TBA Tribune December 2025

Vayeshev
Genesis 37:1–40:23 

By Jen Smith 

Parashat Vayeshev opens with a simple line that is anything but simple: Vayeshev Yaakov b’eretz megurei aviv – And Jacob settled in the land where his fathers dwelled (Genesis 37:1).

After decades of turmoil including Esau’s rage, Laban’s deceit, and a lifetime of wandering, Jacob understandably longs to settle, breathe, and root himself in calm. Yet, as the midrash famously teaches: Jacob sought to live in tranquility, but the troubles of Joseph sprang upon him.i 

Just when Jacob reaches a place where he can try to settle into peace, the Torah interrupts his rest immediately. This tension between the desire to feel settled and the reality of disruption sits at the heart of both Vayeshev. 

Joseph’s story begins with fragmentation: a torn coat, a shattered family, brothers divided, and a dark pit that feels like an ending. In mystical literature, the world, too, begins in a fragmented state. The Rabbi Isaac Luriaii teaches that creation unfolded through shevirat ha-kelim, or, the shattering of vessels, scattering divine sparks across the universe. And our work in this life is tikkun, or, to gather these sparks back together. 

Joseph’s journey mirrors this cosmic pattern. His brothers tear his beautiful coat, but they cannot tear his destiny. He is thrown into a pit only to become a source of ascent, and he is sold into slavery only to rise to leadership under Pharoah. Both circumstances remind us that every descent hides a divine spark and every fall further plants a seed for the future. Hanukkah echoes this same cosmic rhythm.  

Much like the beginning of the universe, Hanukkah also begins with fracture. The holy temple is reduced to rubble after desecration, and yet, from this destruction comes a miracle: A single jar of oil, already small, vulnerable, and seemingly insufficient, burns far beyond expectation. 

The Sfat Emetiii teaches that the light of Hanukkah is the same light that emerges after the breaking. It is not the polished light of a perfect vessel, but rather the raw, stubborn light that refuses to be extinguished. So too with Joseph. And so too with us. 

Vayeshev is filled with dreams, both of Joseph and of the chief baker and cupbearer. In Jewish mysticism, dreams reveal the soul’s deeper vision, regarded as the eye that opens when the world is dark. Hanukkah arrives during the darkest time of the year and reminds us to be more like Joseph by using our inner light to illuminate our vision with the world around us is obscured by darkness. 

The Hasidic masters call the Hanukkah flames Or ha-Ganuz, the Hidden Light of Creation, understood to represent an ethereal, primordial light that God concealed for the righteous to discover. Our ancient mystics believed that this magical light flickers at the very edges of perception. And Joseph proves exactly that: from darkness comes a dream; from a pit comes possibility; and from a torn technicolor Dreamcoat comes the promise of an even brighter future yet woven. 

The story of Joseph truly faces the hardest truths about family: jealousy, favoritism, betrayal, resentment, hurt, and silence. Yet, once again, the arc of Genesis bends toward reconciliation. This is a key theme of the parsha: Human beings act with limited vision, and God weaves redemption from the torn fragments. 

Whether rededicating our intentions or reigniting a flicker of hope, it is a perfect time to enter Hanukkah. Hanukkah is the ultimate story of rededication, the power of visions, and ultimately, of Chanukat ha-Bayit – the rebuilding of sacred space. With the days growing colder and darker in the far reaches of the Diaspora, maybe it is time to consider that the “Temples” in need of rededication are the ones closer to home: our relationships, our conversations, and our perceptions of one another. 

The Maccabees didn’t build a new Temple, they reclaimed and rededicated the one they already had. Likewise, Joseph eventually rebuilds his family not by erasing the past but by transforming it. And this is a profoundly Jewish lesson: We are never asked to pretend that the darkness does not exist. Instead, we are commanded to shine anyway.  

As we read Vayeshev while we prepare for the glow of Hanukkah, we are invited to hold three truths: 

Breaking is part of the journey. Like Joseph and like the Temple, our stories contain moments of rupture. Rather than becoming signs of fracture, they instead become invitations to transformation. 

Hidden light lives in broken places. The Hanukkah miracle is about persistence, not abundance. A small flame held with intention can illuminate an entire season. 

Redemption often begins in the proverbial pit. Joseph’s rise began in a dark pit, and the Maccabees’ triumph began in a desecrated sanctuary. Our turning points often appear when we feel least prepared. 

Vayeshev and Hanukkah together teach that holiness is found not only in the safety of settlement, but in our demonstrations of resilience. Yet another one of our Torah’s recurring whispers reminding us that holiness is often found in the vessel that continues to carry the light despite its cracks, rather than the unbroken, untested vessel.  

