Vayishlach: Small Vessels
Original Author - Rabbi Yonatan Neril, edited by the GrowTorah Summer Inchworms 2021
View Accompanying Source Sheet Here
Before Yaakov’s epic encounter with Eisav in which he reunites with his brother after decades of estrangement, Yaakov brings his family and possessions across a stream. He then returns at night to the other side of the stream, and the Torah narrates that “Yaakov remained alone.” The rabbis see the word “alone” (levado) as superfluous, and understand it as related to the similar sounding lecado, “for his vessel,” yielding, “Yaakov remained for his vessel.” That is, say the rabbis, he re-crossed the stream at night to recover a few small vessels that he forgot to bring across.[1] But why would Yaakov, facing an imminent confrontation with Eisav and his 400-man militia, leave his family alone and vulnerable at night to recover a few forgotten flasks?
This perplexing midrash can be understood as an expression of a deeper worldview: since everything in his possession comes from Hashem, each vessel has a specific purpose and must be used to its full potential. As one rabbinic commentary explains, each material item that a righteous person uses is a means toward spiritual repair in the world.[2] Yaakov went back for the vessels to ensure they were used in the optimal way. Had he not, their full potential would not have been realized.
The righteous recognize the value of their G-d-given possessions and are very careful with them, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant they are. While they are not overly attached to material things, the righteous do not dispose of objects prematurely or use them inappropriately. Indeed, the Talmudic sage Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, on his deathbed, made sure to instruct his students to remove the vessels from his room to prevent them from becoming contaminated by his corpse and, thereby, unusable.[3]
The Sefer HaChinuch[4] offers insight into the spiritual root of Yaakov’s action. He writes regarding the commandment not to wastefully destroy anything (bal tashchit):
The root reason for the precept is known: for it is in order to train our spirits to love what is good and beneficial and to cling to it; and as a result, good fortune will cling to us, and we will move well away from every evil thing and from every matter of destructiveness…They will not destroy even a mustard seed in the world, and they are distressed at every ruination and spoilage that they see; and if they are able to do any rescuing, they will save anything from destruction, with all their power.
The Sefer HaChinuch helps explain what motivated Yaakov’s exceptional effort to save a few vessels: an impulse to love and cling to what is good in the world, and to avoid waste to any degree.
In this vein, Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch explains that the commandment “do not destroy,” is “the most comprehensive warning to human beings not to misuse the position that Hashem has given them as masters of the world and its matter to capricious, passionate, or merely thoughtless wasteful destruction of anything on earth.”[5] He elaborates on this in his book Horeb by means of a hypothetical statement from Hashem:
Only if you use the things around you for wise human purposes, sanctified by the word of My [God’s] teaching, only then are you a mensch and have the right over them which I have given you as a human…However, if you destroy, if you ruin, at that moment you are not a human…and have no right to the things around you. I lent them to you for wise use only; never forget that I lent them to you. As soon as you use them unwisely, be it the greatest or the smallest, you commit treachery against my world, you commit murder and robbery against my property, you sin against Me![6]
For us, living in a world of abundance where it is so easy to throw things away, Yaakov’s example presents a particular challenge. Already in 1955, the retailing analyst Victor Lebow highlighted a trend in consumer society away from greater mindfulness regarding possessions and toward a more short-term view.
He wrote, “Our enormously productive economy…demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption…We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever-increasing rate.”[7]
The trend he describes has only become more pronounced in the time since Lebow wrote these words. Although zero-waste advocates are able to minimize packaging and anything disposable, our consumer system is not particularly friendly to this effort. We are expected to throw away usable items because they are a few years old or outdated by new products; we discard clothing and appliances and buy new ones instead of repairing them; and disposable packaging is frequently unavoidable. Globally we produce over 400 million tons of plastic waste a year, and that is only a fraction of the total waste we produce.[8]
Our relationship with the resources we consume has significant consequences for the planet. Most of the big things that happen in the world are really just the consequences of a lot of small things put together. Human actions are changing the climate balance on earth, with more intense storms and floods, shifting disease vectors, and sea level rise threatening hundreds of millions of people in low-lying areas.[9]
Yet how is it possible that human beings could cause such widespread imbalance? In many ways, it comes down to the small vessels – mining aluminum for one can, trucking one glass bottle to a faraway dump, as well as countless other small acts – multiplied by 250 years of industrial society and billions of people.
Today’s global environmental crises cannot be pinned on one group of people or nation and solving them will require the participation of billions of individuals. It is on this individual level that Yaakov’s actions can speak so profoundly.
Yaakov’s going back for two or three vessels teaches us that little things matter. In our consumer age, the message has only become more relevant. We all have the potential to be truly righteous. May we learn from Yaakov’s example and come to live in a more Divine-aware and sustainable way.
Suggested Action:
Try to cut down on your waste. There are so many opportunities to do so: from repairing electronics and other objects that you would otherwise throw out, to buying secondhand, to buying in bulk, and avoiding extraneous packaging.
Notes:
[1] Bereisheit 32:25. Babylonian Talmud, Chulin, 91a. Midrash Agada – Buber on 32:25. Rashi on 32:25. The Gur Aryeh (Maharal of Prague) on 32:24 says these were two or three very small vessels. Baalei Tosafot on 32:25 understood levado as hinting at lecado, ‘for his vessels’.
[2] Orchot Tzaddikim on Bereisheit 32:24. Medieval. Anonymous rabbinic Torah Commentator
[3] Babylonian Talmud, Berachot 28b
[4] Sefer HaChinuch: The Book of [Mitzvah] Education, evidently by Rabbi Pinhas haLevi of Barcelona, 16th century, translated by Charles Wengrov. Feldheim: Jerusalem, vol. 5 p. 145, on Mitzva 529—Bal Tashchit.
[5] Comment to Devarim 19:20, in The Pentateuch, Translated and Explained by Samson Raphael Hirsch, vol. 5 Deuteronomy, rendered into English by Isaac Levy. Judaica Press: Gateshead, England, 1982. p. 395
[6] Horeb: A Philosophy of Jewish Laws and Observances, by Samson Raphael Hirsch, translated by Dayan Dr. I. Grunfeld, Soncino Press: London, 1962, vol. 2, p. 279
[7] “The Journal of Retailing,” Spring 1955, p. 7
[8] See Our World in Data’s report on plastic waste.
[9]See reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
