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VAYEYTZEY 5782
One of the great things about today’s media is the availability to watch classic movies any time we want. There’s a great scene in the classic movie “Forrest Gump” that sheds light on a verse in today’s Torah portion. If you haven’t seen the movie, let me suggest that you do. In one of the saddest points in the movie, Forrest and Ginny, the love of his life, return home. They walked down a dirt road until they came to her childhood abode—a run-down, uninhabited shack. As she drew nearer, we could see the anger and pain on Ginny’s face. As she approached, she reached down, picked up some stones and threw them at the shack. Some of rocks brake off some pieces of paint from the wood—others crash through windows. When she can’t find any more rocks, she falls to the ground, exhausted and tearful. Forrest then lovingly says, “I guess sometimes you just don’t have enough rocks.”
Forrest, who was never really “big” on words, has a way of distilling great truths in just a few words. What did he mean when he said, “I guess sometimes you just don't have enough rocks?” My guess is that he was telling Ginny 2 things: 1. that she was not going to bring that house down—no matter how many rocks she threw; 2. But more importantly, he was telling her that even if she were to throw every rock at her childhood home, she would never be able to end the torment and the agony which was hers after suffering such horrible emotional and physical abuse as a child. There aren’t enough rocks to lessen her misery and her anguish.
My friends, many are the times that we throw rocks in our lives, and we would do well to think about the simple words of Forrest Gump. We sometimes so want to throw stones at people and at situations—both in the past and the present—but it doesn’t do much to alleviate the pain. Those rocks may be a nasty look, hurtful words, gossip or petty bickering. And whether we like it or not, the more rocks we throw, the more likely we are to hurt ourselves.
Much of my time counseling people involves trying to pick up the emotional and spiritual rubble after years of throwing stones. All too often, people who love each other seem to know just where to throw those stones. But the ones they’re throwing at are just as good marksmen as they are. And you can bet that the stones will be hurled both ways.
Parents, for example, are experts in knowing just the right words that will hurt or embarrass their children into doing what they want them to do. But while they may get the immediate desired result, the damage done is, most often, not worth it!
None of this is new. Look at our Torah reading about the family of Isaac and Rebecca. It’s a family not lacking for rocks, and strife and pain. Isaac and Rebecca had twins—Esav and Jacob—who couldn’t be more different. Isaac favored Esav and Rebecca favored Jacob. Jacob pressured his brother into selling him his birthright and then stole his brother’s blessing—at the insistence of his mother. It’s a real mess of a family. This kind of favoritism helps stockpile an entire arsenal of rocks.
But there’s something very curious that happened in this morning’s parsha. When Jacob was running away from his brother Esav who sought to kill him, he camped-out for the night. There was no “Best Western” or “Hampton Inn,” so Jacob had to make his own bed. He took a bunch of rocks and made a rather harsh pillow for his head. Where did those rocks come from?
According to the Midrash (Pirke deRabi Eliezer), these very same rocks were used by Abraham to make an altar for the Akeda—the sacrifice of Isaac. The Torah (Gen. 28:18) tells us that when Jacob woke, there was only one rock! The sages say it was a miracle—all of the rocks fused into one! Jacob then made that rock into a new and improved altar, and poured oil upon it; and because of this transition, Gd made it the keystone of the earth and the foundation of the Holy Temple. Whereas this place was previously known as Luz, from this time on, it was to be called Beyt El (the House of Gd).
Think about what Jacob did. He took the very rocks that caused such turmoil in his family—the rocks upon which his father was almost killed by his grandfather. He took that pain and that angst and that anger and transformed them into a symbol of unity and cohesion and spirituality. Jacob did a remarkable think: he recreated the rocks—symbolic of strife—and transformed them into an altar—a symbol of love.
My friends, we have such choices in our lives. We can choose to use the rocks in our lives, our words and our actions, as weapons, or we can use them as building blocks. We can do damage with those rocks, or we can create wonderful things. We can use our tongues as daggers and our words as stones, and we will build nothing of value. In so doing, like Forrest Gump, we’ll come to recognize that there never are enough rocks! Or we can use our words to heal and build caring relationships. We can turn a home into a living hell; or we can erect a Beyt Eyl, a House of Gd, where everyone in that home is uplifted in the process.
The 1st step must be to take the stones in our lives which we’ve used as weapons and transform them into altars. That can only be done when, like Jacob, we realize that we are not the center of the universe. We were placed upon this earth to serve Gd and to bring blessing and healing to each other, to leave this world a little better than when we came here.
We need to destroy less and love more; we need to throw fewer rocks, and offer, instead, words of kindness. We need to stop demolishing our homes and relationships. Instead we need to build trust and compassion, so that our homes, our workplaces, and our shul can earn the title, Beyt Eyl, “a House of Gd”!
When Jacob woke up fm his dream, he was a different person. He recognized that he had changed—and as his perception of himself had changed, so too did his perception of the world around him. His 1st words on that fateful morning were, “Indeed Gd is in this place, and I didn’t know. How awesome is this place? It can only be the House of Gd, and this is the Shaar Hashamayim, the gateway to Heaven.”
My friends, I tell you now from the pulpit of Shaarei Shamayim, our gateway to Heaven, that we must transform the rocks in our lives with the realization that Gd’s Presence is always with us and knowing this, we should always behave accordingly. Let’s wake up tomorrow and recognize like Father Jacob that we can transform our surroundings—no mater where we are—into a House of Gd. Anywhere we find ourselves can be OUR gateway to Heaven. Amen!
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