Chevre, this week’s parsha is Vayetze (ויצא). This week we have a deep dive into Yaakov’s life. He flees his brother and goes to Haran. He meets Rachel, but marries Leah by accident. By the way, this is why Jewish Weddings have a Bedekin, where the groom verifies the woman is the right woman. He then marries Rachel right afterwards. The wedding to Leah took place after 7 years of work for Lavan, Rachel and Leah’s brother. He agrees to work 7 more years for the wedding to Rachel. Most of the children of Yaakov are born to Leah, Rachel and their handmaidens. Lavan tries to change the terms of the agreement when Yaakov wants to leave. So they decide to flee. Lavan catches up to Yaakov, Yaakov had his wives, children and the cattle that he earned, so he was moving a bit slower than Lavan. They come to a treaty/agreement and go on their merry way.

Honestly, when I look back at this list of events, it looks like the Debug output from one of my bash scripts. I did this. I did this, here’s the variable I have set. I got to this point. OK, we’re good to go, I worked.

Yesterday was Thanksgiving in the US. We still celebrate Thanksgiving, we were at a nice semi-potluck meal with good friends. It’s a time to take stock and reflect a bit before the winter comes in full force. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share these ideas and connect the parsha with our tech world and hopefully bring a smile or a thought to folks that read these.

I wish everyone going to re:Invent next week a safe journey and a successful conference with a lot of learning, insights and camaraderie. Shabbat Shalom