VaYeitzei
Gen. 28:10 – 32 

By Rabbi Gary Pokras 

Jacob has been all about Jacob. Wrestling with his brother Esau in their mother’s womb, he got his name Ya’akov (heel) because he grasped onto Esau’s heel, trying (and failing) to prevent Esau from becoming the first-born son and receiving the benefits thereof. And Jacob was just getting started. 

“Sell me your birthright,” he tells Esau (Gen. 25:31). 

“Sit up and eat my game so you can give me your innermost blessing,” he demands of his blind father Isaac, tricking him into giving Jacob the blessing of the first born (Gen. 27:19). 

“Give me my wife,” to Laban his uncle (Gen. 29:21). 

“Give me my wives and my children … that I may go,” also to Laban, who to be fair, by then had himself tricked Jacob into twenty-one years of labor (Gen. 30:26). 

Jacob, so far, has not been the kind of Jewish role model we hope to find in Torah.  

Rabbi Amy Scheinerman teaches that Jacob’s focus on “me, myself, and I” is starkly contrasted by those of his second wife Rachel1, who was arguably the love of his life.  

This week’s parasha, VaYeitzei, relays how Jacob asks Rachel’s father (his uncle) Laban to marry her in exchange for seven years of labor, and Laban agrees. When the seven years are up, Jacob demands, “Give me my wife.” But Laban brings Leah instead of Rachel to the marriage tent that night, and Jacob does not learn that he has married “the wrong woman” until the morning. When Jacob confronts Laban to express his anger, Laban responds with a shrug of the shoulders and explains that the younger daughter should not be married before the elder and then offers Rachel in exchange for another seven years of service.  

Talk about family dysfunction! Nobody (except for Laban) was happy that morning. We might wonder, who are the real victims here?  

For Jacob, this feels less like victimhood and more like Divine justice. As he deceived his blind father, he is now himself deceived into a “mistaken” marriage.  

As for Leah, if she did not consent, then she is a victim in the worst way, forced into an unloving marriage. Yet, there is much to suggest that she was a willing participant in the deception. She could have said something to Jacob at any time but chose instead to remain silent. Plus, she went on to compete with Rachel for Jacob’s love. 

If she did not consent, then she would also be a victim here. Yet, the rabbis wonder if she too was part of the plot to fool Jacob. In fact, the story of Rachel’s complicity in the deception is detailed not once, but twice in the Babylonian Talmud (Megillah 13b and Bava Batra 123a). To wit: Rachel and Jacob both knew that Laban was serial cheater, so they devised secret hand signs through which Rachel, while fully veiled, could confirm her identity to Jacob at and after the wedding. True to form, Laban switched Leah for Rachel at the last moment, at which point Rachel thought: “now my sister will be humiliated.” So, she gave Leah the secret signs, and Jacob did not know it was Leah until the morning. The sages consider this proof of Rachel’s great compassion, loyalty, and modesty.  

Surely Rachel and Jacob could not have been more different. Jacob thought only of himself, and Rachel only of her sister. 

And, yet …  

I have long believed that the Torah contains a passive commentary, built right into the text. While the Torah does not specifically label the actions of Jacob and Rachel as good or bad, it makes sure that we, the readers, learn about the results of those actions. In that way, we can decide for ourselves who we wish to emulate.  

What happens next? 

Rachel succeeds in one way and fails in another. On the one hand, Leah’s reputation is preserved because as the eldest sister, she is married first. On the other hand, her humiliation is only postponed until the morning – when Jacob discovers her identity. One can only imagine how harsh and public his reaction must have been. Then he goes right to Laban and says: “What is this you have done to me? I was in your service for Rachel! Why did you deceive me?” (Gen. 29:25) Note the pronouns: nowhere in this complaint is there any sensitivity to Leah or to Rachel. Jacob’s only concern is for himself.  

Laban responds in kind: “It is not the practice in our place to marry off the younger before the older. Wait until the bridal week of this one is over and we will give you that one too, provided you serve me another seven years.” (Gen. 29:26-27) 

To put it mildly, Jacob’s marriage to the sisters, one loved and one spurned, did not lead to a happy family life.  

While the rabbis saw Rachel as a paragon of virtue, the Torah itself presents both Jacob and Rachel in behavioral extremes, and each approach led to profound pain and unhappiness. This passage does not ask us to make a false binary choice between total self-involvement and total self-negation. Instead, it warns us against both. There is a middle path, a healthier way, and Torah will provide us with examples.  

But that is another story.