Darkness is real, but so is the light. When we share our light, we increase the light. One candle (to 8!) at a time, until we illuminate the darkest corner of God’s most beautiful universe!  

Shabbat Shalom! 

i Bereishit Rabbah 84:3 

Vayishlach
Genesis 32:4 – 36:43 

By Jen Smith  

Parshat Vayishlach opens with Jacob preparing for one of the most emotionally charged encounters in the Torah: meeting his estranged brother Esau after twenty years. This is not a simple reunion – it is a confrontation with fear, guilt, memory, family history, and the shadows of old wounds. Jacob is terrified. Esau is unpredictable. And the Torah, in its brilliance, holds open the ambiguity: What happens when the people we share blood with are not the people we feel safest with? 

Before Jacob can face Esau, he must face himself. 

On the banks of the Yabbok, Jacob wrestles an unknown being: an angel, a man, his brother’s guardian, or perhaps the shadow-self he has been running from his whole life. Jewish mysticism teaches that this struggle represents mochin d’gadlut, expanding consciousness, when a person moves through constriction (fear, ego, old hurts) and emerges with a new name, a new sense of self, and a new capacity to act differently. 

Jacob receives the name Israel, meaning “the one who wrestles with God,” but he is also left with a physical reminder of his encounter with the divine. Jacob’s limp becomes a physical reminder that profound transformation rarely leaves us untouched, and yet, Jacob limps toward reconciliation anyway, something we all know to be true: with growth often comes a painful cost. 

This time of year, whether around Thanksgiving tables, Hanukkah celebrations, or just winter holidays – many of us prepare, Jacob-like, to meet family members who bring out our best, our worst, or simply our weariness. We strategize seating charts. We rehearse conversations. We pray no one brings up politics, Israel, that thing someone said last year, or any other emotional landmine. 

Our world is polarized, grieving, anxious, and loud. Conversations about Israel, antisemitism, identity, politics, and Jewish life carry immense emotional weight right now. Even those we love may not see the world as we do. Some family members feel like Esau: unpredictable, intense, carrying their own hurts and judgments. And what about us? We are often more like Jacob than we admit: scared, defensive, and bracing for impact. 

Vayishlach whispers an uncomfortable but liberating truth: We meet others as we are, not as they are. And so, the work begins long before we even arrive at the table. 

Jacob sends gifts ahead of his arrival as an offering of tikkun (repair) as a gesture to soften what has hardened. We, too, can send our own gifts: patience, a pause before reacting, curiosity instead of accusation, boundaries that are firm but not cruel, and compassion that does not demand agreement. 

After the reunion, with Esau running and Jacob weeping, Jacob tells his brother: To see your face is like seeing the face of God. (Genesis 33:10) 

What a radical and mystical statement! The Baal Shem Tov taught that the Divine often appears in moments of courage and vulnerability, especially when we choose connection over fear. Even if the relationship is imperfect. Even if reconciliation is temporary. And even if the embrace is followed by separation. 

Judaism does not demand we like everyone, not even family. But it does challenge us to recognize the spark of the Divine in the person sitting across from us, and to know that it does not diminish ours. Seeing God in another doesn’t require agreement. It requires presence. 

In a year where Israel is on our minds and hearts, where antisemitism rises, where Jewish identity feels both precious and embattled, family disagreements can feel amplified. But Vayishlach reminds us that sacred encounters often emerge in tense spaces. 

And the reunion is real – not because it resolves everything, but because it honors the possibility of healing even when history is complicated. That is a profoundly Jewish value. 

This Torah portion invites us to conduct our inner wrestling before engaging in outer conversation, hold our boundaries with compassion, show up as our transformed selves rather than our triggered selves, and believe in small moments of reconciliation (even if they are temporary) as holy. 

During holiday gatherings, we can emulate Jacob by approaching family with both honesty and softness as well as courage and humility. Far from a lofty pursuit of perfection, this goal is about presence. We, like Jacob, may not walk away unchanged, but the resulting limp can be a blessing reminding us that all relationships worth having require effort, courage, and periodic discomfort. 

And sometimes, if we are lucky, there may even be an embrace. 

Shabbat Shalom. 

Vayetzei 
Genesis 28:10 – 32:3 

By Jen Smith 

Parashat Vayetzei opens with one of the most iconic and mysterious scenes in the Torah. Frightened and alone, Jacob lies down in the wilderness with nothing but a stone for a pillow. As night falls, he dreams of a sulam, a ladder connecting earth and heaven, with angels moving up and down between realms. When Jacob awakens, he utters one of the Torah’s most stirring lines: 

Achen yesh Adonai bamakom hazeh – Surely God was in this place, and I did not know. (Genesis 28:16) 

This moment becomes the heartbeat of the entire portion, and invites us to consider:  

What if holiness is closer than we realize and we simply haven’t opened our eyes? 

