Kommentar zu Bereschit 28:21

ושבתי SO THAT I RETURN — even as He said (v. 15) “I will restore thee again into this land” (Genesis Rabbah 70:4),

THEN THE ETERNAL SHALL BE MY G-D. This is not a condition, as Rashi would have it. It is rather a vow, and its purport is as follows: “If I will return to my father’s house, I will worship the proper Name of the Eternal in the Chosen Land at the location of this stone which will be for me a house of G-d, and there I will set aside the tithe.” There is in this matter a secret relating to that which the Rabbis have said:⁵⁸Kethuboth 110b. “He who dwells outside the Land of Israel is like one who has no G-d.” [Thus, according to the meaning of the above quotation, the Eternal will be Jacob’s G-d only when he returns to the Land of Israel.]

ושבתי בשלום, in accordance with G’d’s promise in verse 15.

ושבתי בשלום, from all the problems besetting man, i.e. a reference to what the Talmud had called רוח רעה.

והיה ה׳ לי לאלוקים. "Then Hashem will be my Lord." This sounds, G'd forbid, as if until now Hashem had not been Jacob's G'd. Rashi explains that Jacob meant that G'd would not find any of his children as morally unfit. I do not know where such a thought is alluded to in Jacob's words. [actually Rashi quotes a Sifri in Parshat Va-Etchanan section 31. Ed.] Besides such a promise, i.e. that his children would be morally fit, is at best a conditional promise [seeing that the matter lies within the will-power of the children, Ed.]. When would the stone then be able to serve as a monument for this encounter Jacob experienced during his dream? The proper explanation of what Jacob said is that he was prepared to conduct himself in such a way that G'd would consent to associate His name with him even during his lifetime. He had previously done this with Abraham after the latter's death and with Isaac only after he had become blind and therefore beyond the reach of the evil urge (compare verse 13). The words לי לאלוקים are clear evidence of Jacob's intention. This was a tremendous undertaking by Jacob. You will find in Genesis 33,20 that G'd reminded him of that undertaking and that Jacob then fulfilled this vow by erecting a monument in G'd's honour.

ושבתי בשלום, with his wife and children, for without them neither he, his father, or his mother would consider themselves at peace, seeing that he was forbidden to marry one of the Canaanite girls.

והיה ה' לי לאלוקים, “the Lord will then be even my G’d as attribute of Justice.” According to Rashi, these words are a continuation of those that preceded them, i.e. the words אם יהיה אלוקים עמדי, so that Yaakov is saying that once the Lord will be his G’d in practice, having displayed His personal benevolent providence to Yaakov by extending His protection to him, he will convert this stone into a house of worship for that G’d where he will bring the tithes that he spoke about. Some commentators understand the words ושבתי בשלום אל בית אבי, “and I will return hale and hearty to my father’s house, etc.,” as the source of the halachic ruling that travelers, while engaged on their journeys, are relieved from the need to perform certain commandments that would make their getting home safely more difficult.

ושבתי בשלום אל בית אבי, “and I shall return in peace to my father’s house, etc.” We notice that every detail which formed part of Yaakov’s vow and whatever he mentioned was fulfilled for him. When he asked G’d ושמרני בדרך, “and He will watch over me on the journey,” G’d most certainly watched over him and protected him. As to his request for לחם, bread or food, this was a reference to the women whom he married. The term לחם to describe someone’s wife is used by Joseph (Genesis 39,6) when he told the wife of his master Potiphar that the only thing in his household Potiphar had withheld from him was הלחם אשר הוא אוכל, “the bread which he eats.” Another instance where לחם, bread, is used to describe someone’s wife, is found in Exodus 2,2 where Yitro tells his daughters to invite Moses so that “he may eat bread.” He did not mean to invite him merely to eat bread but to let him marry one of his seven unmarried daughters.
As to Yaakov’s request for clothes to wear, this was part of his wealth when he had large flocks of sheep which provided him with wool. His request to return to his father’s home safely and in good health was answered when we read in 33,18 ויבא יעקב שלם, “Yaakov arrived home safely.” As to Yaakov fulfilling his part of the bargain and making אלוקים his G’d [ to make the attribute of Justice the yardstick by which G’d would measure him; Ed.] this is referred to in the Torah in 33,20 where we read: ויקרא לו קל אלוקי ישראל, “Yaakov called G’d the G’d of Israel.”

