Mitzvah d'var

My Torah portion is Vayetzei and is from Genesis 28:10-32:3.  In it, Jacob traveled to Haran in search of his uncle Laban. On the way there, he has a dream about angels walking up and down staircases, and G-d promises to bless the people and give his descendants the land.  

He makes the rock that he had used as a pillow into a monument that he calls Beth El, which means a house of G-d, and vows to give a tenth of everything he has to G-d. 

Then G-d promises him that he will return safely. He finally reaches Haran and stops at a well where he meets Rachel, who turns out to be his cousin.  He went to his Uncle Laban and asked if he could marry her.  Laban said he could if he worked for him for seven years.   

So, he worked for Laban for seven years so he could get Rachel as his wife, but instead, he was given Rachel’s older sister Leah since it was the custom for the older daughters to get married first. So he had to work for another 7 years to marry Rachel. 

During this time, Jacob and Leah had 6 sons, Reuben, Simon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, and 1 daughter, Deena.  Jacob had two sons, Dan and Naphtali with his maidservant Bilhah, and two sons Gad and Asher with his maidservant Zilpah, and one son Joseph with Rachel. (I’m not sure how they managed that many kids.)

After putting in all these years, Jacob asked Laban to let him leave and to be paid for his many years of work. Laban had promised he could take all of the speckled and spotted sheep, But Laban had already given all these sheep to his sons.  

Jacob, in revolt, manipulated the flocks to produce more speckled and spotted sheep through selective breeding and bred as many sheep as he wanted.  Jacob took all the animals he thought he deserved and fled back to his homeland with his wives and children.  He also took Laban's idols, which were among Laban’s most valuable things.

With that, Jacob was off… He put a distance of 3 days between them.

But, after this situation, his wives weren’t as happy with him, and his children would talk about how he stole laban's wealth just to make it his own.

In the end, he just left a bad impression.

With that summary, I would like to talk about whether what Laban and Jacob did was wrong.  For Laban I think he did “technically” stick to the deal in a way by allowing Jacob to take the sheep. For Jacob, he also technically stuck to the deal by only taking the speckled sheep. But technically and actually are different. BOTH Laban and Jacob manipulated the deal and that is not really honoring the deal. 

So what is this difference between technically and actually sticking to a deal?

Well let’s imagine on Halloween you see a plastic pumpkin full of candy. Next to it, you notice a sign saying ONLY TAKE ONE. But, instead of taking one piece of candy, you take ONE plastic pumpkin FULL of candy because it never specified what specifically to take one-of and you know from math class to always state your units!  So you take the entire pumpkin.  In this situation, you’d be in the wrong, but technically could be justified as right. 

Why do I think Jacob was in the wrong? First off, Jacob allowed himself to be pushed around for many many years, while preserving his innocence and maintaining himself as a good person. In the end, though, Jacob manipulated the deal by taking all the sheep. I think that his deceitful action makes those 14 years he preserved his innocence a bit of a waste.

Second, let’s talk about Jacob’s manipulation. Technically, the only thing Jacob did wrong was stealing the idols to get back at Laban. Even if he did manipulate their deal a bit by breeding more sheep for himself. But as I stated with the Halloween candy, it is still wrong even if you technically didn’t do anything wrong.  

So this creates a dilemma. How can Jacob justify his own actions of manipulating the deal and taking Laban's idols behind Laban’s back if he is saying the whole reason he is doing this is that Laban’s manipulation is unjust.  

The other reason why Jacob is in the wrong is that he let himself be pushed around for 14 years, preserving his reputation as a good person even as he lost his honor through it, (in my mind) by letting himself be pushed around. Jacob allowed Laban to do just about anything to him, as long as he had a way to justify his actions. 

It took Jacob way too long to realize he was being wronged, and even if Laban’s actions are justified, that doesn’t mean that they’re just. 

For example, how Laban changed up the wedding but Jacob didn’t really go against it because Laban justified his actions by saying that the oldest daughter is always married first. There were many many things Laban did over the years like constantly changing Jacob’s wage. And as the saying goes:

Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.  

Because of this, I don’t think Jacob is some righteous person and clever guy who tricked Laban. More so, it seems the only thing breaking Jacob from his never-ending loop of being wronged is that Laban’s reasoning wasn't very good, and Jacob was already planning on leaving.

 One thing that I want to make clear is that Jacob isn’t some gullible person. He let this go on and on, just because he wanted Rachel as a wife. 

This brings me to a quote from Talmud, tractate Megillah page 13b

“She said to him: But is it really permitted for the righteous to be involved in deception? He said to her: Yes, it is permitted (for the righteous to to be involved in deception) when dealing with deceptive individuals, as the verse states: “With the pure, you will show yourself pure, and with the perverse, you will show yourself subtle” (II Samuel 22:27), indicating that one should deal with others in the manner appropriate for their personality.” 

This basically means if someone is a good person, present yourself as a good person too. If they’re not a good person, you meet them as not a good person too. So to me, I don’t think that’s how you should deal with a bad person. 

In my mind, if there's a bad person you should avoid stooping to their level, this is not how you deal with someone. But even by those standards, Jacob still didn’t live up to this.  

He let himself be pushed around for 14 years while in his mind always remaining a good person, but in my mind, he lost his honor through it.  

Once Jacob left with the good people in his life, his family, they ended up thinking  he’s not a righteous person. Therefore completely contradicting what that quote says.

Now, what does all this mean in the current world we live in?

Let’s go back to Halloween candy?.  What if the context of this situation was changed to justify bigger actions?  For example, fossil fuel companies justify their increased production of fossil fuels. 

In the words of Rabbi Nachman:

“When a person repeats a lie twice, it becomes true for him.  Having repeated it twice, he believes it is the truth.  Not only does he deceive himself; he even has the power to deceive others and to cause such intense concealment that it seems as if even G-d agrees with him.”  (rabbi nachman, trans. By rabbi avraham greenbaum).

 In my mind this quote basically means when you repeat a lie you become accustomed to the lie.  Deceiving you and the people around you, until the lie that you’ve told becomes true.

Both Laban and Jacob were guided by their own desires, blinding them both to the effect it had on the people around them and themselves, as they justified their actions under oaths and laws.  

Fossil fuel companies have turned a blind eye to the effects fossil fuels have on the earth to preserve their own wealth and foster their greed. While all-around using the law to justify their actions. 

I’m not saying all of these companies do this, but that’s just where I see this message in the modern world.

So now if we are blind to fossil fuels companies’ justifications, or like in the quote, we deceive ourselves to the effects these companies have on the world—by the time we say something, it will be too late. Just like how by the time Jacob stuck up for himself it was already too late.

So in conclusion even if someone or something is sticking to the oaths and laws behind them. As I have already stated, a justification does not make it just. In all scenarios in this summary.

 To scenarios in the world around you. You can't let laws or justification blind you to what is right and wrong. Cause if you let this happen you could look back one day and realize that you're that someone.