchs of Israel.
Sadly, today we see more and more dysfunctional parents raising dysfunctional kids. For children to turn out as Rachel and Leah did without the care and guidance of loving, nurturing parents would be considered almost impossible.
And today, we know that our children need not only love, but unconditional love.
I was told by one of Israel’s respected pedagogues a talk he heard from a Jerusalem teacher given at an educational conference some years ago.
The gentleman was teaching in a Haredi cheder (“school”) in Jerusalem. Tragically, one of the students in his class had lost his mother at a young age. It didn’t take very long for his father to remarry. The boy wasn’t handling all the traumatic changes in his home life and was acting up at school. He stopped listening or participating, just laying with his head on his desk throughout lessons. Whatever the teacher tried was of no avail. The boy was either unresponsive or downright disruptive.
Frustrated and at a loss, the teacher consulted the principal. While he sympathized with the boy’s plight and his difficulties at home, he recommended that the teacher use corporal punishment, if nothing else worked. “Give him a frask!” he said. (In those years, it was not yet illegal.)
Butt this teacher could not bring himself to strike the boy physically, no matter his lack of work and interest in his studies.
So he tried something different. One day, he wrote a short note and put it on the boy’s desk. It contained two words in Hebrew: Ma shlomchah? (“How are you?”).
It took some time, but eventually, the boy saw the note and worked out that it must have come from his teacher. So he wrote back, also in two Hebrew words: Ra li (“Not good, or “Things are bad for me”). Then, the teacher responded with another two words: Ani mayvin (“I understand”).
It didn’t happen overnight, but slowly but surely, from that written exchange something shifted. The boy picked up his head, began listening, and in time, became a healthy, normal participant in class.
Many years later, the teacher was walking in the park and noticed a young couple pushing a baby carriage. At first, he wasn’t sure, but then he recognized the young man as that very same boy who acted up in his class all those years ago.
“I’m so pleased to see that you’ve matured, married and are raising a family,” said the teacher. “How have you been managing all these years?”
“I had many difficult moments over the years,” the young man replied. “But every time I was struggling, I remembered our ‘correspondence’ all those years ago and just knowing that someone understood me helped me through.”
Whereupon the young man took his wallet out, opened it and removed three crumpled notes from his wallet.
“Ma shlomchah?” “Ra li.” “Ani mayvin.”
“How are you?” “Things are bad with me.” “I understand.”
The teacher and student embraced.
At the conference, the teacher ended his story with these words. “Now imagine that I had followed my principal’s suggestion and just given him a slap across the face!”
Today, so many families are experiencing challenges with children. I know it isn’t easy, but one thing is clear: Unconditional love is not only the right way forward, but probably the only way forward.
