Parshas
Vayeitzei
Truth
Be Told
By:
Daniel Listhaus
וְלָבָן
הָלַךְ לִגְזֹז אֶת צֹאנוֹ וַתִּגְנֹב
רָחֵל אֶת הַתְּרָפִים אֲשֶׁר לְאָבִיהָ:
וַיִּגְנֹב
יַעֲקֹב אֶת לֵב לָבָן הָאֲרַמִּי עַל
בְּלִי הִגִּיד לוֹ כִּי בֹרֵחַ הוּא
“Lavan
had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole the teraphim
that
belonged to her father. Yaakov deceived Lavan the Aramean by not
telling him that he was fleeing”
-Vayeitzei
31:19-20
In
this week's parsha,
we continue to follow Yaakov around and learn from his middos
(traits)
and
qualities. We were introduced to Yaakov avinu
in parshas
Toldos as
the “ish
tam yosheiv ohalim”
- the wholesome man who sat and learned Torah. Rashi
further
describes
Yaakov as a person who was real – someone who the way he acted and
spoke purely reflected who he was. After learning these things and
getting a glimpse of Yaakov's character, a few of the events in this
week's parsha
should
come as a surprise to us.
When
Yaakov reached his destination near Charan,
the Torah relates that Yaakov approached a well and saw that there
was a crowd of shepherds standing around doing nothing. Yaakov
approached them and said, “Look, the day is still long; it is not
yet time to bring the livestock in; water the flock and go on
grazing”.
Rashi
explains that Yaakov got upset at them and started giving them
mussar (rebuke), “Look, the
day is still long. If you are hired workers, then you have not yet
completed the day's labor; and if the animals are yours, nonetheless,
it is not yet time to bring in the livestock.”
Who
did Yaakov think he was? He was a total stranger in a foreign land.
Yet, Yaakov felt completely comfortable approaching the shepherds and
telling them that he caught them stealing. If they are paid workers,
then, by doing nothing, they are stealing from their employers. Even
if the animals are theirs, they are still no better because they are
wasting time – stealing from themselves. Why did Yaakov think that
it was his business to tell the shepherds that they are no better
than thieves?
Later
in the parsha, there
are an additional two episodes during which Yaakov seems to lose his
temper. During his stay in Charan,
Yaakov lived in Lavan's house. His stay by his uncle was anything but
pleasant. Lavan was a selfish trickster with ulterior motives for
everything he said and did. After being tricked into marrying Leah
and being deceived many times over his wages, Hashem came to Yaakov
and told him to return to Yitzchak's house. In response to this,
Yaakov called to his wives and started ranting:
“I have noticed your father's
disposition is not toward me as in earlier days; but the G-d of my
father was with me. Now you have known that with all my might I
worked for your father, yet your father mocked me and changed my wage
ten countings; but G-d did not permit him to harm me. If he would
say, 'Speckled one shall be your wages', then the entire flock bore
speckled ones; and if he would say, 'Ringed ones shall be your
wages', then the entire flock bore ringed ones. Thus G-d took away
your father's livestock, and gave them to me. It happened at the
mating time of the flock that I raised my eyes and saw in a dream –
Behold! The he-goats that mounted the flock were ringed, speckled,
and striped. And an angel of G-d said to me in a dream, 'Yaakov!' And
I said, 'Here I am.' And he said, 'Raise your eyes, if you please,
and see that all the he-goats mounting the flocks are ringed,
speckled, and striped, for I have seen all that Lavan is doing to
you. I am G-d of Beis-Keil where you anointed a pillar, where you
vowed a vow to Me. Now – arise, leave this land and return to the
land of your birth.'”
What
set Yaakov off to give this whole speech to Rachel and Leah? Is
Yaakov complaining? What purpose is he accomplishing with this? Let
Yaakov just tell them to pack their bags because Hashem told him to
go back home. Why does Yaakov need to give his own personal reason to
leave, that he is fed up with Lavan's dishonesty?
There
is yet another time when Yaakov seems to lose his cool. Yaakov and
his family had already been running away for a week when Lavan caught
up to them. After yelling at Yaakov for running away, he accused him
of stealing his idols. Yaakov patiently let Lavan check through all
of their belongings for his idols. When Lavan finished rummaging
through everything and did not find the idols, Yaakov became furious
at Lavan. Once again, Yaakov pulls out his speech and starts
screaming at Lavan:
“What is my transgression? What is
my sin, that you have pursued me? When you rummaged through all my
things, what did you find of all your household objects? Set it here
before my brethren and your brethren, and let them decide between the
two of us. These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and
she-goats did not miscarry, nor did I eat the rams of your flock.
That which was mangled I never brought to you – I would bear the
loss, from my hand you would exact it, stolen by day or stolen by
night. This is how I was: By day heat consumed me, and snow by night;
my sleep drifted from my eyes. This is for me twenty years in your
household: I worked for you fourteen years for your two daughters,
and six years for your flocks; and you changed my wage ten countings.
