In this week’s parshah we encounter an episode of unimaginable proportions. It’s a ma’aseh that we can’t imagine doing. We can’t even fathom it. But we all descend from the person who is the ba’alas hama’aseh.
In the past, we mentioned a medrash (Bereishis Rabbah 68:2) that describes how Yakov Avinu was going to look for a shidduch, but was faced with a dilemma: he was penniless.[i] He had nothing at all because he had been robbed. He was accosted and lost everything. But he accepted it as a nisayon from Hashem. My Rebbi (Rav Meir Soloveitchik, zt”l) pointed out that Yakov Avinu faced very evil adversaries many times in his life, and situations where people usually stand up in their own defense.
