Shabbos: Within the Darkness
Understanding Shabbos through the lens of Parashas Vayetzei
There are times that Shabbos arrives after a productive and fulfilling week. Other times, we suddenly find ourselves on erev Shabbos after dark, stressful or frustrating days. How are we meant to tap into the light of Shabbos from within the darkness?
The answer might be found in the contrast that becomes apparent in this week’s parsha, Vayeitzei. While Avraham first received light before entering any darkness, Yaakov entered concealment and only afterward was shown light1.
Another contrast between Yaakov and his grandfather Avraham is how they journeyed. Avraham set out on a journey toward the light, while Yaakov seemed to turn away from it. Avraham heard “Lech lecha,” a call to go forward. Yaakov began with “Vayeitzei,” he went out.
The purpose of Avraham’s journey was clear. “Lech lecha” means ‘go to yourself’, discover who you are. Yaakov’s journey seems the opposite as he was not moving toward something. Rather, he was leaving something behind, fleeing from his brother. Vayeitzei is about departure. The Torah does not describe it as fleeing or moving toward a goal. It is simply an exit.
Rashi explains that when a tzaddik such as Yaakov leaves a place, his departure leaves an imprint. Only after he is gone do people become fully aware of what his presence brought. This is the perception of absence. Once an indispensable person steps away, the full weight of what he contributed begins to emerge.
When Yaakov received the berachos, he was immediately consumed by darkness. Esav sought to kill him and reclaim the berachos, and Yaakov fled for his life. On the road to Padan Aram, he was robbed and left with only his staff in his hand.
The Mei HaShiloach2 explains that when Yaakov left Beer Sheva, he had nothing, neither food nor possessions, and was on his way to Lavan to earn his livelihood as a shepherd. This negative turn of events caused him to become despondent for he saw himself as small in comparison to his father and grandfather. Avraham and Yitzchak never had to concern themselves with matters of this world — they were constantly absorbed in their Avodah and understanding the secrets of Torah. Yaakov had to occupy himself with mundane things.
He gathered himself and said, ‘I will not give up hope in my Creator.’ Even though his fathers were free to engage only in great and lofty matters, while he worked with ordinary tasks, this too was avodas Hashem. God forms all things This knowledge gave stregnth to Yaakov, as he reached the lowest point. He felt drained and ashamed and believed he had been stripped of blessing as he understood it. Still, he held on to his Creator. If he could not see the ohr, he could at least dream of it.
He went to sleep. In that sleep, he dreamed a dream that spanned millennia and worlds. He saw a ladder reaching toward heaven with malachim rising and descending upon it.
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg3 suggests based on the Klei Yakar, that the void was not only in the land he left behind but within Yaakov himself4. There was a necessary detachment that he had to undergo in order to build a home and move forward in life. To be completely attached to one’s wife requires leaving everything else behind. For the project of building Klal Yisrael to succeed, he needed to step away from his parents and from previous roles and identities. To build the House of Israel he could not remain an Ish Tam, innocent.
For fourteen years Yaakov lived in the inner world of the yeshivah of Shem and Ever. There he built his spirit, his inner world. Now he had to enter the outer world. He needed to leave his parents’ house in order to find his own.
After his dream in Beis El, this became clear. He described the place as the house of God because there he sensed its inner coherence. The Mikdash was called Beis Yaakov for that reason.
He had to keep traveling to build his new home. He needed to step away from the familiar light to see it clearly. When you stand too close to a fire you cannot see its shape. From a distance, the glow is revealed. His detachment was preparation, not abandonment.
Having stepped away from the familiar light in order to recognize it from afar, Yaakov received a new kind of berachah. Hashem blessed him that he would spread out across the world. The word ufaratzta in Hashem’s berachah to Yaakov implies breaching, breaking boundaries. Where Yitzchak turned inward and found chesed within din. Yaakov was given the strength to reach outward and move beyond limits.
The Beis Yaakov5 writes that “ufaratzta” signals a breakthrough beyond the normal ladder of spiritual progression. Angels rise step by step, while Yisrael could leap from darkness straight into closeness with God. That gift depends on the person’s effort and Hashem responds measure for measure.
Yaakov was given the koach to expand without being held by earlier limits. This played out even in the economic sphere as he grew wealthy in Lavan’s house, breaking every ordinary rule of economics.
The Beis Yaakov6 writes that the essence of the disagreement of Yakov and his fatherinlaw, Lavan was on the nature of how one can grasp the ohr in a world of deceit and darkness. Lavan claimed the true light came only from Heaven splitting the darkness. Human effort is secondary. Yaakov answered that the future light would shine only upon those who chose light while standing inside the dark.
Yaakov worked for Rachel for seven years and then asked Lavan for her hand in marriage, for in Rachel he saw his home. He saw in her the chance for oneness and for becoming basar echad. Hashem guided it differently. Yaakov ended up with four wives, even though he originally strived for one. With this love came tension, jealousy, and complexity he could never have imagined.
When Yaakov left home, he entered exile, not only from his land, but also from himself. That departure left a deep imprint on him. When he set out on his journey, the sun was setting. Twenty years later, when he returned, the sun was rising. Between sunset and sunrise lay darkness. He lived within it.
Even his wedding night was dark. A single light would have exposed Leah and made Lavan’s deception impossible. The hint appears at the beginning of the story. As Zornberg explained, when Yaakov stepped into the darkness, he collided with the Makom, vayifga bamakom. There he davened Maariv. He became the first human being to pray in the night. He tried to continue walking but he met a wall at every step. The darkness was placed there by God, who wished to speak with Yaakov alone. In darkness one rarely acts or finds clarity, yet Yaakov prayed. Truth emerged from within the shadows. The name Makom signaled that wherever a Jew stands, no matter how dark it may be, Hashem is present.
