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As Parashat VaYetze opens, Ya’akov Avinu flees his murder-minded brother Eisav. The parasha splits neatly into three units, as Abravanel points out:

We will focus primarily on the interactions of Ya’akov and Lavan throughout the parasha. Our main assumptions and main questions will be the following:

The Ya’akov we left at the end of Parashat Toledot was a person who came off significantly better than his brother Eisav, but who still displayed characteristics which left us wondering about his style in dealing with challenges. In particular, we were left wondering about his honesty and straightforwardness. But as we follow him through the events of Parashat VaYetze and VaYishlah, we will be able to watch as he overcomes his earlier personal obstacles and exhibits characteristics truly worthy of emulation.

As readers of the Torah, we are not patronizingly observing Ya’akov as he mends his ways; we should be joining him in this odyssey, and, I would suggest, may need to learn these lessons more than he.

Parashat VaYetze begins with Ya’akov journeying from home—Be’er Sheva—to the house of Uncle Lavan in Haran. Ostensibly, he is headed for Haran to accomplish two goals: one, to escape the murderous wrath of his brother Eisav, from whom he has usurped the blessings of the firstborn, and two, to find a wife among the daughters of Lavan. But as we will see, he must also go to Haran in order to spend twenty years under the careful tutelage of Lavan; Ya’akov has a lot to learn from his uncle, the grand-daddy of all swindlers.

Before we take a careful look at the interactions between Ya’akov and Lavan in the parasha, we should just take note of a few interesting patterns. These patterns deserve more development than we will give them, but we leave that for another time.

The first pattern is a reversal of something we’ve seen before: Ya’akov leaves Cana’an, the future Land of Israel, heading for an uncertain future in unfamiliar territory. Avraham, his grandfather, faced the same situation as he *entered* Cana’an in obedience to Hashem’s command. Both grandfather and grandson leave their homeland and birthplace; both grandfather and grandson receive a blessing from Hashem at this uncertain time. Note the great similarity of the two blessings:

BERESHIT 12:2-3 -- “I shall make you a great nation, and bless you, and make your name great, and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you, and ALL THE NATIONS OF THE LAND SHALL BE BLESSED THROUGH YOU . . .” (14-15) Hashem said to Avram, after Lot had departed from him, “Raise your eyes and look, from the place you are, TO THE NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, AND WEST, for all the land you see, I SHALL GIVE IT TO YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN FOREVER. I SHALL MAKE YOUR CHILDREN LIKE THE DUST OF THE EARTH . . . .”

BERESHIT 28:12-14 -- He dreamed: there was a ladder standing on the ground, with its head reaching the heavens, and angels of Hashem ascending and descending it. Hashem stood upon it, and said, “I am Hashem, Lord of Avraham, your father, and Lord of Yitzhak. The land you are lying upon—I SHALL GIVE IT TO YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN. YOUR CHILDREN SHALL BE LIKE THE DUST OF THE EARTH, and you shall burst forth TO THE WEST, EAST, NORTH, AND SOUTH; THROUGH YOU, ALL THE NATIONS OF THE LAND SHALL BE BLESSED, AND THROUGH YOUR CHILDREN.”

Ya’akov’s return journey to Cana’an at the end of the parasha also echoes the journey of his grandfather to Cana’an:

BERESHIT 12:1 -- Hashem said to Avram, “Go FROM YOUR LAND, your BIRTHPLACE, your FATHER’S house, to the land I will show you.”

BERESHIT 31:3 -- Hashem said to Ya’akov, “Return to the LAND OF YOUR FATHERS, to your BIRTHPLACE, and I shall be with you.”

Ya’akov has come full circle by the end of the parasha, both paralleling and reversing patterns of his grandfather’s life. In leaving home, Avraham journeys from Aram to Cana’an, while Ya’akov, in leaving home, journeys from Cana’an to Aram. Leaving his life behind and moving to Cana’an is what enables Avraham to achieve his personal religious mission. In some parallel way—as we will see—leaving his life behind and moving to Aram is what enables Ya’akov to achieve his own personal religious mission.

