Shabbos: When Light Becomes Concealment and Concealment Becomes Light
Understanding Shabbos through the lens of Parashas Vayeshev
Yaakov’s encounter with the darkness inside the light extends beyond himself. The Torah carries this pattern into the lives of his children and, through them, into the unfolding of Jewish history.
The Beis Yaakov1 notes that when the parashah says אלה תולדות יעקב, יוסף, “these are the generations of Yaakov: Yosef,” it speaks about more than genealogy. The hidden depths of a parent’s heart emerge either through their deeds or through their children. Yosef stands as the visible manifestation of Yaakov’s inner world. Everything that lies most inward in Yaakov, his clarity, his truth, his capacity to live only through fully clarified actions, enters history through Yosef. When Yosef is later torn away from him, Yaakov loses a beloved son and with that loss, he watches the very structure of his own spiritual life appear to collapse. Even then, the Beis Yaakov explains, Yaakov returns to what he learned in the house of Lavan and serves God in a darkness where his promises seem broken and any …
