Running from or Running to

Our Sages state that a guest must listen to everything the host tells him except if he tells him to leave. The Rebbe would apply this to our going into exile. We must listen to everything we are told by G-d but we cannot be compelled to leave His presence. If we are forced out of the Holy Land we leave reluctantly. We never make peace with our existence in exile.

Laban’s Accusation

Jacob had been working for his father-law Laban for 20 years. He endured the most harsh conditions; suffering greatly from Laban’s duplicity and corruption. An angel of G-d appears to Jacob in a dream and advises him to return to his homeland. The Torah then recounts how Jacob left with all his family and possessions. It characterizes his departure in the following manner:

Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing.

The 18th century Sephardic commentator, Or HaChaim, asks, why does the Torah say that he did not tell him that he was fleeing?” If he told Laban he was fleeing, he would not be fleeing! Indeed, the whole idea of fleeing is to conceal one’s departure. The Torah should have said, “He did not tell him he was leaving,” or that “Jacob deceived Laban by fleeing.”

Coming or Going?

We may find the answer to this question by referring to another difficulty we find in the beginning of the parsha. There, the Torah relates, “Jacob left from Be’er-Sheba and went to Charan.” Rashi notes the obvious redundancy here and states: “It need only have written ’and Jacob went to Charan,’ why does it mention his departure?” We already know that Jacob lived in Be’er Sheba so it is obvious that if he went to Charan that he had left from Be’er Sheba.

Three Scenarios

One may suggest the following explanation:

When a person leaves one place to go to another there can be three possibilities:

First, the person may feel a need to escape from the negative situation in which he is situated. In this scenario it makes no difference where he goes so long as he is at a distance from his point of origin. Jewish history is tragically replete with Jews in need of escaping the tyranny, persecution and destruction of a given locale; it made no difference where they would go. They just wanted to escape.

The second scenario is the reverse of the first. The person may find one’s place of origin to be fine and comfortable.

However, there is something even more positive to be had in another location.

The third scenario is the combination of the first two. There is something negative about this person’s hometown from which he is forced to leave to avoid harm. However, he or she also has a place to go to that is independently positive. Not only is one escaping the negative, he or she is also running towards the positive.

Jacob’s departure from Be’er Sheba appears to have been an example of the third scenario. He was compelled to run away from the wrath of his brother Esau who was plotting to murder him because he had appropriated their father’s blessings. This is clearly the rationale he got from Rebecca, his mother.

However, when Rebecca approached Isaac, she understandably did not mention Jacob’s need to escape the wrath of Esau for that would have caused Isaac untold emotional pain and anguish. Instead she referred only to Jacob’s need to find a suitable wife amongst their family members in Charan.

Hence, the Torah indicates that there were two factors in Jacob’s departure: First he left Be’er Sheba to escape with his life. The Torah then states that he went to Charan to indicate the additional, positive, reason for his departure; that it was to find his mate and establish the Jewish people.

From Rebecca’s mention of the danger in telling Jacob to escape it was clear that it was the main reason for his departure. That she mentioned to Isaac the need for Jacob to find a wife in Charan because the daughters of Canaan disgusted her was merely a way of convincing Isaac to let Jacob go without telling him the main reason.

When Jacob meets Laban, the Torah relates that “he recounted to Laban all these events.” According to Rashi, Jacob told Laban “that he came only under duress because of his brother.” In other words, Jacob did not reveal that he came to find a wife. That came only after he offered to work for Laban and he chose the prospect of marrying Rachel as pay for his work.

Laban understood that Jacob was essentially there because he had to flee.

Laban’s Indictment of Jacob

After 22 years of marriage of Rachel and Leah, fathering 11 children (Benjamin had not yet been born), and amassing a huge fortune Laban could not understand why Jacob would want to flee.

Laban claimed that it would not have disturbed him if Jacob wanted to leave because he longed to be back with his family. However, the idea that Jacob had not shed his need to escape demonstrated that he was a fleer. He observed that Jacob was constantly running away from situations. In essence, Laban asserted that Jacob was not motivated by positive stimuli but always ran away from something he believed was negative.