What does Ya’akov gain from living in Lavan’s household for twenty years? At first, from a cursory reading of the latter part of the parasha, the answer seems obvious: lots of sheep! Using his cleverness, he makes himself rich by shepherding Lavan’s flock of sheep and reserving certain types of animals for himself. But in terms of his personal religious and moral development, what has he gained over this period?

Not long after Ya’akov’s arrival in Haran, Lavan generously offers to pay him for his services as a shepherd. Uncle and nephew arrange that Ya’akov will work for Lavan for seven years to earn the hand of Lavan’s beautiful younger daughter, Rahel. The seven years pass like days for the eager Ya’akov, but Lavan has a surprise waiting for Ya’akov at the ‘altar’:

Lavan gathered all the local people and made a party. In the evening, he took Le’ah, his daughter, and brought her to him [Ya’akov], and he came to her . . . . In the morning, there was Le’ah! He said to Lavan, “What is this that you have done to me? Was it not for Rahel that I worked for you? Why have you deceived me?!” Lavan said, “It is not done, here, to place the younger before the older. Finish out this week, and the other one [Rahel] will be given to you also for work that you do for me, for another seven years.”

Lavan paints the episode as a misunderstanding. He had “assumed” that Ya’akov had understood that the elder daughter had to be married off first, and that Ya’akov had known that the woman he had married the night before had been Le’ah. How could anyone have thought otherwise? Of course, Rahel as well can be Ya’akov’s if he wants her—but only for the going rate: seven more years! Lavan, of course, knows blessed hands when he sees them, and he sees them on Ya’akov, as he himself notes later on in the parasha. He will do whatever is necessary to keep his nephew working for him and making him rich.

But Lavan’s language is a bit more pointed than this. He stresses that it is not done “HERE” to place the younger before the older. Lavan may not consciously intend to imply that there *is* a place where the younger *is* put before the older, but his language cannot fail to remind Ya’akov (and us) of the events of the previous parasha, when Ya’akov placed himself, the younger, before Eisav, the older. Lavan may be aware of this misdeed (the Torah tells us that upon his arrival, Ya’akov informs Lavan of “all these matters”), and reminds Ya’akov of it in order to silence him. But his motivation in deceiving Ya’akov is not avenge the wrong done to Yitzhak and Eisav (the picture of Lavan as righavenger being somewhat improbable in view of his character and his activities in our parasha!), it is to make sure that Ya’akov stays on as his right hand man. The bigger picture, however, and the one which must appear before Ya’akov’s eyes at this time, is that he has just received his wages, ‘mida ke-neged mida,’ measure for measure. He is being punished for his deceit, for usurping the blessings from his older brother.

Being on the receiving end of a deception of this proportion is a learning experience for Ya’akov. Not only has justice been served in a retributive sense, but Ya’akov, in his bitterness at what has been done to him, also begins to appreciate the bitterness of Eisav’s cry upon discovering that his blessings have been taken. As the sunrise stuns him with the revelation that the woman with whom he has shared intimacy is Le’ah and not the beloved Rahel, he begins to understand the “harada gedola ad me’od,” the great trembling fear, which gripped Yitzhak when he realized he had been duped and blessed the wrong son. One of the reasons Ya’akov has been delivered by divine plan into Lavan’s custody is so that he can appreciate what it means to be the victim of a swindle. And one of the reasons Ya’akov is silent, that he accepts Lavan’s terms, is because he realizes that Lavan has been the vehicle to deliver his punishment and teach him a lesson.

