- On the eve of his departure from Beer Sheva, Jacob dreams of a stairwell/ladder(?) reaching from earth to heaven. In this dream, God tells Jacob of his future and promises to bring him back to his homeland.
- Arrival in Haran and reunion with his uncle, Laban
- 7 years of labor for the hand of Rachel.
- Deception... Leah!
- 7 years more of labor for the hand of Rachel
- Birth of 4 sons to Leah. 2 sons to Bilha, 2 sons to Zilpah, 2 more sons and a daughter to Leah... and finally Rachel births Joseph.
- Jacob asks his uncle/father-in-law to part ways and go home with his crew.
- Laban deception and trickery of the spotted flock
- Magical rod undoes the trickery but creates drama and tension between Jacob and Laban's family.
- Jacob it told by God to leave, the whole family agrees to secretly depart.
- Rachel steals one of her father's idols.
- Laban pursues them, more drama ensues.
- Jacob and Laban agree to part ways and erect a stone pillar as a sign of goodwill.
The lens we will look at is the relationship between Jacob and Laban, his uncle and later father-in-law. The larger focal question is: what do these two characters give and take from one another; how does their relationship over the 14 years shape Jacob and what will it later contribute to the evolution of his character in the later half of his adult life. Does Laban offer Jacob a reflective surface on which to place his own shortcomings? What is the larger take away of introducing an character such as this to the narrative?
Let's look at this parsha as the intermediary point in the life of Jacob. He has escaped to his uncle's home, seeking a fresh start, a wife (or two), some self-sufficiency, and maybe some start-up funds to begin to set out his own.
If we look at the word 'VaYetze', what can we learn? How is this compared to the title of he grandfather Abram's beginnings, 'Lech Lecha'?
How can we see the above as a commentary on 'adulting'?
What are parts of Jacob's past and family dynamics that he carries with him as he forges his own way? How does he begin his new chapter?
(י) וַיֵּצֵ֥א יַעֲקֹ֖ב מִבְּאֵ֣ר שָׁ֑בַע וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ חָרָֽנָה׃
(10) Jacob left Beer-sheba, and set out for Haran.
Jacob embarks on a journey away from his parents after their bidding and in the course of 20 years in Harran, he marries four wives, has 12 children and amasses a fortune.
This is a journey that is pointedly different from his grandfather‘s originating journey: the Lech Lecha wandering to the place yet to be shown, the place of promise and destiny. Jacob does not simply "go", he "leaves."
Jacob‘s journey has a clearly delineated beginning and end. But its purpose is ambiguous. His parents both trigger his journey but with very different motivations. Rebecca warns him that Esau is out to kill him in revenge and sends him to her brother, Laban, in Haran. Isaac too summons Jacob and commands him to "go up to Paden Aram". And in leaving, Jacob obeys both parents.
Neither “fleeing “nor “going", however, is emphasized in the title word. Rashi questions the purpose of this opening clause. He offers a classic Midrashic response:
ויצא [AND JACOB] WENT OUT—It need have written simply “And Jacob went to Haran’’; why then does it mention his departure from Beersheba? But it intends to tell us that the departure of a righteous person from his city makes an impression. As long as a righteous man is in his city he is its glory and splendour and beauty; when he leaves it, there depart also its glory, its splendour and its beauty. This, too, is the meaning of (Ruth 1:7) “And she went forth out of the place”, stated in reference to Naomi and Ruth (Genesis Rabbah 68:6).
On one level, this midrash is communicating the perception of absence. There is an imprint, a new awareness of the greatness of a person precisely when his physical presence is removed. The imprint, the full awareness of the indispensable person, is known only after he has removed himself from his place.
Rashi speaks of a void left behind Jacob as he begins his journey. But perhaps void is in Jacob, as well. As he “goes out “of his place, a vacuum separates him from his origins, a kind of necessary detachment. If Jacob is to find a wife, he must separate himself from his parents, body, mind, and heart. In this case, and by contrast with his father, who waited at home for his mate to come towards him, Jacob has to undertake a journey, if he is to marry at all. This is clearly more than a physical journey: it involves a movement away from the essential place of family and destiny, in order to fulfill, not only his father‘s bidding…
In Jacob’s case, the issue becomes explicit and central to his whole life. In order to later found the “house of Israel “, he leaves his parents' house. A unitary innocence is abandoned. He begins his life as “a mild man who stayed in camp “… then comes a moment of “going out “of birth into the external world; he must leave his parents home...
