Crumbs for the puppies

Parashat Hashavuah


Vayetze -  :”And he went out”
Torah : Genesis 28:10-32:3
Haphtarah : Hosea 12:12-14:10
Gospel : Matthew 15-16

This week, we’re reading the story of Jacob and how his family came to be.

Can you imagine what the family dynamics are life? This would even make Jerry Springer roll his eyes. Jacob marries his cousin and then her sister...plus he has kids with their maids? How quickly did he have these kids? A household with four women and a dozen children would be seriously hard to live in. Plus Jacob has to deal with father-in-law and being far away from his home. Wow...

Each of the children has a name that is a prophecy of Israel and Messiah. I don’t have my notes in front of me now, but the one that sticks out is Zebulon. His name comes from dwelling place. “And you will be our dwelling place from generation to generation...”

Actually, this is an interesting topic. I will take time to post more details on my debriefing e-mail from Bible Study.

These words from the FFOZ weekly e-mail are quite comforting to me:

“ The Ideal Family
http://ffoz.org/resources/edrash/vayetze/so_jacob_went_in_to.php
Adapted from Torah Club Volume One
Unrolling the Scroll
Thought for the Week

The Wrong Place: Jacob felt like he was in the wrong place and his years were being wasted. People often find themselves in jobs, careers, homes and even family arrangements that make them feel as if they are far outside of God’s plan. The story of Jacob teaches us that God might place us in such situations specifically to bless us and work out His purposes. Jacob teaches us to be faithful wherever we find ourselves and to keep committing ourselves to the care of God. Jacob’s term of service in Laban’s household resulted in the birth of the nation of Israel.”

Lord knows I’ve felt like I’ve been wasting a lot of time with my life and waiting a whole bunch. At lunch today, I heard this Switchfoot song at lunch (In the car when I was reading my lesson for the week) that got me thinking.

“We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside
Somewhere we live inside
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside

Dreaming about providence
And whether mice or men have second tries
Maybe we’ve been living with our eyes half open
Maybe we’re bent and broken, broken.”

And the song didn’t make me guilty for who I am in life...but it made me think about what is life...

...What is the good life?....

It’s kind of crazy, but the first think I think about is skydiving...those big, adrenaline-fueled activities. That’s surely not it. Real life is love, kindness...  

“ 22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5)

“ 27Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” (James 1)

So, Pastor Larry also talked about lousy investments in his sermon. This is a picture from Jeremiah. God tells him to buy a field from his cousin. But this field is in enemy-occupied territory. Jeremiah will never live in this place; he will never farm it; he will never benefit from it. But he does what God says. Sometimes in our lives, we can’t see why we’re called to do what we’re called to do. Sometimes it’s for the benefit of future generations, sometimes it’s for ourselves in the future, and sometimes it’s in the great plan of God.

Are you wondering where the title comes from for this post? It’s from a story in Matthew 15 after Jesus answers the Pharisees about the disciples’ propensities to not wash their hands (in a ritual way, I’m sure).

Jesus explains it this way:

“ 7"Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' 19For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.' "”

And then the next story is a woman begging to have her daughter healed. Jesus first sends her away. (Is that because he’s cruel or does he know the response he will get? It has to be something like the latter). But the woman counters that even the dogs get the crumbs from the table. The Greek is in the diminutive...so she’s saying aren’t we worth more than a puppy that eats the leftovers? And Jesus heals the women and comments on her great faith. Then the next story, he’s feeding the 4,000.

“  32Jesus called his disciples to him and said, "I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way."”

Is that how we are meant to live?