Long Lasting Luz
Summary by Channie Koplowitz Stein
When Yaakov Avinu leaves his father’s home while fleeing from his brother Esau, he initially runs past the area he remembers as being the holy place where his father and grandfather Avraham had prayed. Realizing his omission, Yaakov backtracks so that he can accord proper honor to this site. He then takes stones and puts the stone under his head and sleeps. He dreams of the ladder planted on earth reaching toward the heavens, with angels ascending and descending thereon. Waking up, he names the place Beit El, the House of God, the site where the future Temples would be built as the gateway for our prayers to reach Heaven. Then the Torah digresses from the narrative and enigmatically relates that the original name of this place was Luz. What is the significance of this detail, and what is the symbolism in the name Luz, asks Mesillos Haneviim.
Let us begin with the name Yaakov gave the site, Beit El, House of God. Our tradition notes that each of our patriarchs called the site of connection and prayer by a different appellation. Avraham prayed on the mountain, Yitzchak went to the field, and here Yaakov calls it a house. Hashem chooses to retain the designation of House of the Lord over the others, as Isaiah prophesies that the nations will go up to the House of Hashem. What connection does Luz have to the House of Hashem?
Luz in fact is the name of a city in ancient Israel that the Israelites conquered. According to our medrash, it was a mysterious city reached only through a hidden portal in a hazel nut tree and in which the angel of death had no power. (When someone felt his time had come, he would go outside the confines of the city.) In a tangentially related definition, luz is also the name of an indestructible bone located at the human spinal chord. It is a bone which receives its sustenance only from the food of a Melave Malka after Shabbat’s end, and not from food eaten at any other time. What is the relationship between these different ideas?
Rabbi Boruch Leff explains the essence of the Luz bone, including that it is more of a spiritual entity than a physical one. As such, it can only be nourished with a spiritual meal, the Melave Malka, which is eaten not for satiety, fore we’ve just finished three Shabbat meals, but simply because we want to extend the sanctity of Shabbat to the coming week. As such, one might want to enhance the meal with a nicely set table or with special foods.
How did the luz bone attain such spirituality? Rabbi Leff continues by citing several sources that explain this phenomenon. We are all familiar with the first sin when, instigated by the wily serpent, Adam and Chava ate of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. All the body received nutrients, but the luz bone refused to receive the food. As such, while everything else was tainted by the admixture of good and evil, this bone alone retained its innate purity. Therefore, it can continue to be nourished only with completely spiritual food. It is through this bone that Hashem will implement techiyas hameisim, the future resurrection. And because of its avoidance of that first sin with its accompanying consequences, “feeding” it by eating a Melave Malka, has the ability to help with parnassah (earning a living), and with difficulties of childbirth. Because of its spiritual essence, the place that reflects the same spirituality as this bone bore the same name although Yaakov called it, appropriately, Beit El, the House of God.
Taking the mystical allusions further, Rabbi Pinchas Friedman, the Shvilei Pinchas of Belz cites the Zohar and says that Yitzchak’s marriage to Rivka at age forty alludes to the redemption process, that the resurrection will take place forty years after the final redemption. Rivka is the daughter of Betuel HaArami, and she represents the physical resurrection of the body while Yitzchak represents the neshamah, its spiritual essence. In a somewhat complex analysis, the Shvilei Pinchas explains how Betuel HarArami means Betuel the deceiver rather than Betuel the Armenean. As such, referring the luz bone to betuel here and associating it with Rivka is high praise.
Rabbi Friedman explains how deception played an important role in the eternal survival of the luz bone. Citing the verse from Tehillim, the Shvilei Pinchas writes that one acts righteously with the righteous, but one may act cunningly with the cunning as a matter of self - preservation. Just as Betuel and his son Laban were deceitful, so did Yaakov need to be deceitful when dealing with him. But Hashem promised Yaakov that he would return whole and pure, and deceit would not become part of his nature.
Similarly, the luz bone, seeing how the serpent/yetzer horo deceitfully seduced Eve into eating the forbidden fruit, cunningly played along, appearing to ingest the fruit while not actually doing so. Then, when Adam died, it deceptively faked death as well, while in reality it continues to live on and become the basis upon which God will eventually resurrect the entire body.
Rav Moshe Breslover in Lemochor Aatir tells us that this parsha centers around the theme of stones, the building blocks of Yaakov’s family. First there is the stone under Yaakov’s head, symbolizing Yaakov’s vision of his family. Later he takes the stone off the well when Rachel arrives, opening up the well of fertility and vibrancy. Finally, he uses stones to make a pact with Laban that will preserve the family’s integrity. But in order to accomplish this, Yaakov needed to practice deceit, notes Rabbi Grossbard. When he introduced himself to Rachel, he identifies himself as her father’s brother rather than her father’s nephew, implying that if Laban deals with him deceitfully, Yaakov himself will be capable of acting as Laban’s “brother in crime”.
