דבר תורה פרשת ויצא

דבר תורה פרשת ויצא

Yaakov comes a long journey, and reaches Eretz Bnei Kedem, right near Charan. He arrives to the well outside of the city to see that there are some flocks of sheep along with three shepherds waiting to drink. There is a big rock on top of the well, and Yaakov asks, "Why don't you take the rock off of the well, so that your sheep can drink?" They respond that they CAN NOT remove it until all of the other shepherds come. It is too heavy to be removed with just three shepherds! Each day, they have a meeting time for all of the shepherds to come together to take the rock off of the well, and at that time they all give their sheep something to drink. 

Right then, Rachel was coming to the well. When Yaakov sees Rachel coming, he goes to the well and removes the rock so that he could give water to her sheep. 

How was he able to remove the rock all by himself, wasn't the rock too heavy?

Rabbi Norman Lamm says that he was able to do this because he put his mind to it. The shepherds did not believe that they could do it, so they were not able to. If you put your mind to something, and it is important enough to you, you will be able to do it. Yaakov shows us this. 

Later on, in Parshat Vayishlach, when Yaakov is fighting with the angel, at one point, it says that the angel realizes that he COULD NOT beat him. This shows us again, how Yaakov is triumphant when he has an attitude that he CAN do it. 

If we believe that we CAN do things, anything is possible. Progress is made able by attitude. We should take a lesson from Yaakov Avinu and realize that we are capable of anything that we set our mind to. 

Shabbat Shalom, 

Rabbi Steven Penn