Going back to when Yaakov slept before meeting Rachel. He had not slept in fourteen years and would not sleep again for another twenty. His one night of rest was in the house of God. While asleep he was not actively engaged with his Creator. This is why, despite the awesomeness of his dream, he felt unworthy to hold such a gift. His sleep brought together both the revelation of God and a perceived sense of estrangement from God.
The Midrash7 taught that Yaakov himself was the ladder. The angels were ascending and descending through him. He stood in higher worlds and lower worlds, in heaven and in certain hell, awake and asleep.
Sleep has a vertical dynamic; it oscillates between deeper sleep and lighter sleep.8 So did Yaakov. He rose and fell, yet Hashem guarded him. God spoke and said, do not fear.
The ladder was planted toward earth and reached towards heaven. It revealed opposite forces within a human being, stretching man in both directions. To sleep, on earth, in the place of the Akeidah was terrifying. but, God protects him.
The Mei HaShiloach writes that the pasuk “God was standing on him” was itself a blessing. The kedushah of Shabbos does not depend on human awakening. It is fixed and sanctified by God alone. Its holiness stands without effort from below. So too the kedushah of Yaakov. That is why the pasuk says nitsav (“standing”) instead of omed. Omed means that now Hashem is standing on him — from human awakening — but nitsav implies that He was always connected to him.
Yaakov did not react to the ladder. He reacted to the fact that he had slept there, in the presence of God, unaware. That stirred his fear. God wanted that moment of sleep to show Yaakov that even in the chaos of night He will be with him to preserve order, that there is light in the darkness too.
Yaakov often turned night into day. Now he turned day into night. In doing so, he opened the treasury of darkness and revealed God’s power and presence within it.
It is striking that Yaakov is buried with Leah, as if to show that struggle belonged within the story. Leah helped Yaakov walk through the world of darkness. It was Leah who emerged from the hidden world of Atzilus and showed that what seemed concealed could carry the deepest light. She may have been the ohr within the choshech.
When Yaakov awoke and found Leah beside him, instead of Rachel, he understood a deeper truth. Life’s purpose is not only to connect the neshama and the guf, the concealed and the revealed. It was to fuse both into a single existence. This is the true basar echad (as referenced earlier).9
Rav Tzadok10 taught that Yaakov was called “the sun”, the one who illuminated the holy moon. He represented the ability to shine even in darkness. That is why he slept in that place and established Maariv.
This teaches that even when a person experiences darkness in their life and light seems hidden beneath it, he can utilize the power of teshuvah and tefillah to draw that light out from within the darkness itself. That is the meaning of vayifga bamakom: p’gi’ah means attachment, a true encounter. When a person cleaves to Hashem, he becomes a channel of Hashem’s light.
The idea follows that sometimes the Ohr HaShabbos waits inside the shadows. Our work is to extract its light. The shadow isn’t proof of darkness, rather it is proof that there is light behind it. We are not running from the night. We are learning how to see it differently.
Rav Tzadok11 writes that Hashem showed Yaakov the Beis HaMikdash built, destroyed, and rebuilt to teach that the world moved in seasons. There are times of clarity and times of concealment, and both are real. Even destruction did not erase the light. It sank just beneath the surface, waiting to be uncovered. Hidden within the darkness lay the very light that would one day rebuild the Mikdash.
Yaakov composed the tefilla of Maariv. He was the first to pray in the dark. He did not avoid it, rather he drew light from within it. Every evening when we daven Maariv, we echo that truth. Night can also carry light.
Rav Tzadok continues that on Shabbos we take it further. We spread the light of Yerushalayim across our tables and into our homes. This is proof that the world itself still holds holiness. Shabbos allows the hidden light to surface, the same light that will rebuild the Beis HaMikdash.
The Mei HaShiloach taught that Yaakov’s dream occurred on a Friday night. It was specifically through Shabbos that Yaakov could reach the Ohr HaShabbos even in the darkest of places. When Hashem saw that Yaakov was afraid, He came to him in a dream and said: I am with you. Every glimmer of light in darkness is a hint of redemption already on its way.
This was Yaakov’s strength and the legacy of his children. The task is to elevate the darkness, to return every corner of reality to God’s presence instead of avoiding it.
As Shabbos comes to a close, we say Havdalah.
Havdalah is replete with customs with deep mystical roots, which turn it into a ceremony rich with spiritual meaning. In these moments, we try to extend the spirituality of Shabbos into the week and carry its light into our ordinary days.
During Havdalah, we sing together “LaYehudim haysa orah” – “For the Jews there was light, gladness, joy, and honor,” a pasuk from Megillas Esther. We add the words “Ken tihyeh lanu,” a simple tefillah that asks that just as there was light in the darkest parts of our exile, we should merit to experience that light again.
It is for this reason why On Motzei Shabbos, there is a minhag to sing the zemer, Amer Hashem L’Yaakov. The zemer has many stanzas in the order of the Alef- Beis - each one ending with the words Al Tira Avdi Yaakov. Hashem said to Yaakov, do not fear, My servant Yaakov.
When we look deep within and find that the light of Shabbos still lingers, it even casts the shadows we see, then we know that we have found the light of Shabbos in the darkest places. Our work is to hold on to it.
Sometimes what looks messy at first becomes the deepest blessing. That may be why Shabbos matters most after a difficult week. Shabbos guides us toward the place where light waits.
Written L’ilui Nishmas Mr. Fred Schor - Chaim Yisrael Tzvi Ben Moshe Meir Zt’l
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This is beautiful and parts of it should be displayed in everyone’s home.