KEY DOCUMENT
Reply Memoranudm
To respond to your inquiry as to where the Torah
shows that:
- Jacob
had a need to repent and
- That
he did not do it
I offer you the following:
Due
to “Jacob’s mistake,” his family was
divided. When he went to Laban, it was not for the
short stay envisioned by Rebecca, but for some twenty
years. There he was at first MANIPULATED by Laban to
work seven long years for Rachel’s hand in
marriage. During these seven years, G-d gave Jacob
time to reflect on what happened to his family, his
need to flee, to know that his brother had just
reason to hate him, knowing that Esau was out to kill
him the next time they crossed paths.
The
Torah strongly suggests that there was no apology
because at the end of seven years Jacob is now
DECEIVED by Laban, Leah, and Rachel, the latter whom
did become aware of the plot to substitute Leah for
her on her wedding day, but to preclude embarrassment
for her sister, remained silent, and did not advise
Jacob, as she agreed to do if her father was
intending to take further advantage of him. The
further punishment ahead for Jacob was far more than
another seven years, MANIPULATED again by Laban to
again secure Rachel’s hand. Jacob became the
bedrock why Jewish law subsequently precluded
marriage to two sisters, as he lived in an
environment of tumult with continued stress, strife,
and conflict between the two sisters, his two wives,
ultimately seeing himself married to four women, when
all he sought was to be with his true love, Rachel.
The
Torah then details a life fraught with punishments
and victimizations for forefather Jacob, something
clearly not expected or anticipated for a forefather
directly knowing G-d. However, while G-d did expect
Jacob to apologize and show remorse for interfering
with His holy design, G-d fulfilled his covenant with
Abraham, needing to make some adjustments now that
Jacob interfered causing Torah to record the use of
unholy means to satisfy G-d’s holy ends and
design.
First,
since Jacob got the birthright without taint, the
Kingdom of Israel would be established through
Joseph. Thus Joseph and descendants guided the Jewish
people in Egypt and through the initial phase of the
Exodus. However, since the blessings were given to
Judah, the leadership resulted from his descendants.
Since the blessings were received via unholy means,
they were tainted. How do we know they were
tainted? The leaderships being descendants of
Judah victimized the Jewish people resulting in the
loss of the holy temple and ultimately their exile
from the Promised Land. These leaderships were the
direct nexus to idolatry, corruption, elitism, and
arrogance, all platforming G-d standing aside from
the slaughters, the consequence of the Assyrian,
Babylonian, and Roman incursions into Israel. When
the Kingdom of Israel was established the Jewish
people were a holy nation, looked up to by the other
nations of the world, and when they were put into
exile, they became an odious people subject to
perpetual persecutions.
Thereafter,
even when dispersed, the Kingdom of Israel remained
intact; with G-d’s promise to one day return
Eretz Yisroel to the Jewish people. He gave the
Jewish people a good two thousand or so years to
parallel Jacob’s time away from home, when he
fled to Laban to save himself from Esau’s rage,
to reflect on what had transpired. They kept the
Torah intact, and as conveyed in Missed Message
of Torah, they had more than ample time to well
reflect on what transpired. However, just like Jacob,
with all the time in the world, and being given all
the signs and opportunities to show basic respect for
what happened, knowing that G-d was not intervening
for the dire consequences experienced, no one seemed
to get it, everyone seemingly standing blind
paralleling the failing of Jacob. G-d thus intervenes on
behalf of the Jewish people for the birthright, but
not for the tainted blessings.
Why
did G-d give Jacob the name of Israel?
Unless one is willing to say that the history of
Jews has been a history absent perpetual persecutions
and victimizations, then there is no issue that the
history of the Jews has been the one of Jacob, as he
himself expressed to Pharaoh (“Few and bad
have been the years of my life”), seemingly
standing about without an idea why he experienced
such a rigorous life. It seems that if Jacob
couldn’t get it, that he would have a time
beyond the confine of his own physical life to get
it, living thereafter as Israel, passing on the
blindness and the need to confront it to the Jewish
people, who to this very day, equal, if not exceed,
Jacob himself in his stubbornness to see and respond
to G-d’s signs and messages. Why do I
say exceed? I say it because in all of
history this generation of Jews collectively are the
best educated and well off of any prior generation;
one the beneficiary of all the prayers and pleas of
prior generations, and thus G-d does expect us to get
it, shown by His giving us, as promised in Torah,
Eretz Yisroel, and a time of prosperity equaling the
first decades when He first gave us Eretz Yisroel,
expecting us to NOW get it. That we don’t, and
still stand stubborn, exceeds Jacob’s failings
in every dimensional way.