Laban
When we do a close reading of Laban - it is clear that he is set up as the villain and antagonist to Jacob. Finding ways, throughout the parsha, to block his successes and make it very hard for him to forge ahead. His actions and motivations seem to be wholly against Jacob in a way that is far more actively toxic than anything Esau ever attempted back in Canaan. Looking at the text and commentary below, let's see if we can try to understand what Laban's motives are, why he is painted as the arch nemesis to his nephew/son-in-law and why the Torah cast a family member as a foil to Jacob?
(כה) וַיְהִ֕י כַּאֲשֶׁ֛ר יָלְדָ֥ה רָחֵ֖ל אֶת־יוֹסֵ֑ף וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יַעֲקֹב֙ אֶל־לָבָ֔ן שַׁלְּחֵ֙נִי֙ וְאֵ֣לְכָ֔ה אֶל־מְקוֹמִ֖י וּלְאַרְצִֽי׃ (כו) תְּנָ֞ה אֶת־נָשַׁ֣י וְאֶת־יְלָדַ֗י אֲשֶׁ֨ר עָבַ֧דְתִּי אֹֽתְךָ֛ בָּהֵ֖ן וְאֵלֵ֑כָה כִּ֚י אַתָּ֣ה יָדַ֔עְתָּ אֶת־עֲבֹדָתִ֖י אֲשֶׁ֥ר עֲבַדְתִּֽיךָ׃ (כז) וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֵלָיו֙ לָבָ֔ן אִם־נָ֛א מָצָ֥אתִי חֵ֖ן בְּעֵינֶ֑יךָ נִחַ֕שְׁתִּי וַיְבָרְכֵ֥נִי יְהֹוָ֖ה בִּגְלָלֶֽךָ׃ (כח) וַיֹּאמַ֑ר נׇקְבָ֧ה שְׂכָרְךָ֛ עָלַ֖י וְאֶתֵּֽנָה׃
(25) After Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Give me leave to go back to my own homeland. (26) Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, that I may go; for well you know what services I have rendered you.” (27) But Laban said to him, “If you will indulge me,*If you will indulge me Lit. “If I have found favor in your eyes.” I have learned by divination that יהוה has blessed me on your account.” (28) And he continued, “Name the wages due from me, and I will pay you.”
(29) But he said, “You know well how I have served you and how your livestock has fared with me. (30) For the little you had before I came has grown to much, since יהוה has blessed you wherever I turned. And now, when shall I make provision for my own household?” (31) He said, “What shall I pay you?” And Jacob said, “Pay me nothing! If you will do this thing for me, I will again pasture and keep your flocks: (32) let me pass through your whole flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted animal—every dark-colored sheep and every spotted and speckled goat. Such shall be my wages.
(1) Now he heard the things that Laban’s sons were saying: “Jacob has taken all that was our father’s, and from that which was our father’s he has built up all this wealth.” (2) Jacob also saw that Laban’s manner toward him was not as it had been in the past. (3) Then יהוה said to Jacob, “Return to your ancestors’ land—where you were born—and I will be with you.” (4) Jacob had Rachel and Leah called to the field, where his flock was, (5) and said to them, “I see that your father’s manner toward me is not as it has been in the past. But the God of my father’s [house] has been with me. (6) As you know, I have served your father with all my might; (7) but your father has cheated me, changing my wages time and again.*time and again Lit. “ten times.” God, however, would not let him do me harm. (8) If he said thus, ‘The speckled shall be your wages,’ then all the flocks would drop speckled young; and if he said thus, ‘The streaked shall be your wages,’ then all the flocks would drop streaked young.
What is it that gives him this unsavoury moniker?
Let's examine his behaviour towards Yaakov:
Laban begins by seeming like a friend.
He offers Jacob refuge when he is in flight from Esau, who has vowed to kill him.
He profits off Jacob, promising his daughter's hand in marriage and then cheats him by substituting her sister.