The Zohar, the foundational work of Jewish mysticism, interprets Jacob’s ladder not as a structure in the sky, but as a symbol for the human soul. We are rooted in the earthly material world, yet we are restlessly reaching upward toward the heavens. We are bodies of clay with sparks of heaven inside us. The angels ascending and descending the magical ladder reminds us of that spiritual energy flowing in both directions. When we act with compassion, justice, or courage, the ripples reach far beyond us. The implications are clear – even our smallest choices echo upward. 

Jacob wakes from his dream, sets his stone upright, and pours oil upon it. With this act, he essentially transforms a place of fear into a sanctuary for the divine. It’s a small, unadorned act – but it’s everything. Jacob teaches that sanctity isn’t only found in synagogues, retreats, or holy sites. Sanctity is created when we transform our moments of vulnerability into commitments of meaning. 

Lately, I’ve found myself feeling a bit like Jacob before his dream; unsettled, anxious, and exiled from the world I wish existed. Our contemporary landscape is filled with fear, existential loneliness, and deep social fractures. For Jews everywhere, questions of identity, safety, belonging, and unity feel more pressing than ever. And Vayetzei speaks right into this moment. 

When the world feels unstable, that is precisely when we are called upon to build sanctuaries. And not only the physical type of sanctuaries, but also the emotional and spiritual sanctuaries: Spaces of kindness in a time of cruelty; spaces of listening in a culture of shouting, of Jewish connection when the world feels unmoored, and spaces for hope, especially when cynicism feels easier than faith. Ultimately, Jacob’s story and revelation serve as a reminder that holiness is not something we should wait to feel – it is something we are commanded to build. 

Later in Genesis, Jacob will look at his estranged brother Esau and say: 

To see your face is like seeing the face of God. (Genesis 33:10) 

It’s a breathtaking line not because they get along, but precisely because they do not. Their relationship is marked by betrayal, pain, fear, and misunderstanding, and yet, Jacob says to his brother: Your face reflects the Divine. 

God is seen not in isolation, but in encounter. God never intended to be found in abstraction, but rather in another human face. And this is where Vayetzei becomes especially relevant to our contemporary world. In an era of polarization, this verse becomes a mystical, spiritual challenge. 

We are living in a time when society sorts people into “us” and “them” with increasing and frightening ease. Politics has become a battleground, not a conversation, reducing people to positions, soundbites, and caricatures. And the consequences are far reaching, especially when the “other side” becomes not just wrong or misguided, but dangerous and almost inhuman. 

But Jewish tradition pushes back. 

If every human is created b’tzelem Elohim – in the image of God – then the Divine spark exists even in those who challenge, unsettle, or infuriate us. The hard part is remembering that this extends beyond the biblical or theoretical to include the relative whose political posts make us cringe, the community member who votes differently, the neighbor whose values seem foreign, and even the public figure with whom we cannot imagine ever agreeing. Seeing the face of God in these individuals is obviously much harder than seeing it in our friends, our community, or those who share our views, but as Jacob’s words reinforce, our tradition demands just that. 

The mystical teaching is that we climb the proverbial ladder to heaven one human encounter at a time – not by winning arguments, but by refusing to deny someone’s humanity. This doesn’t mean we ignore injustice or abandon our values. But it does mean we must refuse to let division eclipse divinity. The face of God is not a metaphor. It is a mandate. 

Vayetzei marks the beginning of Jacob’s transformation into Yisrael, the name that becomes the identity of our people. But Jacob doesn’t become Israel overnight. It takes struggle, heartbreak, love, conflict, forgiveness, and persistence. 

Jewish mysticism teaches that each of us is climbing Jacob’s ladder through the messy work of being human. In a sense, we learn from Jacob that we do not ascend the ladder by embodying perfection. We ascend by being awake. 

And each rung is nothing more – and nothing less – than an act of awareness: Seeking and recognizing holiness, acting with intention, finding dignity in another, building sanctuaries of meaning in uncertainty, and choosing compassion when it is hardest. It is through these acts that Jacob’s awakening to the possibility of God’s presence becomes our own. 

With our dinner tables bursting with family and friends this Thanksgiving, Vayetzei offers us a spiritual challenge to find God not just in the abstract or heavenly realm, but in the faces before us. Not just in sacred spaces, but in the wilderness of our lives. Not just in moments of clarity, but in uncertainty, tension, and complexity. 

This Shabbat, may we have the courage to wake up. May we be blessed with the wisdom to see God in the most unexpected places, embracing the courage required to find God’s divine light in one another.  Shabbat Shalom.