Author Topic: The 14 missing years of Yaacov in Yeshiva - Why it is not Explicit in the Torah?  (Read 1844 times)

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Offline edu

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"So Eisav went to Yishmael and took Machalat the daughter of Yishmael, the son of Avraham the daughter of Nevayot in addition to his wives as his wife". (Breishit/Genesis 28:9
Rashi's commentary on the verse tries to prove from this fact, that Yaacov{Jacob} hid himself in the Yeshiva of Eiver {Eber}for 14 years, before continuing on to the family of Lavan, to find a wife; for Yaacov, was only 63 years old at the time of the marriage of Eisav to Machalat, and another 14 years are needed, to explain his age of 130 upon meeting Pharaoh {Genesis Breishit 47:9}. Rashi also states that Yaacov was punished for the 20 years that he stayed in Lavan's house together with his 2 years "on the road", which totals 22 years where he did not honor his father Yitzchak, by having his son, Yosef {Joseph} separated from him for 22 years. However, he was not punished for the 14 years that he learned in the Yeshiva of Eiver, since the mitzva of studying Torah overrides the mitzva of honoring parents.
The question arises, why didn't the Torah explicitly mention these 14 missing years and only leaves a complicated hint about them, through the age of Yishmael at the time of his daughter's wedding?
My answer is based on a different commentary of Rashi, on the last verse of Parshat Noach, which tells us that Terach, Avraham's father, died in Charan {Breishit/Genesis 11:32}
There Rashi asks, why did the verse stress that Terach died in Charan, where in truth, he lived many years after Avraham left him to go to the land of Israel (as discussed in the next sentence of the Torah)? Rashi answers there, so that it would not be so publicized that Avram {later renamed to Avraham} did not honor his father, because he left him when the father was an old man, so therefore the verse makes it seem like Terach died before Avram/Avraham left for the land of Israel.
In other words, it's true that when the mitzva of honoring parents conflicts with other commandments such as moving to the land of Israel or in the case of Yaacov studying in Yeshiva, it is often true that those other commandments take precedence. However, if the Torah would say it more openly, those people with only a weak attachment to Torah might abuse the precedents of Avraham and later Yaacov, not to honor parents, even when it does not conflict with other important commandments.Therefore the Torah only left complicated hints about the actions of Avraham and Yaacov, so that the Rabbinic scholars on one hand would know what takes precedence when 2 commandments clash, while at the same time it would not be so open to the simple man on the street.