Had not the G-d of my father – the G-d of Avraham and the Dread of
Yitzchak – been with me, you would surely have now sent me away
empty handed. G-d saw my wretchedness and the toil of my hands....”
Here
again, Yaakov is getting all emotional and angry, pointing out
Lavan's faults, this time to his face. Why did Yaakov think it was
necessary to do so? Why not just keep quiet? Let Lavan have his fun
poking around the tents and then everyone will just peacefully be
able to continue on their way?
Once
we understand who Yaakov was, then we will realize that these three
events were not cases of Yaakov losing control of his temper and
acting out of character. Rather, Yaakov's responses during these
events represented a true reflection of Yaakov's persona and was very
much a part of his character. Yaakov symbolized emes.
He could not tolerate any resemblance of (sheker)
falsehood. When Yaakov came and saw that the shepherds were either
stealing payment from their employers or time from themselves, he
could not just stand by and watch. Similarly, his time spent with
Lavan might have seemed normal to others, but Yaakov recognized the
lifestyle dependent on sheker.
Again, Yaakov could not just let Lavan continue on his merry way. As
a representative of emes,
it was Yaakov's job to bring emes into
the world and point out any sheker.
Therefore, it was indeed Yaakov's task to give mussar to
the shepherds and point out the sheker revolving
around Lavan's life.
Now
that we have a better understanding of Yaakov avinu,
there is a difficulty that must be dealt with. As aforementioned,
Yaakov and his family ran away from Lavan's house. The Torah
describes that after Lavan caught up to them and accused Yaakov of
stealing his idols, Yaakov said, “With whomever you find your gods,
he shall not live...”
Of course, however, as the Torah continues, “And Yaakov did not
know that Rachel had stolen them”.
Why is it, though, that Yaakov did not take this into consideration?
Lavan had just come to hunt them down because he had reason to
believe that someone in Yaakov's family had taken his gods. Obviously
Lavan thought it was a reasonable accusation to make, so what could
make Yaakov so sure that indeed know one in his family had taken
them? Did it not enter Yaakov's mind that perhaps his wife had taken
the idols to stop her father from doing avodah zarah (idol
worship)? Certainly someone as calculated and clear-minded as Yaakov
could not overlook such a possibility. So, why was he so confident to
the point that he cursed whoever had taken them?
Perhaps,
we could explain this as well based on our understanding of Yaakov.
Being a representative of emes
means acting aggressively when it comes to fighting sheker.
Just as Yaakov would consider it his duty to approach the shepherds
at the well and Lavan to let them know precisely what they were doing
wrong, so too if Lavan's avoda zarah issue
had to be taken care of, it would not be done secretly. Instead, it
should be taken care of the way his grandfather, Avraham, would have
dealt with it: make a complete mockery and destroy them.
Therefore, when Lavan came and accused Yaakov of stealing his gods,
Yaakov felt confident that it was no one from his family. He probably
thought something along the lines of, “Hmm, destroying his avodah
zarah would have been a nice
thing to do, but, oh well, too late. It could not have been anyone
from my household that took it, because if it had, then they would
have, and should have, made a whole big stink about it.” Someone on
the level of Yaakov avinu who
took the responsibility of bringing kiddush
Hashem
into the world expected that those fighting for the emes
to do so in the way he was taught. From the fact that such a
situation did not occur, Yaakov was sure that no one from his family
had taken the idols.
However,
as we know, someone of Yaakov's house did
in
fact steal the idols – Yaakov's wife, Rachel. As a matter of fact,
Rashi
tells us that it was indeed Yaakov's curse which caused Rachel to die
on the road. What went wrong? If Yaakov's logic was correct, then it
was indeed not probable that Rachel took the idols; yet, she did and
did so without making a whole scene about it. Where was Yaakov's
error in calculation, which ultimately caused him to accidentally
curse his wife?
In
order to understand this, let us focus on the small time frame from
when Rachel stole the teraphim
(Lavan's
idols) to, just minutes later, their great escape. The passuk
states,
“...and Rachel stole the teraphim
that
belonged to her father.” Rashi
explains that Rachel did so because she intended to separate Lavan
from idolatry. The difficulty with this is why did she wait so long?
She had been with Yaakov living there for many years already. Why did
Rachel suddenly wake up and decide to stop her father from worshiping
idols, only minutes before she was to leave forever?
In
parshas
Chayei Sarah,
the Torah describes that when Eliezer, the servant of Avraham, came
to Lavan's father's house to find a wife for Yitzchak, Lavan came
running out to meet him. He said to Eliezer, “Why should you stand
outside when I have cleared the house...?”
