Jennifer=Yaakov

I am just so amazed that there are so many things from the Jewish biblical stories that relate to life, my life in specific.

I made the decision to come here on a spiritual level. I KNEW that this was right and I was not going to let any logical sense get in the way. Regardless if it included (which it did) screwing up my car lease, canceling my apartment, loosing all the money my school would give me, having many friends talk badly about me since they don't understand, and getting into fights about finances, I was still going to go.

Tzitzit can assist in making decisions (as learned in one of my teacher's Rabbi Kahn's class World view of the Sages class today). Men wear 8 strings of tzitzit on the corners. 7 of them white, one of them the traditional blue color called t'chelet. This specific color is sued because it does not fade. Why is the t'chelet color used you ask? Because t'chelet resembles the ocean, which resembles heaven, which is ultimately the colors of G-d's throne. This reminds a person to make 1 out of 8 decisions by the rule of G-d and the other 7 logically. Not saying that that one decision is not made logically, but to ignore society for a moment and go with your inner spiritual feeling that you know as a Jew is right.

Now why was I learning about this in my World view of the Sages class you ask? Because we were covering the topic in this week's parsha Vayetzei, about Yaakov's dream. He was dreaming in the city of Lod (that he renames Beth-El-the house of G-d) but in this city is where the blue color of the t'chelet is found. Now the dream he had was G-d promising him a nation and the land of Israel. So when he had all his sons and he lived in Haran under his wives father, Lavan, he had an instinct to get up and go to the land of Israel. He didn't turn back to his comfort zone, he got up, told his family of what was going on, and they went. Regardless of the father, lavan, trying to convince them otherwise to stay. It was Yaakov's destiny to go to Israel..and even though it was probably an uncomfortable decision...he did it anyways.

Paralleling myself to one of our forefather's may seem like a bold move...but this is what my year is all about...exploration, ah ha moments, and living in the spiritual moment.