This is not a just a slap on the wrist. Lavan’s deceit all but guarantees that Ya’akov will never be happy in marriage. He can either agree to work another seven years in order to marry Rahel—in which case he can be sure that the two sisters will fill his life with conflict and jealousy in their competition for affection and fertility—or he can abandon his love for Rahel and remain with Le’ah alone, frustrated with unrequited love for Rahel and bitter with lifelong resentment for the wife who married him in deceit. Ya’akov chooses to marry Rahel as well as Le’ah, and the center stage of the parasha is held by Le’ah’s despair of ever earning her husband’s love and by the jealousy and strife which erupts between the sisters over Ya’akov’s affection and over fertility. The Torah is telling us that Ya’akov pays dearly for the blessings he stole.

BERESHIT 30:30-31--

. . . And he [Ya’akov] loved Rahel more than Le’ah . . . . Hashem saw that Le’ah was despised, and opened her womb, but Rahel was barren.

Rahel is better loved, so Hashem “evens the score” by granting fertility to Leah and not to Rahel. This inequity makes no one happy, as the Torah goes on to report:

Le’ah conceived and bore a son. She called him Re’uvein [= “see, a son!”], because she said, “For Hashem has seen my suffering, for now my husband will love me.” She conceived again and bore a son. She said, “For Hashem heard [”shama”] that I am despised, and gave me also this one”, and she called his name Shimon [”listen”]. She conceived again and bore a son. She said, “Now—this time—my husband will be drawn [”laveh”] to me, because I have borne to him three sons!”, so she called his name Leivi [”drawn to me”]. She conceived again and bore a son. She said, “This time, I will praise [”odeh”] Hashem,” so she called his named Yehuda [”praise God”], and she bore no more.

Ya’akov is unmoved by Le’ah’s remarkable fertility, despite her continued success at producing sons, certainly the preferred flavor of child in those times. The Torah traces Leah’s hopes for Ya’akov’s affection as they wax through the births of the first three sons and then wane with the birth of the fourth son and Le’ah’s realization that Ya’akov will not love her for her fertility:

Name Meaning

RE’UVEIN ---> “Look! A son!”

Le’ah can communicate with her husband only through the names of her sons because children are the only path she can imagine to her husband’s affection; she knows that she alone can never attract Ya’akov, for, as the Midrash Tanhuma richly illustrates, Le’ah reminds Ya’akov of himself: just as Ya’akov executes the plan masterminded by his mother to fool his father, so Le’ah executes the plan conceived by her father to fool Ya’akov. Le’ah will always remind Ya’akov of his own guilt. Desperately, she tries to open the lines of communication by naming her sons as cries to her husband for love and attention, but by the fourth son, she senses her failure and thanks Hashem through the final name for at least giving her the chance to communicate with Ya’akov.

[In the Midrash Tanhuma, Le’ah responds to Ya’akov’s accusation of deception by reminding him of his own deception of his father; Ya’akov in turn begins to hate her; and Hashem gives Le’ah children to help her attract Ya’akov’s love.]

Rahel is not comforted to see that Le’ah’s fertility has earned her no grace in Ya’akov’s eyes. She counts four sons to Le’ah’s credit, which is four more than she can claim. She, too, becomes desperate:

Rahel saw that she had not borne to Ya’akov, and she envied her sister. She said to Ya’akov, “Give me children . . . if not, I am dead!” Ya’akov became angry at her and said, “Am I in Hashem’s place, Who has denied to you fruit of the womb?”

Barrenness would be a catastrophe under any circumstance; the fact that Rahel measures herself against another wife, and the fact that this wife is her sister, makes her struggle even more desperate. But, as Hazal point out, Ya’akov has no sympathy for her melodramatic outburst, although she is the wife he loves best.

Rahel gives her maid to Ya’akov as a wife in hopes of achieving fertility vicariously; when she does, she names her children to reflect her struggle, and in particular, her struggle with her sister (“I have struggled [”niftalti”] with my sister, and won!”). Le’ah responds by giving her own maid to Ya’akov, and the names of the children she bears reflect her rekindled effort to attract Ya’akov’s attention by having children.