Acting deceitfully while not actually becoming deceitful was a major test for Yaakov Avinu. Rabbi Grossbard notes that each of our patriarchs was tested in the very trait that most defines him. Avraham Avinu whose outstanding characteristic was chesed, kindness, was tested if he would follow Hashem’s command and go against his very nature by his willingness to offer his own son on God’s altar. Yaakov, whose essence is truth, is constantly tested in this regard. Soon he will be tested in his dealings with Laban, and earlier he was tested with donning the identity of Esau. But even if it is necessary to act fraudulently here, Yaakov desires to return to his father’s house in purity and use this stone as the cornerstone for building the House of God. While Yaakov understands that he is to build a family and house for God, he knows that in order to preserve the destiny of that family, he must maintain boundaries and separate from Laban and from those who would corrupt us.
While each of our patriarchs understood that in order to create and maintain an intimate relationship with Hakodosh Boruch Hu, it is necessary to create a private space where that relationship can develop, writes Rabbi Pincus in Nefesh Shimshon, it was Yaakov’s conception of that place as the home that Hashem found most appropriate. And what constitutes that home, that bayit? Rabbi Zev Leff in Outlooks: Insights offers an understanding based on using bayit as an acronym. The Bet represents Binah, having the wisdom to separate what is allowed within the house and what must remain outside its walls. The Yud represents the holiness of God’s Name and the integrity and harmony of 10 which must exist within that home. Finally, the Tuf is a sign to the outside world of the Jewish home’s influence on the entire world. Given this insight, Yaakov understood that the women would be the primary builders and protectors of his home even as he himself must take on the deception of a luz.
Everything that exists must exist in three simultaneous dimension, notes Mesillot Haneviim. These three dimensions form the acronym o-shon, smoke (especially of the ketoret on the altar). First it must exist in Olam, in the space of the world. It must also exist in time, shanah. Finally, it must exist within the individual neshamah. Citing Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz, Mesillot Haneviim continues that Luz exists on all these levels. It exists in the place of the Kotel, the Western Wall. In time, in the sanctity with which we infuse every morning as we say Modeh ani and thank God for His continued faith in us and ours in Him. Sleep is one sixtieth of death, and each day we awaken and are resurrected physically and invigorated mentally and emotionally. It also exists in time, with the meal of melave malka. Finally, it exists in the person of Eliyahu Hanavi who never died, and within each of us who will be resurrected through the luz bone at the end of days.
On Shabbat we are infused with an even greater life energy and sanctity, represented by the neshamah yeseirah, the “additional soul” of Shabbat. It is this blessing of Shabbat that we want to take with us into the coming week. We want to be melaveh malkah, to escort the Shabbat Queen so that it accompanies us as we leave Shabbat proper, writes the Chasam Sofer. The time of Melaveh Malkah is a concentrated time of luz.
Yaakov is leaving Be’er Sheva, the well of seven, an allusion to the holiness of Shabbat, the seventh day, and going out to Charan, to the emptiness of the world where death exists. This vacuum of the world must be filled with sanctity, writes Rabbi Avraham Schorr in Halekach Vehalebuv. Before he leaves, Yaakov dreams of the sulam, the ladder, and sees angels ascending and descending. This is the route the holy angels take, and this is the seudat livuy malkah, the melaveh malkah meal, the sanctification of the time after Shabbat as the manifestation of the luz bone in time.
Mesillot Haneviim sets the Kotel as the luz concept in place, for God’s presence has never left the Kotel. On Motzoai Shabbat we tie the three together by singing Eliyahu Hanavi, the person who will be the harbinger of Moshiach in the near future to signify the rebuilding of the Beit Hamikdosh. In our parsha, Yaakov Avinu represents the immortal person of the luz bone who sets the foundation for the eternal Third Beit Hamikdosh in this place, for this is where Hashem’s presence lives forever. Even while we, His children, are in exile, Beit El continues to exist.
The message of Luz to us as Jews is that a Jew never despairs. Hope is eternal. The Angel of Death never enters permanently, Eliyahu never dies, and the melaveh malka keeps the spirit of that hope alive within us. While the mission of men is to seek truth, the mission of women is to foster and nurture the emunah, faith in Hakodosh Boruch Hu and hope in the future. For it is in the merit of righteous women that the Beit Hamikdosh will be rebuilt.
There is an undying luz in each of us. That belief encourages us, for it bears witness that Someone believes in us, and no one can destroy it, and even death cannot conquer it. How do you live forever? By building your personal Beit El through living a life of sanctity, of Torah and mitzvoth, writes Rabbi Benzion Sacks. This is further elaborated in Mishbetzet Zahav; you achieve eternity by keeping your Torah life vibrant and fresh like the nut tree, by keeping your devotion to Hashem constant. How can you achieve long life and eternity? Guard your tongue by keeping your mouth shut, like the nut which has no natural opening, but requires a tool to crack it open. As Yaakov consecrated the stone, we need to consecrate our lives and our homes. We need to take the message of Luz as the foundation stone of our own lives and of our own homes.