“Why would a Jew live in El Paso?” I’m asked this question all the time and while there are many good responses, it’s worth reflecting on the question more broadly: what motivates Jews to live wherever they live? Do financial stability or other material and religious factors strictly dictate our choice of residence, or is there something else at play here?
In this week’s parsha we learn about our forefather Yaakov who was forced to flee from his brother Eisav’s murderous rage and seek refuge far away from home with his swindling uncle Lavan. On the way, he stopped at the (future) Temple mount during the evening to pray and during his sleep dreamed of a wondrous vision of angels ascending and descending a huge ladder connecting heaven and earth.
During the vision, G-d promised him safety, food, and shelter on his journey into the unknown and that he would eventually return home to the land promised to his ancestors that will be inherited by his descendants. This vision is the opening act of perhaps the most decisive chapter in the creation of the Jewish nation. Avraham the first Jew, had two sons, only one of which continued his legacy of devotion to G-d. Yitzchak had twin boys, one of which became a notorious gangster, far removed from all monotheistic ideals. Yaakov was the first to raise a family of twelve sons who each represented a unique path of divine service that shaped Judaism forever. Yaakov’s tremendous educational success is even more striking in light of the fact that he raised his family far away from the spiritual cocoon of the Holy Land. Perhaps these words from the divine vision explain why this is. “And your seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and you shall gain strength westward and eastward and northward and southward.” G-dliness must not be manifest exclusively in Israel. The entire earth is meant to be a paradise of divine goodness and peace. Yaakov did not choose to live in Charan, he was sent there by G-d to raise a Jewish family in the moral wastelands of Charan, with no holy environmental support system, proving that divinely guided morality is possible everywhere in the world “westward and eastward and northward and southward.” When that happens, everyone in the family is permeated with this conviction and remains part of the team. Jews today bear the distinction of having a presence, or at least a history, in every corner of the globe. After the destruction of the second Holy Temple G-d intended for us to prepare the world for an everlasting era of true global peace and tranquility that will be ushered in with the arrival of Moshiach and the construction of the indestructible Third Holy Temple. To accomplish this, the Jewish message of divinely guided morality must reach every location on the globe without exception. That’s why a Jew lives in El Paso and anywhere else in the world; we were sent here by G-d to prepare the world for the era of global peace we all so desperately pray begins right away.