Vayishlach: Dangers of Inaction

"You think you've got problems? Try being president over 3 million presidents" replies the Israeli.

In this week's Parsha, Jacob's name is changed to Israel, representing the whole of the Jewish nation.

The Mateh Yehudah explains that when it comes to the Jewish peopl

This week's Torah portion talks about the brothers, Jacob and Esau. Esau, the epitome of bad, is characterised by a great burning energy and fire. On the surface, this is a bad thing. Fiery ambition, misdirected, is surely worse than being passive?

Chassidic thought approaches this topic somewhat differently, however. There are two kinds of commandment in the Torah - positive commandments, such as saying the Shema prayer, or giving charity - and negative commandments, such as not to eat certain animals, not to steal, etc.

If a person misses a positive commandment, nothing can make up for the missed opportunity. Each positive commandment draws down spiritual energy, elevating the person and their environment. That moment cannot be regained.

On the other hand, by transgressing a negative commandment and later experiencing sincere regret, the energy which was channeled into the negative, is 'converted' to a positive cause and becomes a merit, a credit to that person.

This is not to encourage anyone to go out and be more 'pro-active' in transgressing the commandments of the Torah! Nonetheless we see that when the energy is there, like with Esau, but is not being channeled in the correct direction, there is a hope that at a point in the future that energy will be transformed to the positive.

A person is about to walk into a store. He sees a sign 'Beware of the Dog'
He has to buy something urgently, so he walks in, somewhat timidly.
As he approaches the counter he looks down to see a mangy old dog, barely breathing, lying in front of the counter.

As he pays for his purchase, he asks the shopkeeper "I can't resist asking - how come you have a sign saying 'Beware of the Dog'? This dog looks like it could barely even move let alone attack anyone"

"That's why the sign is there - before, everyone used to trip over him!"

This slightly silly story nonetheless brings out our point - laziness and inaction may not seem as obvious as vicious aggression but they can be hazardous nonetheless.

Shabbat Shalom