So
the Torah and Jewish history make it unequivocal that
Jacob did not repent at all, the blessings remaining
in a tainted state seeing the Jewish leadership sit
before the world openly willing to give back
G-d’s gift, do the unthinkable to others,
give back the Holy City, openly desecrating
G-d’s gift and defaming G-d to the world in this
and several other ways, showing the world that the
Jewish people again are willing to turns their back
on G-d, as they did after they were first given Eretz
Yisroel. We see the likes of Peres, Barak, Beilin,
all the result of the tainted blessings; as the
Kingdom of Israel still receives G-d’s
intervention because of the untainted birthright
given to worthy Joseph, and when the Jewish people
have possession of Eretz Yisroel they are free from
being seen as odious and free from their history of
perpetual persecutions. However, if you or anyone
else cannot understand after all this time and
history that the Jewish people will be victims
thereof again, this time possibly and probably
invoking the horrors of Ki Savo, then this is more
than blindness and being stubborn, it is being
intentionally obtuse about the unequivocal lessons of
Torah and Jewish history, proving to G-d that like
Jacob we do not as a people carry requisite love and
faith in Him.
So it is very clear that not
only did Jacob never show per Torah remorse or
repentance to G-d but the consequence resulting in a
life of victimization passed on to the Jewish people
(Israel), where the Jewish people have endured the
type of rigorous life and history Jacob lived. Laban
and his own children by Leah victimized Jacob; the
leaderships flowing under the tainted blessings from
the descendants of Judah continue today to victimize
Israel.
So here you have
two choices. The first choice is that
you must conclude that there is no escape from the
tainted blessings, eternal victimization thereby the
long-term fate of the Jewish people. Or you
can conclude and interpret that G-d gave Jacob
numerous signs and opportunities for him to repent,
that he did not, that He told Jacob that he, Jacob,
would also be known as Israel, which is us,
collectively, and by doing so, strongly suggested
that not only the consequences of his egregious sins,
including failing to see the signs and opportunities
to repent, would pass on to the Jewish people, but
also the opportunity to express remorse and repent on
his, Jacob’s behalf, calling out to G-d to
intervene to free the blessings from their taint.
The choice is yours.
Do you want to interpret that
Jacob did not have a need to repent for what he did?
Do you want to argue that he, Jacob, did repent?
Because if either choice is your choice, then you
want to accept a destiny of continued persecutions
and victimizations, having yourself and/or your
children confront the horrors of Ki Savo. Or you can
decide that Jacob should have apologized and repented
to G-d, and that he did not do so, and that G-d
affords us collectively, as Israel, a continued
opportunity to do so to change our course for a
better future for ourselves and our children and
those to follow them.
What
is your choice? If it is for a
better future, then you have no choice but to agree
with my interpretations, ones that honor G-d, reflect
love of G-d and cast shame, dishonor and disgrace to
all those who willingly stand blind to the
legerdemain of the leaderships of this and prior
generations precluding us from finding truth and
developing true Kavod Hashem from Torah.
Please understand that the
Messianic Era is likely to arise regardless of your
selection. However, the interests of your family
would be served if the Messianic Era arises before
(thereby precluding), not after, seeing the
consequences detailed in Parashas Ki Savo.
Joseph B. Ehrlich
Hewlett Harbor, New York
January 23, 2002
Jacob manipulated and deceived his holy
father Isaac to obtain Esau’s intended
blessings; Jacob grievously and unnecessarily
interjected G-d’s name in carrying forth the
manipulation and deceit of his father; Jacob brought
unholy means into G-d’s holy ends and design and
thereby blemished Torah and the future of the Jewish
people. The question arises why didn’t G-d note
Jacob’s failings to him. G-d deliberately
obfuscated this missed message of Torah because G-d
surely believed that those that truly love and have
faith in Him would surely have a consciousness of
guilt when committing an egregious sin not only
against Him but here, with Jacob, also against his
very own father and brother. To handicap it for
Jacob, G-d peppered him with numerous signs and
opportunities to recognize his sins and repent. Since
Jacob failed himself, his family, his descendants and
his G-d by failing to repent, G-d ultimately gave the
Jewish people the time (the Diaspora) to develop
requisite love and faith in Him via Torah and when
not seeing the Jewish people likewise admit to
Jacob’s sins and the need for them to repent for
them, it was no surprise when the religious
leaderships sat on their hands with tape over their
mouths, failing to sanctify and protect G-d’s
Name to the world, when the current genre of leaders
from the House of Judah offered to give up His gift
to the Jewish people and otherwise defamed Him by
announcing to the world that Israel’s national
airline would fly on the Shabbat and that the
government would encourage stores and business to
open and operate on the Shabbat.