Looking to the future is normal. Even though it is true that we only have the moment in which we live, we spend most of our moments either looking back and remembering, or looking forward and wondering.
When we are hoping and expecting good times to come, it’s diverting and pleasant to plan for them: we’ll do this, you’ll make sure to remember that, I’ll try not to forget that we want to…
But when we are worried about the future, looking ahead is daunting. For many of us in these last days of 2024, it is difficult not to worry. There are so many possible nightmare scenarios that may plausibly unfold in January of 2025.
Our parashat hashavua, (Torah parashah of the week) is well-timed to serve as a cautionary tale about anticipating the future. As it opens, Jacob is dying a thousands deaths of anxiety as he struggles through the night before, as he and his brother are about to be reunited after many years. Jacob is pretty sure that Esau is going to try to kill him, or will, at the very least, be nursing a long-held angry grudge against the brother who stole from him his birthright and the blessing meant for him as firstborn.
As it turns out, he’s wrong; his brother has forgiven and forgotten. Jacob has – incorrectly and expensively – misjudged his own future.
In the final third of the parashah, where we begin in this third year of the Triennial Cycle of Torah study, we see another moment of anticipation, this time cruelly stealing from Jacob and Rachel a moment that should be celebratory, as she is giving birth to her second child:
וַיְהִ֥י בְהַקְשֹׁתָ֖הּ בְּלִדְתָּ֑הּ וַתֹּ֨אמֶר לָ֤הּ הַמְיַלֶּ֙דֶת֙ אַל־תִּ֣ירְאִ֔י כִּֽי־גַם־זֶ֥ה לָ֖ךְ בֵּֽן׃
When her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, “Have no fear, for it is another boy for you.” (Get. 35.17)
As it turns out, she’s wrong. There was much to fear, for Rachel was dying in childbirth. Unexpected death (and life) dominates the end of the parashah, for when Jacob completes the trek home from Padam Aram, he finds that his father, who we assumed was dying over twenty years ago (hence the firstborn blessing chaos at the time) is still alive, at 180 years old!
וַיָּבֹ֤א יַעֲקֹב֙ אֶל־יִצְחָ֣ק אָבִ֔יו מַמְרֵ֖א קִרְיַ֣ת הָֽאַרְבַּ֑ע הִ֣וא חֶבְר֔וֹן אֲשֶׁר־גָּֽר־שָׁ֥ם אַבְרָהָ֖ם וְיִצְחָֽק׃
And Jacob came to his father Isaac at Mamre, at Kiriath-arba—now Hebron—where Abraham and Isaac had sojourned. (Gen. 35.27)
Parashat VaYishlakh is named for Jacob’s attempt to respond to a future reality that never does manifest, in attempting to safeguard himself from a threat that he anticipates, but that does not exist. He loses a great deal by this fearful foreshadowing, and most of all his attention is drawn away from the true reality of the moment. He sends his brother a huge gift of flocks and herds, all for nothing; and later, he loses the one sheep that matters to him (Rachel’s name derives from the Hebrew for an ewe.)
Moshe de Leon, channeler of the Zohar, points out that one way to understand the word חכמה hokhmah, “wisdom”, is to see it as two words: הכה hakeh “wait” and מה mah, “what”; from this he derives the insight that a form of wisdom is knowing how to wait and see what will be.
Jacob demonstrates the difficulty we all experience when we attempt to envision our future reality, and become invested enough in it to prepare for it, only to find that we have anticipated incorrectly. Something deep within us wants to prepare, to steel ourselves for the blow. But in so doing we may not be able to see the real blow coming at us.
Jewish ethics offers us a different way: rather than focus on the future we imagine, pay attention to the present moment which is at hand.
Notice the beauty in this day; find joy in some piece of now.
Be who and what you can be in this moment, by responding to the world you are in right now.
Find the good in it and revel in it right now.
Notice and immerse your self in the light of one small candle of goodness right now.
There is much to celebrate right now, regardless of what happens tomorrow.
Focus upon it; let it warm you.
Torah for the 21st Century by Rabbi Ariel Stone 