25 Nov VAYEITZEI: WE ARE ALL BUILDING SOMETHING GREAT!

We read in Parashat
Vayetze of Yaakov Avinu’s
arrangement with his
father-in-law, Lavan,
whereby he would work
for seven years and then be
given Lavan’s daughter,
Rachel, as a wife. As we know, Lavan
deceived Yaakov, bringing Yaakov at the
end of the seven years his other daughter,
Leah, instead of Rachel. He then allowed
Yaakov to marry Rachel a week later, on
condition that he work for another seven
years.
The Torah makes a very surprising
comment about the first seven years that
Yaakov spent working for Lavan in
exchange for Rachel’s hand in marriage:
“They were in his eyes like just a few
days, because of his love for her” (29:20).
This seems to mean that because Yaakov
loved Rachel so much, the seven years he
spent working so he could marry her felt
like just a few days.
At first glance, this is backwards. We

would think just the opposite – that since
Yaakov loved Rachel so much, and
wanted to marry her, those seven years
would feel like an eternity! Why did
these seven years seem like “just a few
days”?!
The answer is that this was not just about
Rachel and Yaakov’s feelings for her.
Yaakov understood that he was now
about to embark on the historical mission
of building the Jewish Nation. As he slept
along the roadside on his way to Lavan’s
house, he beheld a prophecy promising
him that he would be the father of
Hashem’s special nation. Furthermore,
Rashi famously tells that the stones
beneath his head merged into a single
stone – and some commentators explain
that these were twelve stones that came
together, symbolizing the fact that
Yaakov would have twelve sons that
together would form Am Yisrael. Yaakov
knew that he was now building a great
nation. And if this was what it was all
about, then indeed, a period of seven
years isn’t a long time to wait.

Each and every one of us, too,
is building something great.
Every household, every
institution, is another vitally
important link in the chain of
Am Yisrael. Thus, everyone
involved in building a home
is, like Yaakov Avinu,
involved in building
something monumental,
building the Jewish Nation.
And just like Yaakov Avinu,
we need to remember this in
order to keep a proper
perspective when challenges
arise during our process of building.
Raising a family can be fraught with
struggles. Children get sick, they
challenge their parents’ authority, they
don’t always succeed in school, and they
aren’t always obedient. Finances are
sometimes very tight. The house might
have problems which the family cannot
afford to fix. Not everything is going to
proceed as smoothly as we want it to.
When struggles arise, we need to

remember Yaakov Avinu’s perspective.
When we build a home, we are building
Am Yisrael. We are building something
special, something monumental. And
whenever we build something great,
complications are going to arise – but it’s
so worth it. Whatever struggles we face
over the course of our “building” should
be considered as “just a few days”, as just
a little inconvenience which we are
happy to go through for the lofty objective
of doing our part of build Am Yisrael.