Blindsided

Yaakov, fleeing his vengeful brother Eisav, enters Charan and heads for the home of Lavan his uncle. It is here that he first sets eyes on Rachel. At this first encounter Yaakov falls in love with Rachel and resolves to marry her.

Yaakov then encounters Lavan and, knowing Lavan is a scoundrel, is very specific in his contract with him, offering to work for seven years in return for Rachel’s hand in marriage.

Yaakov works for seven years, and so intense was his love for Rachel, the years passed in the blink of an eye. The big day arrives. Lavan deceives Yaakov and marries off Leah instead. This is the only time in Yaakov’s entire stay with him that Lavan successfully manages to cheat Yaakov. It was not for lack of trying though. Each other time Lavan tried to swindle him, Yaakov, with Hashem’s help, prospered, despite Lavan’s malfeasance.

The big question is – this is Yaakov Avinu we are talking about, with prophecy and ruach hakodesh. How is it possible that he could be caught out like this? An even bigger question is – Hashem promised to look after Yaakov when he left Eretz Yisrael. What about that promise? How could Hashem allow Lavan to deceive Yaakov in this way?

In order to answer these questions, we need to return to an earlier time, Adam and Chava in Gan Eden.

If you think Lavan was an arch-villain swindler, he had nothing on the serpent. The serpent was the “inventor” of swindling, using wiles and deception to trick Chava into eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Chava in turn deceived Adam to also sin, with catastrophic consequences for mankind.

Chazal say that Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov were each responsible for repairing a facet of the sin of Adam HaRishon. But it was not only the Patriarchs, it was the Matriarchs as well – repairing the sin of Chava.

Chava’s sin was being complicit in the serpent’s deception, so reparations for that sin would forever involve some kind of deception. G-d’s punishment for the serpent is that he too would be deceived, throughout history, by women – measure for measure – the way he deceived Chava.

The serpent always has his vigilant eye on the men, expecting his nemesis to come from them, which it ultimately will – Mashiach. However, although men will be the instruments of the serpent’s eventual destruction, everything will first be facilitated by women. The women are the curveball – they fly under the serpent’s radar and blindside him. When he eventually realizes what is happening, it is already too late. More incredulously, the men involved are initially oblivious to what is about to happen, through the women, because Hashem doesn’t tell them ahead of time, they only discover it and recognize it in retrospect.

There are numerous examples of this. Avraham has two sons, Yishmael and Yitzchak – he loves Yishmael but is blinded by his love. Sarah is the unexpected curve ball causing Yishmael to be banished (with much resistance from Avraham), ensuring Yitzchak’s future. The daughters of Lot deceive their father and sleep with him, thus laying the foundation for Mashiach ben David. Yitzchak is blinded by his love for his firstborn Eisav, but it is Rivka, who grew up in a home of degenerates (completely under the radar), who orchestrates and ensures Yaakov’s future. We have the episode with Yehuda and Tamar deceiving him with his seal and staff, ensuring the foundations for the future monarchy of Beit David. Bitya, the daughter of Pharaoh (you cannot get more curveball than that) saving Moshe from the Nile, deceiving her father and raising him in the palace. Rut, the granddaughter of Balak (nobody was expecting anything from there), converts and becomes great grandmother of David HaMelech. Batsheva, the victim of a sin of our greatest king, ends up being the mother of Shlomo HaMelech who built the Beit HaMikdash, after using a deception together with Natan HaNavi to get David to recognize Shlomo as king. These are but a few of the many examples.

The curveball always comes from the least expected place, it involves women, some kind of deception and the men are always the last to know!

Such is also the case in our parsha.

Rachel and Leah know they both have a part to play in the foundation of Am Yisrael. If Yaakov were to marry Rachel first, there would never be a Moshe Rabbeinu, Aharon HaKohen or David HaMelech (all descended from Leah), because Yaakov would have married Rachel and left. His descendants would then have been Mashiach ben Yosef and Shaul HaMelech (from Binyamin). This was not G-d’s plan, there were pieces missing.

It was not a case of G-d not looking out for Yaakov that Lavan managed to deceive him with Leah. It wasn’t Lavan’s deception at all, it was G-d’s deception – using the women – measure for measure against the serpent! Just like in last week’s parsha, it wasn’t Yaakov deceiving Yitzchak – it was G-d deceiving Eisav, with Rivka’s help. Same here, it wasn’t Lavan deceiving Yaakov, but G-d deceiving Lavan, with Rachel and Leah’s help.

Yaakov was the last to find out. As we said, G-d kept the men in the dark (literally) lest they interfere with the plan. The men only recognize and respect the deception of the women in retrospect. In last week’s parsha Yitzchak finally admitted his error to Rivka. Yaakov is buried together with Leah in Me’arat HaMachpeila. Do you think he ultimately loved Leah? It took a while. Initially Yaakov hated Leah for the deception and specifically because of this G-d allowed her to conceive first. Within seven years all the tribes were born (except Binyamin, who was on the way). At that point Yaakov stopped hating Leah – when he finally understood Hashem’s plan in retrospect.

It wasn’t Lavan pulling a fast one on Yaakov, it was G-d – pulling a fast one on Lavan. Lavan, who was trying to destroy Am Yisrael, became an unwitting accomplice in their inception, just like Eisav, Pharaoh, Balak and others. If Lavan had allowed Yaakov to marry Rachel first as planned, Am Yisrael would probably never have emanated from Yaakov.

Parshat HaShavua Trivia Question: How is it that Yaakov arrived at the house of Lavan penniless? Surely Yitzchak sent him to the house of his future bride with a lavish dowry, like Avraham sent Eliezer?

Answer to Last Week’s Trivia Question: Yitzchak smells Yaakov dressed in Eisav’s clothes and it smells like the fragrance of Gan Eden (Bereishit 27:27). How did Yitzchak know what Gan Eden smelled like? R’ Avraham Palacci says that Yitzchak was 37-years-old at the Akeida, and 40 when he married Rivka. In these three years Yitzchak was in Gan Eden.