צא ולמד מה ביקש לבן הארמי

Lavan the Arame

- Ian Brasg

 

 Lavan the Aramean was much more evil than Pharaoh. Whereas Pharaoh only decreed that the male children be thrown into the river, Lavan tried to terminate the very possibility of there being an Am Yisroel. His deception included charging Jacob a hefty rent, pulling out all the stops to make the shepherd life hard for him, then by deceiving Jacob that he was marrying Rachel, when in fact he was marrying Leah, and finally by trying to give the least sheep to Jacob. These many acts of deceit almost succeeded in their aim of exhausting all of Jacob’s means, spiritual and monetary.

And yet Jacob knew his destiny and kept his eye on the prize, whether it was Rachel or it was freedom. Through all the adversity and animosity shown to him by his own blood uncle, our third forefather persevered and in the end became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, the beginning of our nation.

Jacob’s persistence is something that every Jew unfortunately has to call upon sometime in his life. Sometimes times are tough financially, and other times we have to deal with racism, but we should always know and keep close to our hearts that good times are around the corner and that every cloud has a silver lining. When Lavan gave Leah to Jacob, G-d chose her to give birth to six tribes of Israel and further the name of Jacob. When Lavan only gave him the runts of the great flock, Hashem made them plentiful and strong. Even in our times, when we live in relative stability and wealth with the Land of Israel in our hands, we should still remember the past. We should remember the story of Lavan and Jacob and the times in Jewish history when the Jewish dream seemed very distant and farfetched.  We should be able to remember those periods in our history, even today, and to apply these lessons in our own lives.