Rashi
comments that Lavan was hinting to Eliezer that he had cleared the
house of idols. Lavan was evidently smart enough to realize that
someone from the house of Avraham would not want anything to do with
a house full of idols. So, perhaps when Yaakov came to Lavan's house,
Lavan once again cleared his idols from sight. While Yaakov was
living in Lavan's house, Lavan suppressed his temptation to serve
idols. However, Rachel realized that as soon as Lavan would realize
that they had left, the first thing Lavan would do would be to dust
off his idols and start serving them once again. Therefore, it was
only at the last second that it was necessary to dispose of Lavan's
idols. Before then, Lavan had them stored away because he did not
want to take them out in the presence of Yaakov.
This might explain why Rachel waited so long to confiscate Lavan's
idols. However, still, why was it that she did not make a public
scene of it as Yaakov would have expected?
There
is an extremely intriguing passuk
(verse)
that
the
Torah uses to describe Yaakov's escape: “And Yaakov deceived Lavan
the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing”.
There are two elements in this passuk
which
are quite difficult to understand. First, it is extremely bothersome
that the Torah calls Yaakov a deceiver.
Second, the passuk
seems
to take Yaakov to task for not telling Lavan that he was running
away. This makes no sense. If the Torah would be upset at Yaakov for
fleeing, we might understand. However, the Torah is not blaming
Yaakov for running away, instead the Torah is troubled over the fact
that Yaakov ran away without letting Lavan know. What kind of
accusation is this? If Yaakov did the right thing by running away,
then, by definition, he did the right thing by not telling Lavan. It
is impossible to secretly run away from someone if you tell him when
you are leaving!
The
Ohr
HaChayim
comes to address these issues and explains as follows. After Yaakov
had amassed wealth as a successful shepherd and had a family of
eleven of the twelve shevatim,
he asked Lavan, “Give me my wives and my children for whom I have
worked for you, and I will go.”
Rashi
there says that Yaakov told Lavan that he does not want to leave
without permission. Yaakov said this to trick Lavan into thinking
that he would ask before leaving. This would give Yaakov the
opportunity to leave whenever he wanted, steering clear out of
Lavan's way – who was expecting to be asked permission first. For
this, the Torah calls Yaakov a deceiver.
Yaakov
had many good reasons to run away from Lavan's house, and Hashem
agreed to his calculations. As a matter of fact, Hashem Himself
actually told him to go back to Yitzchak and Rivkah. However, to go
so far as to first tell Lavan that he would never think of leaving
without asking permission, was a little too much. Being on the
incredibly high level that Yaakov was on, he should not have
transgressed even on this slight form of geneivas
da'as from
Lavan. Yaakov was expected to just run away, without playing mind
games with Lavan first. The tremendous level of greatness that Yaakov
had achieved came with the responsibility of being extra careful and
judged k'chut
ha'sa'arah.
Had
Yaakov not asked the faked permission that time from Lavan, then
Rachel could have said to Lavan, “At some point we are going to run
away. This is obvious and you have probably considered this already.
When we do so, I know that you will go right back to serving your
avodah
zarah.”
Then, Rachel could have given him a whole speech and gotten rid of
the avodah
zarah right
then and there. However, because Yaakov first told Lavan that he
would ask before leaving, Rachel was stuck. If they were not going to
leave anyway until Lavan's say-so, then it made sense for her to wait
until Lavan granted them permission in order rebuke him and take the
idols. To do so before hand would have been unreasonable because
Lavan was not worshiping the idols while they were still living in
his house. Therefore, had Rachel in fact given Lavan the avodah
zarah mussar shmooze,
then it would be a dead give-away that they were planning on
escaping, and that Yaakov had tricked him. It comes out that it was
because of the untruth that Yaakov told Lavan originally, that Rachel
was forced to play along.
Perhaps
this slight mistake was what ultimately caused Yaakov to miscalculate
when it came to cursing the one who stole the teraphim.
When Rachel went to take the teraphim
she
could not make a whole scene of it because she had to play along with
the delusion that Yaakov had fed to Lavan. Had she given Lavan a
whole speech while taking the idols, Lavan would have suspected that
Yaakov had tricked him and that he had been planning all along on
leaving without asking permission.
Although
Yaakov did not necessarily do anything wrong
by originally tricking Lavan, by doing so he ended up miscalculating.
He figured that had anyone of his household taken the idols, they
would have made it into a whole mussar
shmooze.
However, the fact that he failed to consider was that because of his
tricking Lavan, the rest of his logic became flawed. All it took was
this minor entry of trickery into Yaakov's head that resulted in such
a grave outcome.
Yaakov
was the one who was picked by Hashem to be the one to bring emes
into
the world and fight the sheker
of
Eisav and Lavan. Yaakov took this responsibility to heart and did
uplift the world by being someone who people looked at and realized
what emes
is.
Therefore when Yaakov fed Lavan a slight piece of untruthful
information, it back-fired and flawed his own logic-flow, ultimately
causing him to unknowingly curse his wife.
May
Hashem help us achieve the highest levels of emes
and
help us stay away from sheker.
