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Parasha Vayetze/And He Went Out
by Rabbi Jack "Yaacov" Farber
The Scripture readings for the Shabbat of November 16/11 Kislev are: Bereshit/Genesis 28:10-32:3; Hoshea/Hosea 12:13-14:10; Yochanan/John 1:43-51. NOT WHO YOU ARE BUT WHAT YOU WILL BE Bereshit {31:36} Ya'akov was angry, and argued with Lavan. Ya'akov answered Lavan, "What is my trespass? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued after me? {31:37} Now that you have felt around in all my stuff, what have you found of all your household stuff? Set it here before my relatives and your relatives, that they may judge between us two. {31:38} These twenty years have I been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not cast their young, and I haven't eaten the rams of your flocks. {31:39} That which was torn of animals, I didn't bring to you. I bore the loss of it. Of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. {31:40} Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes. {31:41} These twenty years have I been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. {31:42} Unless the G-D of my 'ab (father), the G-D of Avraham, and the fear of Yitzak, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. G-D has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night." It is amazing how self-righteous we get when other people do things to us, but we think nothing of what we do and have done to other people. Yaacov was no angel! First of all he connived his brother Esav into selling his birthright then he participated in a premeditated scheme to deceive his father. If that was not enough, he used I do not know what you would call it method, to have his father-in laws goats give birth to streaked, speckled and spotted kids, so that they would be his. To top it all off, Scripture clearly tells us that: Bereshit {30:41} It happened, whenever the stronger of the flock conceived, that Ya'akov laid the rods before the eyes of the flock in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods; {30:42} but when the flock were feeble, he didn't put them in. So the feebler were Lavan's, and the stronger Ya'akov's. I am a firm believer that deception breeds deception. If there is a liar or a deceiver in a household, especially if it is the head of the household, lies and deceit will trickle down to the rest of the household. So it does not surprise me that Rachel stole from her father and then lied about it as well. Yaacov was being self-righteous, trying to justify himself in his own mind. He was making himself out to be the victim and not the perpetrator. He was making it out like he had reason to do what he did to Lavan; that Lavan had it coming to him. If it were not for the fact that G-d was creating a nation out of Yaacov and was able to see him as he was going to be and not as he was, I do not think things would have turned out as they did for him. That's why G-d appeared to Lavan by night. Not because Yaacov was right and G-d was coming to his defense, as Yaacov claimed, but because G-d didn't want Yaacov's journey to end here. G-d had some hard lessons awaiting Yaacov, lessons that would ultimately make him into the man of G-d he was meant to be. You are not to be self-righteous! When you are wrong, you are wrong. When you make a mistake you need to own up to it and repent. A lie is a lie whether or not you feel justified in telling it. You have no right to steal, lie or cheat even if you are under the opinion the person you are doing it to deserves it. G-d had greater plans for Yaacov, He also had trial and tribulation awaiting him so he could fulfil those plans. You can avoid a lot of the problems in your life if you learn from Yaacov and just get it right the first time.Rabbi Jack "Yaacov" Farber is the spiritual leader of Congregation Melech Yisrael in Toronto, Canada. Copyright 2002
- Romans 1:16, NIV |