Jacob ends up working for his uncle for a period of 20 years and then -
Laban’s sons accuse him of getting rich at their father's expense
Lavan his uncle, it will be recalled, had welcomed the hapless refugee into his ostensibly benign embrace only to later commit a series of outrageous deceptions against him over the course of the next twenty years. Beguiled concerning his wives, Lavan's daughters, and his wages, from Lavan's flocks, Yaakov inevitably found himself in the uncomfortable and unenviable position of becoming Lavan's indentured bondman. Only by a stroke of Divine intervention and by utilizing the element of surprise was Yaakov able to escape Lavan's clutches and return home to Canaan.
...Lavan was not simply a charlatan of limited capabilities. In fact, Lavan showed himself to be a rogue of unusual skill, able to manipulate both his victims as well as outside observers by employing a carefully concocted combination of superficial familial concern, feigned civic sensitivity and a pretentious moral conscience. To all appearances as white and blameless as his appellation, Lavan was in fact composed of more menacing stuff. In the end, he would have carried out his threat to destroy Yaakov and his family had God not warned him in an unusual nocturnal vision to 'be careful not to say anything to Yaakov, neither good nor bad' (Bereishit 31:29).
Thus, after twenty long and arduous years, the two of them parted, Yaakov continuing westwards to Canaan and Lavan returning to his ancestral home in the lands of the east. Why did God bring them together? What mark did those twenty years leave on their respective lives? Surely Lavan indicates by his conduct up until the very end of his affiliation with Yaakov that in those two remarkable decades for both men, he has changed not one iota.
Yaakov, on the other hand, has acquired in the interim wives, children, flocks and followers - in short the makings of a nascent nation. But has he achieved nothing else, is his character unaltered and his faith no more refined? Or, perhaps, does he leave Aram with more than material accomplishments, embarking upon a dynamic spiritual trajectory that will in the end transform him?
(ב) וְכֵן יַעֲקֹב, כָּל זְמַן שֶׁהָיָה בְבֵית לָבָן לֹא הָיָה הַדִּבּוּר נִגְלֶה עָלָיו. אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁהִבְטִיחַ וְאָמַר לוֹ הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי עִמָּךְ, אָמַר הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, אֵינִי יָכוֹל לְטַמֵּא אֶת כְּבוֹדִי בְּבֵית לָבָן הָרָשָׁע. אֶלָּא מָה אֲנִי עוֹשֶׂה, מִשָּׁעָה שֶׁהוּא פוֹרֵשׁ מִמֶּנּוּ, אֲנִי מְקַיֵּם אֶת דְּבָרִי וְאֶהְיֶה עִמּוֹ. וְהָיָה יַעֲקֹב מְהַרְהֵר בְּלִבּוֹ וְאוֹמֵר: לֹא כָךְ אָמַר לִי, כִּי לֹא אֶעֱזָבְךָ. אָמַר לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, מְבַקֵּשׁ אַתָּה שֶׁאֶהְיֶה עִמָּךְ, צֵא מִבֵּית לָבָן וְשׁוּב אֶל אֶרֶץ אֲבוֹתֶיךָ.
(2) Similarly, as long as Jacob resided in Laban’s home, the divine word did not reveal itself to him, even though He had assured him: And, behold, I am with thee (Gen. 28:15). The Holy One, blessed be He, said: Since I must not profane My divine glory by entering the home of the wicked Laban, what shall I do? At the very moment he leaves him, I shall fulfill My promise and be with him. Jacob reflected upon this, saying to himself: Did He not promise me I shall not forsake thee (ibid.)? Thereupon the Holy One, blessed be He, replied: If you desire that I be with you, then depart from Laban’s house and Return unto the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred, and I will be with thee (ibid. 31:13).
(3) על בלי הגיד לו, the word על here is used as in על עולת התמיד in Numbers 28,10 where it means: “with, in addition to.” Yaakov acted as if unaware of Lavan’s hatred in addition to not informing him of his intended departure. All of this was not exactly in accordance with accepted norms of conduct, but as dictated by sheer necessity, his survival instinct.
כי בורח הוא; out of fear that Lavan would rob him with the aid of the people of his town. He said so to Lavan later when explaining his decision and his actions.
