Parashat Vayetze

The portion talks about Jacob leaving Israel, exiting his comfort zone, entering a strange place, hitting obstacles, overcoming those obstacles using cold hard rocks, then dreaming big about a ladder that bridges between the ground (execution) and the skies (your vision)

This weeks Torah Portion is called Vayetze, וַיֵּצֵא which means “He left” and the Torah talks about Jacob our forefather leaving Israel and going to a place called Haran.

Anyone that takes a glance at the beginning of the portion will notice there are a lot of verbs. The verbs are very interesting; he left, he came, he slept he dreamt, he hit,… all kinds of different verbs. What do they mean?

The story continues that as Jacob arrives in Haran he places rocks around his head lays his head on the ground and dreams of a ladder, with Angels going up and down to the heavens.

So Jacob leaves his comfort zone he leaves Israel to go to Haran. Lesson number one what is the first thing that he does, he hits the place what do you hit? You hit obstacles, and how do you defend yourself? What does Jacob do to defend himself, to protect himself from these obstacles? He puts cold hard rocks around himself. To overcome those obstacles.

Then the Torah describes the sun setting and night coming down on Jacob. Hard times, and what does he do? He dreams, his vision, and what’s the vision? The vision is a ladder, climbing not a little high but all the way up to the heavens. A big freaking vision. I think you know where I am going with this. All entrepreneurs will tell you; there are many obstacles along the way. Use all your resources at your disposal, cold hard tock to overcome those obstacles

And even more so if the Angels going up and down between the execution and the high vision, between skies and the ground. If you examine the beginning of this weeks Torah Portion with the lens of an entrepreneur, you’ll notice those verbs accurately describe the life of every startup

Leave your comfort zone, hit obstacles overcome obstacles dream big but don’t just leave it as a vision, climb down the ladder and execute.