Vayeitzei: Practical Insights from Yaakov Avinu's Neder

Tonight (11/10/21), in our aptly named "Chumash Exploration," we attempted to understand the puzzling neder (vow) that Yaakov Avinu took the morning after his dream. After raising a number of questions, we ended up focusing on three aspects of his neder: (1) its conditionality, which made it seem like he was in doubt about whether Hashem would keep HIS promises; (2) his decision to make a neder in the first place, in light of Judaism's generally negative attitude towards nedarim; and (3) the specific clause of "if You will give me bread to eat and a garment to wear." We emerged with practical insights from each of these three topics.