Rahel and Le’ah clash once again over the duda’im, the mandrakes, which Le’ah’s son Re’uvein finds in the fields and gives to his mother. Presumably, Rahel believes in their power as a fertility drug, so she asks Le’ah for some. Le’ah explodes in frustration: “Is it a small matter that you have taken my husband, that you now want to take my son’s mandrakes as well?” Read, “You already have the love of the husband whom I want so much to love me, and now you want my help in having children so you can prevail in that category as well?!”

Le’ah eventually agrees to sell the mandrakes to Rahel for the privilege of having a night with Ya’akov, and when Ya’akov returns from a day in the fields, she informs him frankly that she has “hired him” [”sekhor sekhartikha”] for the night with her mandrakes. The Torah does not tell us how Ya’akov reacts to this information, but there must be something unpleasant about being informed by your wives that they consider sexual intimacy with you something that can be traded. Le’ah’s role in this scene is most prominent, as she purposefully meets Ya’akov as he comes from the fields and lays claim to him for the night: “You will come to me, because I have ‘hired you’ with my son’s mandrakes.”

There may be a hint of an echo in this scene to the sale of the birthright, which Ya’akov bought from Eisav for a bowl of soup. The Torah there characterizes Eisav’s attitude as “va-yivez Eisav et ha-behora”—“Eisav treated the birthright with contempt.” Perhaps Ya’akov is being punished for manipulating the impulsive, foresightless Eisav into treating the birthright with contempt by being treated with contempt himself.

Once Rahel has achieved fertility through the birth of Yosef, some stability comes to the household, and Ya’akov turns to the business of getting rich. He offers Lavan a deal too good to betrue—and it is—and proceeds to build his flocks out of the flocks of Lavan.

Ya’akov agrees with Lavan that as payment for tending Lavan’s flocks, Ya’awill keep all spotted, speckled and striped sheep produced by the flock. In order to minimize the number of sheep Ya’akov will receive, Lavan removes all of the spotted, speckled and striped sheep from the flock and sets them aside, so that even if they produce offspring like themselves, Ya’akov will not receive them since they are not part of the flocks he is tending. The Torah then describes how Ya’akov cleverly influences the genes of fetuses of the pregnant sheep by placing spotted and speckled objects in front of the sheep as they drink water from their troughs: this tactic changes the fetuses of the sheep, it seems, from plain brown or white to spotted, speckled, and striped. The result: Ya’akov walks away rich, as almost all of the sheep bear animals with the markings favorable to him.

Of course, it is generally understood nowadays that looking at things during pregnancy does not affect the characteristics of the fetus. So how was Ya’akov’s strategy effective? Was it a miracle? From the way the Torah presents Ya’akov’s activities, it certainly doesn’t sound like it. In an article in Tradition (1966, vol. 7, p. 5), Dr. William Etkin, a biologist, offered the following novel interpretation.

Later on in the story, Ya’akov describes to his wives that an angel had visited him in a dream and shown him that all of the females of Lavan’s flocks had **already** been impregnated by speckled and spotted male animals—meaning that they would produce spotted, speckled and striped offspring. Although Lavan had removed the spotted and speckled sheep from the flock to make sure Ya’akov earned little, Hashem foiled his plan by having those sheep impregnate the females before Lavan separated them off from the flock. The angel had told Ya’akov that Hashem had done this because He had seen how Lavan had mistreated Ya’akov.

Etkin suggests that this vision was a divine revelation that all of the female sheep had **already** been impregnated by speckled and spotted sheep, and it hinted to Ya’akov to suggest the “speckled and spotted” plan to Lavan as his wage plan. Lavan, of course, had no idea that the animals had already mated with the speckled and spotted males, thought Ya’akov’s plan ridiculous, and promptly removed all the speckled and spotted adult animals so that no further speckled and spotted animals would be produced from the flocks under Ya’akov’s care. All of Ya’akov’s shenanigans with peeled sticks and his other machinations to get the animals to view certain patterns of colors and shapes were only to fool Lavan and his suspicious sons, who believed (along with most other folks at the time) that viewing patterns could affect heredity. They would have been doubly suspicious if Ya’akov had not gone through these motions, and would have assumed that Ya’akov had simply stolen the spotted and speckled animals from their private store of spotted and speckled sheep.

