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Vayeitzi: Torah of Galus

We know that before Yaakov went to live with Lavan, he spent fourteen years in the yeshiva of Shem & Ever. But why? Why wasn’t the Torah that Yaakov learnt from his father Yitzchak and his grandfather Avraham good enough?

R’ Yaakov Kamenetsky explains that before he could deal with the trickery of Lavan, Yaakov needed to learn the “Torah of Galus”. He needed to learn from Shem and Ever, who had lived through the wicked דור המבול ודור הפלגה. He needed to learn from people that had lived through societies that were evil, yet remained unaffected by them.

There is a time in all of our lives when we learn what it means to do good. But it never ends there. The next step is to keep true to our convictions, even when we live in a world that does not respect them.

לע״נ דוד חיים בן ישראל דוב הכהן
לע״נ ר׳ חיים דוב בן ר׳ בןציון שלום