By Ethan Miller

This week's parsha is parshat Vayetzei. This was my Bar-Mitzvah portion 9 years ago. I've attached my original bar-mitzvah speech for your enjoyment. Anyway, I'm studying in guatemala now and there is a lot of random jewish imagery here, like little stores called "Shalom", a school called "Haskala", an electronics store called "Israel", and random stars of david everywhere.

Anyway, the parsha starts out with our Hero and forefather, Jacob, leaving his family in Beersheva (shoutout to kvutzat eshel). Along the way, he stops to rest a bit, makes a pillow of rocks and has a miraculous dream about a bunch of angels going up and down a ladder. That sounds familiar, right? Anyway, in my Bar-Mitzvah speech I references someone's interpretation of the parsha to discuss how each rung of the ladder represented a different ruler of the people israel. First it was the Egyptians, then the babylonians, persians, greeks, romans, etc.

But the connection I made back then that I want to talk about now is the interpretation of the ladder as being similar to the Jewish tradition of לדור ודור - from generation to generation. As madrichim at machanot, we can often think about our tafkidim as preparing new generations to take responsibility over the movement, over the Jewish community and over the entire wold. However, during this dream, we must not loose sight of the reality at hand - where we are a important part of our chanichim's lives and where we also have responsibilities to the jewish community and to the world.

While being the best madrichim we can be and preparing new generations to take leadership roles in the movement, we must also work to better the Jewish community and the world. Our educational work with our chanichim is super important, but we need to be also utilizing the education we received as chanichim and as maapilim to change our communities for the better.

The second part of the parsha deals with Jacob arriving at his uncle Laban's house and how he worked for 14 years to eventually earn the opportunity to marry Rachel, after being told he only had to work 7 years for Rachel. Ignoring how obviously wrong it is to work for a woman's father to earn the opportunity to marry her, lets talk about why this part of the parsha is super important in the world of workplace justice. Honestly, I'm surprised i didn't talk about this part of the parsha in my Bar-mitzvah speech.

Jacob agreed to work for Laban for 7 years in order to marry Rachel. But then, Laban, being the greedy capitalist pig that he was, tricked Jacob and gave him Leah instead, forcing Jacob to work another 7 years for Rachel. This story is a warning to us to be ethical in our own business dealings, and also to be vigilant in protecting the rights of workers in our own community. If Jacob had the power of a union behind him, Laban would never have gotten away with wage-theft like he did.

So, this week, think about what we are passing on to our chanichim and the duty we have to pass our knowledge from generation to generation, but also think about our duty to improve the world as well, and specifically to protect the rights of workers.