And Jacob came safely [to] the city of Shechem (33:18)
Here now in our time, when there are more infidels and haters of religion gaining power in governments, we can see the fulfillment of the words of Chazal at the end of Tractate Sota (49:), that before the coming of the Messiah kingdoms and governments will support heresy and immorality, and they will poke fun and laugh off all those who continue to live a moral and principled life the way they have been doing for millennia.
At such a time it is worth mentioning a nice parable, brought in the name of Zaddikim, who explained the situation in our time by way of this parable:
Once upon a time there was a great king, who owned a large island in the middle of the sea. The island soil was fine, they could sow and grow there healthy grain for eating, as well as strong trees for building. The king sent a large group of inhabitants to stay there for several years, to grow grain and plant trees that they could bring for the inhabitants of his country.
There was one drawback to this island. It grew a kind of plant, which could be made into a very sweet 'chocolate', which when eaten had a very unparalleled taste, but it had a natural substance that caused the human mind to be confused after eating, similar to the common dangerous drugs banned by governments. Therefore the king warned that by no means should this plant be grown or eaten.
In the beginning most of them heeded the king's warning, and only a few people ate from the plant and went mad. But after a while, some evil people sowed a lot of fields with these plants, and made it an excellent 'chocolate' for sale. They made a big publicity about the magnitude of the pleasure of eating it, and thus managed to get more and more people addicted to it and get used to eating it every day, until most of the people on the island went crazy from it and started acting like zombies.
This caused great destruction there. They forgot about the king, and stopped working. They also stopped eating healthy foods and taking medications for illness. They tore their clothes, and rolled in the mud. They could even jump from a roof, and break their legs, without realizing that breaking their legs is a result of the jump. And so they did other dangerous things that caused them great damage to their bodies and property.
There was one sage there, who gathered his family and said to them: "I am sure you are wise enough to be careful not to transgress the warning of the good king who warned us in our favor not to eat this 'chocolate', which has pleasure for a few moments but it brings disaster and very great damage. But I'm afraid we'll soon be the only ones not to eat, and all the crazy residents will joke that we are crazy not behaving like everyone else, and then some of us might think that maybe we really are crazy and not them. Especially when all the neighbors will always be walking around with the 'chocolate', and we inevitably get into us its smell, which also causes a bit confusion to the mind, and then there will be stupid acts that we will not understand for ourselves why it is not worth doing."
And the sage went on to say: "Therefore, I have come to the decision, that we will take upon ourselves to study every day the lawbook of our country, and also the chronicles of our ancestors, so that we will always remember that we behave on the straight and good path that everyone behaved all the years before they went crazy."
After a few years, when the king's emissaries came to bring the people back to their country, they found that everyone had become mad and sick and deformed, and only the sage and his family remained healthy, and only they did their job to sow grain and trees for the country. When the king learned of this, he greatly enjoyed the fact that they remained faithful to his instructions despite the great temptation, and paid them a very large wage.
This parable for example is the situation today in this world:
God the King of the world sent human beings to this world, which with their good deeds here they nourish all the angels and all the higher worlds, as explained in the Holy Zohar.
For more than three thousand years, our grandparents who were not fools, lived with faith in the Creator of the world and in His commandments. Most of the nations of the world also endeavored to keep in principle the main commandments of the sons of Noah, and believed in reward and punishment from heaven. Only about two hundred years ago did people begin to spread heresy and immorality that the Creator warned us to stay away from, and eventually came to the situation we now see in our time, that most people act like lunatics, chasing harmful temporary pleasures.
At such a time we must learn from the leadership of our ancestor Jacob. He was around Esau and Laban and other wicked people who joked about him, as it is said in this affair "and a 'man' will fight with him", that Eisav's angel fought against Jacob with the claim that Jacob must act like a 'man' between people, and not to be a fool. But Jacob overcame them and was not attracted to them, by setting times for the Torah every day, that the Holy Torah reminds man of who a truly sane man is.
It can also be said, that he also had this very same temptation when living in the city of Nablus, where there were theft, incest and bloodshed, as explained in Rashi in Parashat Vayishev (37:14). Therefore, scripture tells us: "And Jacob came complete [to] the city of Shechem" - "Complete in his body, complete in his finances, complete in his teachings." Even in such an environment he continued to behave like a sane man, and to be whole in his body and money, by being whole in his teachings.
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