Ya’akov continues his pattern of avoiding facing challenges directly as the parasha draws to its dramatic close. Stealing away stealthily, he and his family run away without telling Lavan they are going. He has good reasons: Lavan and his sons have become openly resentful of his growing wealth at their expense, and Hashem has commanded Ya’akov to leave Haran and return to Cana’an. Once he has become rich, he calls a conference with his wives and tells them his plans and these reasons. Normally, biblical men do not consult their wives on decisions, but since Ya’akov is planning to sneak away, he needs everyone’s agreement and cooperation. Ya’akov reveals here that Lavan has been trying to cheat him for the last six years as he builds up his own flock, and that Hashem has stood behind him and foiled Lavan’s schemes. But the Torah also communicates clearly that sneaking away is the wrong way to end this relationship:

Ya’akov STOLE the heart of Lavan the Aramean by not telling him that he was RUNNING AWAY. He RAN AWAY with all that was his; he arose and crossed the river, and turned toward Mount Gilead. It was told to Lavan on the third day that Ya’akov had RUN AWAY. He took his brothers with him and chased after him . . . .

As far as the Torah is concerned, Ya’akov’s pattern of theft continues with this flight. He stole the birthright from Eisav, stole the blessings from Yitzhak and Eisav, stole away from Be’er Sheva to avoid Eisav, and now he steals away again. The word “bore’ah” (bet, reish, het) is given special prominence here in order to remind us of an earlier “bore’ah”—when he fled from Cana’an to Aram. Just as he ran then from Eisav instead of facing him and seeking a resolution, so he now runs from Lavan instead of facing him and taking leave in a proper—although more risky—fashion. Taking leave in the normal fashion is risky because Lavan is capable of feats of deceit that Ya’akov knows he may not be able to anticipate and control. Rather than take this risk, he bolts.

Finally, after three days of pursuit, Lavan and his men confront Ya’akov. Lavan delivers an angry speech, accusing Ya’akov of two different thefts:

Lavan said to Ya’akov, “What have you done? You have *stolen* my heart! You have treated my daughters like captives of the sword! Why did you sneak to run away, *stealing* me and not telling me—I would have sent you off with gladness and songs, with timbrel and lyre! You did not allow me to kiss my sons and daughters—indeed, you have done foolishly! I have the power to do evil to you, but the God of your fathers said to me last night, ‘Take care not to speak to Ya’akov, whether good to bad.’ Now you have gone, because you wanted so much to go to your father’s house—but why have you *stolen* my gods?”

Ya’akov trades an accusation of theft for an accusation of theft, responding that he ran away because he was afraid that Lavan would *steal* his daughters away. Indeed, Lavan’s past dishonesty on the issue of his daughters supports Ya’akov’s accusation. On the question of Lavan’s stolen gods, Ya’akov is certain that Lavan has made this up and that no one from his camp has stolen them -- otherwise Ya’akov would never have pronounced a death sentence on the thief. Ya’akov invites Lavan to search his belongings.

Lavan accepts the invitation, but as he searches, Ya’akov, who is sure that this is all a charade, an excuse for Lavan to sift through his belongings, gets angrier and angrier. Finally, he explodes, and in this explosion, through the ensuing confrontation, “Ya’akov” begins to rise to “Yisrael”:

Ya’akov became enraged, and he fought with Lavan. Ya’akov began and said to Lavan, “What is my crime, what is my sin, that you have chased like a fire after me? You have felt through all of my possessions—what have you found that belongs to you? Place it here, before my brothers and your brothers, and they will judge between us! For twenty years I have been with you: your sheep and goats never lost child; I never ate your rams. I never brought you a torn animal—I took responsibility for it myself when you sought it of me, whether stolen from me during the day or night. During the day drought consumed me, and frost at night, and sleep evaded my eyes. It is now twenty years that I am in your house; I worked for you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your sheep, and you switched my wages ten times! If not for the God of my fathers—God of Avraham and Awe of Yitzhak—Who was with me, you would have sent me out empty-handed! My suffering and my hard labor did Hashem see, and chastised [you] last night!”

