The 'Kasbah' of Life
(The following is translated from Hebrew. A Kasbah is the center of an Arab village where the alleyways are small and houses and shops crowd the limited space).
When the evening comes, the house is turned upside down and the children don't even show signs of fatigue, I let out a faint smile and say to Neta: "We are simply in the Kasbah of life”.
Kasbah. The dense part in the center of the traditional village. In the outer circle of the village there are spacious houses and fields, The interior is more scattered houses, and in the center of the village: the kasbah. Narrow alleys, messy construction, a busy market, shouts and laundry lines laden over the streets.
And now I feel like I'm in the kasbah of life, in this busy center where things are messy and crowded. I have to deal with both making a living and dealing with the children, each one with their own needs and requirements. Each with their own requirements, each with their own special bureaucracy. Neta and I feel that each and every day we are going out to battle with a very short time to fight - at least though, we fight together and most of the time we end up winning. There’s always something else that follows behind the current battle; more laundry to do, another form to fill out, another meal to prepare and more calls to make, more work to scratch out a living , take care of that insurance and pay this fine and then deal with the extended family. Get Amarni to do his homework and study a little….Wow, take a deep breath deep into the lungs. We are in the Kasbah of life."
(Nathaniel Elinson, Israeli Encounter)
In the center of this week's parsha there are about 50 verses, which remind me of Elinson's description. The Torah describes at length how Jacob finds himself going from an extraordinary journey of running away and looking for a wife, to an intense and banal descent into a completely normal life with the resulting burden. In the description there is a noticeable sense of burden - birth of children, quarrels within the family, fertility difficulties, more children, haggling over work and salary, dealing with fraud and more. Jacob "runs on a wheel" from the necessity of reality to the point that one evening he returns home and Leah tells him that there is a new "sleeping arrangement" tonight and he is dragged along with reality...
Beyond the deep meaning that exists in each verse and in each part of the story, the parable teaches us an important lesson about Life. There are great moments - happy and sad, heroic and meaningful, but life itself is mostly built from the mundane daily routines. Of course, this routine is the one that in the end actually builds the House of Jacob, but it would also seem that there is something a little disappointing about it. Seemingly, there is no difference in such a long and significant stage of the life of Jacob between him and his Aramaic neighbors on the right and on the left - everyone runs through the burden of life in a similar way. Whether a person wants his life to be big or small, significant or meaningless, in the end he finds himself completely submerged in the day-to-day hassles.
Why does the Torah tell us at such great length such an ordinary story?
To answer this question you have to "look up" at the verses before and after. The main question is what is the context for this description?. The episode begins with God revealing himself to Jacob and making a covenant with him that he would accompany him. Jacob also made a vow that he would be faithful to this covenant.
It is clear to Jacob that he is "plunging" into the reality of life because of this covenant. The end of this intense part of Jacob's life also ends with the revelation of God to him, and a call to return to the land of Canaan. This framing makes it clear that even if the details look similar at first glance, they are completely different. Even if there is no visible external difference, the walls of the tent of Jacob are "soaked" in this meaning.
In small moments of grace, you can see that Jacob understands the greater goal even when he is in the middle of a chaotic life as well as the mundane routines of life. Through the names of some of his children, and even from Laban's consciousness ("I guessed that God will bless me because of you"). It becomes clear that this life may seem small, but it is constantly connected to a great goal that colors the "Kasbah of life" in a completely different way.
Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Matan Schneeweiss
Comments