(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)
“Then Jacob went on his journey, and came to the land of the children of the east. He looked, and saw a well in the field, and saw three flocks of sheep lying there by it. For out of that well they watered the flocks. The stone on the well’s mouth was large. There all the flocks were gathered. They rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the sheep, and put the stone back on the well’s mouth in its place.”
(Genesis 29:1-3)
Jacob found familiar ground. His father had flocks. He knew the deal. He’d had a lifetime of experience around them. He was in a strange land among strange people, but this was a comfortable place to start. He could approach these people because he knew how to talk to them. It would be just like back home.
These shepherds worked as a team. They gathered their flocks until they were all there. They worked together to move the protecting stone out of the way, they each watered their flocks, and they worked together to move the protecting stone back in place. It was a well-oiled machine. A good system. No one group could take advantage of the well, and no strangers could either deplete it or foul the waters. Communal assistance and protection.
According to Hosea 12:12, this land Jacob had ended up in was Syria.
Finding one’s prospective spouse was a theme among the patriarchs. Abraham’s servant did it for Isaac (Genesis 24). Moses did it (Exodus 2). And Jacob was about to do it.
The Torah: A Women’s Commentary writes: ‘It is one of the Torah’s great paradoxes that the divine imperative to engender descendants and produce a great nation reaches fruition first in the land of Aram (Syria) and later in Egypt. In this episode, Jacob finds refuge in his uncle’s home and meets his counterpart, Rachel, thereby satisfying the wishes of his mother. In a foreign land he also engenders a family and becomes wealthy, thereby bringing God’s promises into being. The well is the Torah’s famed meeting place, a romantic topos. Here Abraham’s servant finds Isaac’s bride, Rachel and Jacob meet, and Moses first encounters his future wife, Zipporah. (On wells as symbols of fertility, see at 16:7 and 24:11.) It is also the place where Jacob goes to seek information about his relatives.’
The sage Rav Hirsch writes: ‘V. 1. Now he was quite a different person to what he was before, of whom it said ויצא וגו׳. Now it says “he lifted up his feet”. With such thoughts of the future, awakened in his mind by God, Jacob, even with only his staff in his hand, steps out fresh and gaily to meet his future. בני קדם. See above on Ch. 25,6. The east-lying lands were very different in culture and manners from those of the west. That Jacob found out very quickly. V. 2. Generally the cover of a well designed for general public use, is made to be removed as easily as possible to facilitate its use for everybody. But here — this introduces us to the character of the Arameans — no one trusted the other and nobody meant anybody else to have the slightest advantage. One person might take a drink more than the other. Hence they made the cover so heavy that no person alone but only by their combined effort could the well be used.’
The sage Or HaChaim writes: ‘וישא יעקב רגליו. Jacob raised his feet. The Torah chooses this form of expression to tell us that at this time Jacob was poor and all he could raise [elevate to the status of tithes as promised in his vow, Ed.] were his feet. In the future he would tithe all his produce twice, i.e. give a total of 20% in order to fulfil the words עשר אעשרנו. The second tithe would not merely be 10% of what remained after the first tithe had been given (compare Ketuvot 50). An additional meaning of the Torah’s description of Jacob “raising his feet” is that he did not actually have to walk the entire distance to Charan but that the land came toward him. This is the reason the Torah did not say אל ארץ בני קדם, “to the land of the easterners, but ארצה בני קדם.” The reason the Torah describes these people as בני קדם, easterners, instead of referring to their city, i.e. Charan, is to tell us that only the district came towards him. Jacob himself walked to Charan in order to find there his Rachel and in order for him to obtain from her all the information she furnished him as described in Megillah 13. והאגן גדולה על פי הבאר, And the stone on top of the well was a massive one. If the Torah had not written the letter ה in front of the word אבן, the impression created would have been that there simply was a heavy stone on top of the well. As it is the Torah emphasises the exceptional heaviness of that stone. This teaches us that unless Jacob had had divine assistance he could not have moved that stone. Bereshit Rabbah 70,12 understands the word ויגל as describing the ease with which Jacob rolled the stone off the well.’
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