The first Rashi on this week’s parsha highlights the interruption we just had at the end of last week’s parsha, in the story of Yaakov and his escape from Beer Sheva to Charan, to avoid Eisav’s wrath.  Last week’s parsha already told us that Yaakov was leaving and going to Lavan’s house, so why does this parsha start with a re-cap? Rashi tells us that our story has been interrupted to report that after Eisav heard Yitzchak instructing Yaakov to marry a wife from the “family back home,” he decided to do similarly and married a cousin.  After those 2psukim are done, the Torah here reminds us where we are in the story, as if to say: Anyway, where were we? Aaahhh yes, Yaakov left Beer Sheva to go to Charan.

So now that we understand the restating of Yaakov’s departure, we just have to answer why the Torah interrupted the story at all? What does Eisav marrying a cousin have to do with our main story.

Rabbi Yosef Salant, of Yerushalayim, answers that Yaakov represents the Jew in Galut. And we know the principle that “maaseh avot siman l’banim” – all that happened to our forefathers is a sign/foretelling of what will be for future generations.” Here we are given a contrast between Eisav and the Jew. Whereas for Yaakov, life was hard and finding a mate was hard (and took 2 tries!) and much of his life was spent on the run, life for Eisav was easy; he stayed at home, decided to marry, found “her” easily and was able to set up his life rather easily. That’s how it is! We have always found it hard to settle down and find peace, and we were on the run for many centuries. What gave Yaakov the strength to survive and feel content were his belief that Hashem was with him and his commitment to creating a God-centric life and raising his children to fear G-d.  And that is what continues to guide and strengthen us - our belief and faith in G-d. In addition we have merited to witness the return of Our Land to Bnei Yisrael which gives us a glimmer of hope that the 2,000 year old galut is coming to an end.