Completely free from sin... This too was part of Hashem’s promises. He said (v. 15), “...Until I have done what I spoke to you,” on which Rashi explains: “In your interest and concerning you.” And if Yaakov would not be free of sin, but would learn from Lavan, then Hashem’s promises surely would not be fulfilled. For all Hashem’s promises are on condition that sin should not cause [their nonfulfillment]. (Nachalas Yaakov)

בשלום IN PEACE, perfectly free (שלם) from sin, not having learnt evil from Laban’s ways,

והיה ה' לי לאלוקים, to assist me in all my undertakings.

והיה ה' לי לאלוקים, then G’d will be a judge, and He can examine to see if I did not fulfill my vow to the best of my ability. The letter ו at the beginning of the word והיה, [where we would perhaps have expected Yaakov to use an ordinary future tense such as יהיה, Ed.], may be in lieu of the word הנה, meaning that Yaakov would already from now on act on the assumption that G’d would provide him with the necessities he had asked for and therefore he was willing to be judged by the attribute of Justice, not relying on the attribute of Mercy.

והיה ה' לי לאלוקים, this was the gist of the vow, meaning that he would concentrate on the service of the Lord and minimise any mundane activities. Furthermore, he vowed that he would build an altar on the place where he had slept on the stone which he had just anointed.
יהיה בית אלוקים, he would build a Temple and altar there so that anyone worshipping the Lord could come there and pray and offer his sacrifices on that altar. It would be a Temple for the G’d in heaven only. Another way of understanding these words could be that he would instruct his children to build a Temple there in the future when they would take possession of the land of Israel.
A further vow Yaakov made at this time was: וכל אשר תתן לי עשר אעשרנו לך, I will give a tithe of all the acquisitions including the cattle which You will give me. I will distribute this tithe to needy people in order to encourage them to switch to monotheism. According to Bereshit Rabbah 70,7 the vow included tithing one of his future children to G’d, i.e. appointing him as a servant of the Lord representing the other sons. [As an interesting aside, the Midrash there claims that assigning only one of 12, respectively 14 sons, if we add Ephrayim and Menashe, Yaakov did not “tithe” i.e. give 10% of his children to the Lord, he is reported as having replied that seeing that each of his four wives had one firstborn, someone whose duty it was as a firstborn to devote himself to spiritual matters without his father “donating” him to G’d for such a task, he Yaakov had done well to additionally assign Levi as a “tithe” for the remaining 10 “children.” Ed.] As to the formulation:

והיה ה' לי לאלהים AND IF THE LORD WILL BE MY GOD, in that His Name shall rest upon me from the beginning to the end: that no unworthy person shall be found in my descendants (Sifré, ואתחנן 31) — just as it is said (v. 15), “I will do that which I spake concerning thee”; and this promise He made to Abraham, as it is said (17:7) “To be a God unto thee and unto thy seed after thee”,

עשר אעשרנו לך, as a grammatically unusual formulation, this is an accepted formulation as we find it also confirmed in Deuteronomy 11,13 with the same verb, or in Deuteronomy 14,22 שמור תשמרון with a different verb. There are many similar examples of this kind of repetition for emphasis. Our sages in Ketuvot 50 use the formulation used in this verse as teaching that even if one wants to be generous in his donations to charity and holy causes, one should not give away more than 20% of one’s wealth in order not to become an object of charity himself because of carelessly squandering wealth given to one by G’d. The wordsעשר אעשרנו are understood by the Talmud there as applying to two such tithes of 10% each.