Summary of the Parasha

Jacob leaves Beer Sheva and sets out for Haran. He stops for the night at “the place”, the future Temple Mount according to Rashi, and institutes the Arvit prayer. He arranges stones around his head and dreams: a ladder set on the earth with its top reaching heaven, and angels going up and down. God promises him the land, descendants like the dust and His protection. Waking, he cries out: “How awesome is this place! This is the house of God and the gate of heaven”, names it Beit El, and vows to give a tenth of all he receives.

At the well of Haran, he single-handedly rolls away the heavy stone to water Rachel’s sheep, kisses her and weeps. Laban takes him in. Jacob offers to work seven years for Rachel, “and they seemed to him like a few days, so great was his love”. On the wedding night Laban gives him Leah; Jacob marries Rachel a week later and works seven more years. According to the Midrash, Rachel had given Leah the agreed signs so that she would not be humiliated.

Then come the births: Leah has Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah (“this time I will thank Hashem”, from which the Jews are called Yehudim); through Bilhah, Rachel’s maid, come Dan and Naphtali; through Zilpah, Leah’s maid, Gad and Asher; after the episode of the duda’im (mandrakes), Leah has Issachar, Zebulun and a daughter, Dinah; finally God remembers Rachel, who gives birth to Joseph.

Jacob wants to leave; Laban offers him wages in spotted livestock, which God makes prosper despite Laban’s tricks, who changes his wages ten times. At God’s command, Jacob flees with his family; Rachel takes her father’s terafim (idols). Laban pursues them, but God warns him in a dream; the two men make a covenant by a heap of stones, Gal-Ed. Jacob continues on his way and meets angels of God: he names the place Machanayim.

Summary of the Haftara

“V’Ami Teluim” (“My people waver”)
Text in Hosea 11:7–12:12 for Sephardim, 12:13–14:10 for Ashkenazim

Hosea, prophet of the Northern Kingdom before its exile, speaks of God’s love, which cannot bring itself to destroy Ephraim: “How can I give you up, Ephraim?” He recalls the story of Jacob, who held his brother’s heel in the womb and wrestled with the angel. The Ashkenazi reading contains the verse “Jacob fled to the field of Aram, Israel served for a wife”, and ends with the call “Shuvah Yisrael”, return, O Israel, to Hashem your God.

Parasha-Haftara Connection

The prophet quotes our parasha directly: Jacob’s flight to Aram and his years of service for a wife. Jacob went through exile in Laban’s house without losing his faith; Hosea asks his descendants to do the same, and to return to God.