צֵא וּלְמַד מַה בִּקֵּשׁ לָבָן הָאֲרַמִּי לַעֲשׂוֹת לְיַעֲקֹב אָבִינוּ: שֶׁפַּרְעֹה לֹא גָזַר אֶלָּא עַל הַזְּכָרִים, וְלָבָן בִּקֵּשׁ לַעֲקֹר אֶת־הַכֹּל. שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי, וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה וַיָּגָר שָׁם בִּמְתֵי מְעָט, וַיְהִי־שָׁם לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל עָצוּם וָרָב.
וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה – אָנוּס עַל פִּי הַדִּבּוּר. וַיָּגָר שָׁם. מְלַמֵּד שֶׁלֹא יָרַד יַעֲקֹב אָבִינוּ לְהִשְׁתַּקֵּעַ בְּמִצְרַיִם אֶלָּא לָגוּר שָׁם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֶל־פַּרְעֹה, לָגוּר בָּאָרֶץ בָּאנוּ, כִּי אֵין מִרְעֶה לַצֹּאן אֲשֶׁר לַעֲבָדֶיךָ, כִּי כָבֵד הָרָעָב בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן, וְעַתָּה יֵשְׁבוּ־נָא עֲבָדֶיךָ בְּאֶרֶץ גֹּשֶן.
צֵא וּלְמַד GO AND LEARNwhat Laban the Aramean sought to do to our father Jacob:Pharaoh condemned only the boys to death, but Laban sought to uproot everything,as it is written:
“AN ARAMEAN SOUGHT MY FATHER'S DEATH, AND HE WENT DOWN TO EGYPT AND RESIDED THERE...
(2) ארמי אבד אבי A SYRIAN DESTROYED MY FATHER — He mentions the loving kindness of the Omnipresent saying, ארמי אבד אבי, a Syrian destroyed my father, which means: “Laban wished to exterminate the whole nation” (cf. the Haggadah for Passover) when he pursued Jacob. Because he intended to do it the Omnipresent accounted it unto him as though he had actually done it (and therefore the expression אבד which refers to the past is used), for as far as the nations of the world are concerned the Holy One, blessed be He, accounts unto them intention as an actual deed (cf. Sifrei Devarim 301:3; Onkelos).
The Character of Jacob
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks ztz"l
The text is fraught with accusation and counteraccusation. Laban and Jacob both feel cheated. They both believe that the flocks and herds are rightfully theirs. They both regard themselves as the victim of the other’s deceitfulness. The end result is that Jacob finds himself forced to run away from Laban as he was earlier forced to run away from Esau, in both cases in fear of his life.
So the question returns. What kind of man was Jacob? He seems anything but an ish tam, a straightforward man. And surely this is not the way for a religious role model to behave – in such a way that first his father, then his brother, then his father-in-law, accuse him of deceit. What kind of story is the Torah telling us in the way it narrates the life of Jacob?
...
That, it seems to me, is what Jacob represents in this, the early phase of his life. He enters the world as the younger of two twins. His brother is strong, ruddy, hairy, a skilful hunter, a man of the open country, whereas Jacob is quiet, a scholar. Then he must confront the fact that his father loves his brother more than him. Then he finds himself at the mercy of Laban, a possessive, exploitative, and deceptive figure who takes advantage of his vulnerability. Jacob is the man who – as almost all of us do at some time or other – finds that life is unfair.
What Jacob shows, by his sheer quick-wittedness, is that the strength of the strong can also be their weakness. So it is when Esau comes in exhausted from the hunt, famished, that he is willing to impulsively trade his birthright for some soup. So it is when the blind Isaac is prepared to bless the son who will bring him venison to eat. So it is when Laban hears the prospect of getting Jacob’s labour for free. Every strength has its Achilles’ heel, its weakness, and this can be used by the weak to gain victory over the strong.
Jacob represents the refusal of the weak to accept the hierarchy created by the strong. His acts are a form of defiance, an insistence on the dignity of the weak (vis-a-vis Esau), the less loved (by Isaac), and the refugee (in Laban’s house). In this sense he is one element of what, historically, it has been like to be a Jew.