With this canard, Laban self-righteously intended to illustrate Jacob’s flawed personality; always running away, never able to make the most of a situation.

This answers Or HaChaim’s question. The reason it says that Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing” suggests that Jacob always gave the impression that he was making the most of his stay with Laban but now he had revealed his true character as a perennial “fleer.”

Never Made Peace with Exile

In truth, Jacob had it right. Living with Laban was a form of living in Galus. Jacob showed the way for the future of the Jewish people. No matter how much we may prosper in exile, materially and spiritually, we must never make peace with it or consider it to be our lasting home.

This explains Rebecca’s focus on Jacob’s need to escape the wrath of his brother rather than the positive factor of finding a suitable wife in Charan.

For Jacob to leave the Holy Land, his parents, Isaac and Rebecca (the Academy of Shem and Ever where he studied Torah, as recounted in the Midrash), there had to be a compelling reason—to save his life. The fact that he would find his mate there was a bonus but, in and of itself, did not justify Jacob’s hasty departure. After all, Isaac did not leave the Holy Land to find a wife for himself. Instead Abraham sent Eliezer. The same approach could have been used for Jacob’s marriage arrangements.

For the Jewish people to leave the Holy Land, no matter how much we accomplish in exile, is still a tragedy.

Our Sages state that a guest must listen to everything the host tells him except if he tells him to leave.

The Rebbe would apply this to our going into exile. We must listen to everything we are told by G-d but we cannot be compelled to leave His presence. If we are forced out of the Holy Land we leave reluctantly. We never make peace with our existence in exile.

The Torah underscores the fact that Jacob left Be’er Sheba to indicate that he was forced to leave. However, once he left he sought to make the most of his situation by finding his mate and establishing the first Jewish family, the nucleus of the Jewish nation.

Now that he had established a family and had the resources to return home, Jacob decided to escape. By doing so he demonstrated that 22 years of life in Galus did not make him lose any of his natural abhorrence of that state of being. The reluctance he expressed when he left Be’er Sheba because of his attachment to the Holy Land remained with him and motivated him to escape.

Laban, who personified the Galus mentality, cannot comprehend that Jacob had not made peace with Galus. He therefore chided Jacob for being a fleer; unable to focus positively on the future.

Laban Wanted to Destroy It All

This might explain the words of the Haggadah which we recite at the Seder that Laban was worse than Pharaoh, who only wanted to destroy the male children, as opposed to Laban who “sought to uproot everything.”

Where do we find that Laban tried to kill all of his children?

The answer might be in his attempt to instill a Galus mentality in Jacob and his progeny. If Jacob had made peace with Galus, he would have brought that mentality with him upon his return home and it would have aborted the Jewish nation. What makes the Jewish people unique and gives them their staying power is their ability to rise above the constraints of Galus. To undermine that gift would be, G-d forbid, their very demise as a people.

The Holy Laban

However, Laban’s words cannot be dismissed as merely the tirade of an evil person which we must reject without consideration.

Indeed, there are laws that we derive from Laban such as waiting a week between two marriages in the same family so we do not mix one celebration with another. Likewise, Laban is the source of the custom that dictates it is preferable not to marry off a younger sibling before the older. Likewise, a woman does not get married against her will. All of these practices are actually derived from Laban!

Similarly, there is a message here for us that we can derive from Laban’s words (if not his intentions):

In our generation, the last one of exile and the first of Redemption, we have the choice of running away from exile or running towards Geulah-Redemption. Indeed, we cry out ad masai, how much longer?! because Galus conditions are intolerable. Particularly, when we see the evil forces that surround and wish to destroy the Land of Israel and its inhabitants, heaven forfend, we are moved to want to run away, Jacob style.

Yet, Laban, whom Kabbalists say relates allegorically to the sublime, transcendent, spiritual “whiteness,” exhorts us to deemphasize the “running away” syndrome of Jewish life. Why do we always need to be in the escape mode? Our primary focus should be running towards Geulah rather than running away from Galus. The prospects of Geulah should be so exciting and extraordinary that our hearts should be racing, impelling us to do everything in our power to hasten the Geulah, even if only one second earlier!

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Vayeitzei by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.