Ya’akov never really believed that someone from his camp had stolen Lavan’s gods, but he contained himself because of the chance that someone had taken them without his knowledge. But now that Lavan has searched everywhere and found nothing, Ya’akov’s fury bursts forth. Since the accusation about the gwas obviously false, Ya’akov demands to know why Lavan has pursued him. Moreover, the accusation of theft and dishonesty stings Ya’akov painfully, as his twenty years of meticulous honesty in tending Lavan’s sheep are rewarded with an accof theft. Twenty years of frustration pour out of Ya’akov, and we—and Lavan—learn for the first time just how seriously he has taken his responsibilities as shepherd. He has been scrupulously honest, going further than legally necessary, paying out of his own pocket for sheep destroyed by predators or stolen by thieves. He has suffered physically as well, exposed to the elements and deprived of rest. And Lavan can accuse him of theft!

The secret tragedy which makes us cringe as we hear Ya’akov pronounce a death sentence is that Rahel has indeed stolen Lavan’s gods. But the situation provides Ya’akov with an opportunity for growth. Finally, instead of running from the challenge or attempting to avoid it with cleverness, Ya’akov takes Lavan on directly and indignantly. This is the first visible step in Ya’akov’s growth to “Yisrael,” a process which will become much more explicit and reach completion in Parashat VaYishlah. He ran away to avoid Lavan, and even this confrontation itself was initiated by Lavan, not Ya’akov, but now that it is before him, he addresses it as the “ish yode’a tsayyid,” the hunting man, who channels his aggression into constructive paths, actively pursues his goals, and confronts his enemies and challenges. Ya’akov is aggressive and direct, no longer cunning, subtle and clever. And Lavan, surprised, blusters, boasts, but backs down:

Lavan answered and said to Ya’akov, “The daughters are my daughters, the sons my sons, the sheep my sheep, and everything you see is mine. As for my daughters, what can I do to them now, or to the children they have borne? Now, let us make a covenant, me and you, and it shall be a witness between us. If you afflict my daughters, or if you take more wives in addition to them, no one will be there [to see], but know that Hashem is witness between me and you . . . I will not pass this pile, and you will not pass this pile or this altar, for evil” . . . . Lavan awoke in the morning, kissed his sons and daughters and blessed them, and went and returned to his place.

Lavan has no response to Ya’akov’s outburst because he knows Ya’akov has dealt with his sheep honestly and self-sacrificingly. And he is convinced that Ya’akov has not stolen his gods. But he cannot explicitly apologize, so he blusters, claiming that everything that is Ya’akov’s is really his, that he is letting Ya’akov keep these things out of generosity, insisting that he means no evil toward his daughters or grandchildren. Lavan realizes how foolish he looks accusing Ya’akov of theft and dishonesty, so he must shift the focus: he demands that they make a covenant. Suddenly Lavan, who is more responsible than anyone else for the fact that both of his daughters have married the same man, has developed great concern for their welfare and wants a guarantee that Ya’akov will not mistreat them! This is surely disingenuous, as Rahel and Le’ah testify earlier that their father has ‘sold them away,’ that they are estranged from him, and that he intends to give them nothing of his estate. But Lavan must save face, so he pretends that his real mission is to extract a guarantee from Ya’akov to treat his daughters fairly. And for good measure, he adds a phrase about his and Ya’akov’s not harming each other. But Ya’akov has won, and Lavan goes home without his gods, without his daughters, and without his sheep.

At the very end of the parasha, as at the very beginning, Ya’akov has a vision of angels. And just as then, they come at a time of uncertainty for him, as he struggles to redefine himself and prepares to face his brother, Eisav. Next week we will accompany Ya’akov as he confronts Eisav and transforms himself into Yisrael.