|
AR: Every action has an effect: had Yakov and Rivka managed things differently perhaps Esav need not have become an enemy. The same regarding Avraham, Sarah and Yishmael. When things came to the point they did, there was no other option but to follow the course they took, but it would have perhaps been better to have tried not to get to that point.
Although he acted as he should have at that moment, Yakov eventually paid for his trickery:
- with Esav: by exploiting Esav’s plea:
“give me please (hal’iteni na) of this porridge for I am very hungry/tired (ki ayef anochi)” As a result he was affected by events leading to his request to God: “save me please (hatzileni na) from Esav for I am very afraid (ki yarey anochi)”
- with Lavan:
-
Lavan exchanges one sibling for the other, presenting Yakov with Leah instead of Rachel just as Yakov presented himself to Isaac to get the blessings instead of Esav.
-
Isaac says: your brother came in deception. Yakov the ‘deceiver’ here later asks Lavan “Why did you deceive me” using the same word, indicating that the deception by Lavan was a direct or metaphysical result of Yakov’s own previous deception.
-
Yakov tells Lavan “I finished my seven years of work, give me my wife” and doesn’t use her name, and Lavan gives him “a wife”, giving him the wrong one since he didn’t specify her name, playing with the words as Yakov said “I am your son Esav” when he was not, justifying it (according to some) by splitting the words “I am your son” without specifying which one, and then adding the word Esav.
-
Lavan tells him “In our place we don’t give the younger before the older” whereas Ya’akov the younger sibling had usurped the rights of the older. And if indeed Yakov bought the birthright and was thus the elder now, he should marry the elder of Lavan’s daughters, not the younger.
|
