A year ago as I was teaching our 6th graders our “Tidbits of Torah” class, where we read a small section of each parshah in order to prepare for their b’nai mitzvah Torah portions, one of the verses we read elicited this question. Does God ever leave you?
The context for this question comes in chapter 28, verses 13-17:
And the Lord was standing beside him and He said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham, and the God of Isaac: the ground on which you are lying I will assign to you and to your offspring. Your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and the south. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you and your descendants. Remember, I am with you: I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Parshat Vayetzei begins with Jacob on the run from his angry brother, fleeing his home and the mess that has become of his family dynamic. Exhausted, he lies down and has this crazy dream in which God comes and speaks to him. God gives Jacob marching orders, a legacy to hold and create, and a full sense of his mission in life. We examined these verses that day in class, and the students quickly wondered what it meant that God “will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Does it mean that there are times in our lives when God is not with us? Does it mean that God’s promise to us covers both our past and our future, so God is of course always there? Do these verses mean that if our perceived destiny is fulfilled then it was God’s wishes? These were weighty questions coming from 11 and 12-year-olds.
We came to the general consensus that perhaps God is always with us, but is actively engaging in our lives only in those times when we need it most. Even the students who questioned the notion of God playing any role in our lives agreed that whether or not people believe in God, God might still believe in us and journey through life with us as a presence.
Personally, I have come to the conclusion that God is always present in my life in some way. Sometimes it feels like a blessing, sometimes more like a curse, but God’s love is always there and only leaves when my soul returns to its final resting place.
Now it’s your turn to answer: What does it mean to you that “I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you?” The wonderful thing about learning together is that we often end up with more questions than answers, which simply means more exceptional learning opportunities!
