Accomplishing the impossible, with Hashem’s help

When I was in Officer’s course, we had a Battalion Commander named Eyal, who made an indelible impression on me. A kibbutznik from the Golan, he was rather short, of slight build, not exactly the image of the mighty war hero. But he was one of those men who had been there; he was a veteran of the Yom Kippur war, and during the first week of the course he told us a story that came with a challenge.

He was stationed along the Suez Canal when the war broke out, and was part of a company of British-made Centurion tanks caught in the catastrophic Egyptian advance deep into the Sinai. At that point he was still a tank driver with the rank of private first class, so his position was in the driver’s compartment. In order for the turret to rotate, the driver sits in a compartment separate from the rest of the crew, at the front of the tank. Since most enemy fire is aimed at this area of the tank, the driver’s compartment is heavily armored.

The Centurion tank’s driver compartment was designed with two heavily armored hatch-doors that close down on top of the driver’s compartment for maximum protection. Unfortunately, this made it impossible for the driver to open the doors on his own from inside the tank; they were too heavy. So, as a matter of practice, when maneuvers were done, one of the other crewmembers would jump down on top of the hatch and help lift the hatch doors, so the driver could exit the tank.

Of course, this could be somewhat problematic for a tank crew under fire who needed to exit the tank in a hurry.

On the fourth day of the war, Eyal’s tank was hit by enemy fire and burst into flames. Trapped in the driver’s compartment, which was rapidly filling with smoke, he called out to his tank crew to no avail; injured or dead, they could not help him. He had no doubts that at any moment the fire would spread to the enormous fourteen hundred liter gas tanks, and he would die in the huge fireball that would result.

In desperation, he managed to squirm around in the tiny compartment so that his back was on the driver’s stool, and, placing his legs against the heavy steel hatch doors above his head, he pushed with all the strength he had left, and succeeded in throwing wide open the hatch doors. Clambering out of the burning tank, he managed to get about ten feet from the tank when it exploded throwing him in the air on top of a nearby sand dune.

A few more seconds, and he would have been watching the rest of the war with the angels.

After the war, he tried on numerous occasions to repeat this superhuman feat, but though with more sleep, and better fed, was never again able to successfully throw open those doors from inside the tank.

So, a week into our Officer’s training, he issued what became known as Etgar Eyal (the Eyal challenge): any one of us who would succeed in repeating his wartime feat, would be rewarded with a weekend pass. To a soldier in the grueling, depressing world of Officer’s training, this was like a pot of gold. On any given Friday morning, you could see dozens of cadets down by the Centurion tanks trying to do the same thing, I myself tried a number of times; not one of us ever succeeded.

At the end of the course, just before we were to receive our bars, he told us the point of the whole exercise:

“Your success will be less about what you know how to do, than about how strong your determination is to get it done; Wars are won not by strength and strategy alone, but mostly by will.”

This week’s portion, Vayetze, is all about the power of will, and the meaning of determination.

Yaakov, forced to flee before the wrath of his brother Esav, is not just running from his past, he is very clearly heading towards his future.And when he leaves Be’er Sheva, he has a rather unique metaphysical experience.

“And he dreamed, and behold there was a ladder standing (firmly) in the ground, with its top reaching up to the heavens, and behold, angels of G-d are going up and down it (the ladder).” (28:12)

And Yaakov’s dream continues, and G-d is standing over him, and calls to him:

“I am Hashem, the G-d of your father Abraham, and the G-d of Yitzchak.” (28:13)

And Hashem promises Yaakov that the land on which he is laying will one day be his, and his descendants’, forever, and that He (Hashem) will be with him and watch over him.

This must be an amazing moment in Yaakov’s life. Alone, in the wilderness, running from home to an uncertain future, G-d comes to him in a dream, and promises Yaakov that He will be watching over him. There is no better travel insurance plan in the world!

One would expect Yaakov to be full of thanksgiving and gratitude; after all, if G-d says ‘I’ve got you covered’ then you’re done; no more worries, somehow you know it will all work out.

Which is what makes what follows so strange.

Firstly, Yaakov awakens from his slumber and exclaims: “Behold! G-d is in this place, and I did not know!” (v. 16)

One wonders: Yaakov didn’t know G-d was everywhere before G-d personally assured him he was coming with him?

And then, even stranger, Yaakov proceeds to make a pact with G-d:

“And Yaakov swore an oath saying: ‘If G-d will be with me and watch over me on this journey, and He will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and I will return in peace to the house of my father, then Hashem will be for me a G-d (Elokim).”(28:22-21)

What exactly is Yaakov saying here? Hashem has already promised to protect and watch over Yaakov, and now Yaakov is making deals? Worse, Yaakov is saying Hashem will only be his G-d if He watches over him, and gives him food and clothing?

Perhaps Yaakov understood that achieving his goals was not just about heading in the right direction, but also about whether we have the means with which to get there.

Yaakov is all alone, having just pretended to become Esau to gain the blessings. He is told by his mother to pretend he is Esau, and his father Yitzchak doesn’t know who he is. So, as we read last week, maybe Yaakov is struggling a bit with whom he is. And all he really wants is to become a vehicle for revealing Hashem in this world.

And this is, perhaps, what “Bread to eat and clothing to wear” is all about.

Bread represents the sum total of all that we do in this world.

But there are two types of bread: there is bread from the earth; the bread we labor over and produce, as our part of our partnership with G-d. And then there is bread from Heaven (represented in the Torah by the Manna) that Hashem gives us, which allows us to do all that we are meant to do in this world.

And this, too, is the meaning of Beged, or the clothing Hashem gives us.

When Yitzchak wants to determine whether the son before him, awaiting his blessing, is Yaakov or Esav, he smells his clothing (27:27). The Beged clothes and protects man from the elements and allows him to achieve his goals. Clothing is generally associated with a person’s identity: different uniforms and modes of clothing allow us to assume much about who a person is, and what he or she is trying to accomplish on this earth. And even Yitzchak, apparently near blindness, still accesses Yaakov’s clothing as a means of determining who he is.

Perhaps Yaakov, having received Hashem’s presence on his journey, recognizes that this world is a partnership. And in his search to reach his potential, he asks only to be blessed with the vehicles to do this.

Yaakov, precisely at the darkest moment of his life, when G-d seems most distant, experiences G-d.

Perhaps this is the secret of that tank driver, trapped in his burning tank. Nothing stands in the way of a person’s will. If you know something just has to be, then no obstacle, no matter how great, will stand in your way; and, if we do our bit, ultimately Hashem will always be there, our silent partner, ready to effect the impossible, and accomplish the undoable, right alongside us. It is Yaakov’s will that fuels the accomplishment of his dreams.

Shabbat Shalom, from Jerusalem.

Rav Binny Freeman, Rosh Yeshivat Orayta, lives in Efrat.