Bereshit 30:25,26 record that Yaakov told
Lavan that he wanted to return home to the land of Canaan. Lavan responded by
noting that he had been blessed due to Yaakov, and then he offered for Yaakov
to name his salary in order that Yaakov would continue working for him,
30:27,28. Yaakov said no, but then Lavan
pressed him to make an offer, 30:29,30. Yaakov then told Lavan to separate from
his flock all the animals that had spots, and Yaakov would tend all the remaining
goats and sheep, i.e. those that were non-spotted (white sheep and black goats). Yaakov's salary would then be all the spotted
offspring that were born from the non-spotted flock that he would watch, 30:31-33,
see comments of Ibn Ezra on 30:32-36. Lavan agreed to the deal, 30:34-36. Yaakov
then took peels of bark (branches?) and placed them in front of the flocks that
he watched, 30:34-42, and he became very successful, 30:43. However, Lavan's
sons thought that Yaakov had gotten rich at their and their father's expense,
31:1. Were Lavan's sons correct? Did Lavan and his sons lose from their deal
with Yaakov and did Yaakov cheat them?
The claim that Yaakov cheated
Lavan is based on the idea that when they made their deal Yaakov had some
special knowledge of breeding of the animals that Lavan was unaware of. Thus, it is argued that Lavan expected to get
many more animals from their deal, but due to Yaakov's actions Lavan got fewer
animals than he expected and they tended to be the feeble ones. (Note, the claim of feeble animals is based on how
one interprets 30:42.) Furthermore, it is argued that if Yaakov had a plan how to
breed the animals he should have disclosed this plan to Lavan when they made
the deal. The Maharam of Rothenburg (on
30:42, 1215-1293, Germany) accepted these accusations, and claimed that because
Yaakov gave the appearance of using deceit, he was punished by his troubles
with his sons.
A modern commentator, J.P.
Fokkelman (1991, p. 160) raises the stakes. He notes that Yaakov's success was
due to G-d (31:9-12), and hence, "When finally, Lavan appears to be the
victim, it is only because of the miraculous corrections of the flock by
Providence. And if we should like to regard Lavan as the one deceived (instead
of, for example, as one punished) then one thing is certain; it is no longer
Yaakov who deceived him but G-d himself."
I believe that this reading of
the text that Yaakov cheated Lavan is a complete misunderstanding of the deal
between Yaakov and Lavan. Twice, Lavan
told Yaakov to name his wages. Yaakov
had the stronger bargaining position since he wanted to leave and Lavan was
pressing him to stay because Lavan recognized that he had been blessed due to
Yaakov. Yaakov should have asked for a significant sum of money and/ or a very
large percentage of profits, but instead he asked for an indeterminate
percentage of the offspring of the flock.
He did not even start with a "signing bonus" of some amount of
flock or gold or silver. At a minimum he
should have asked for a fixed percentage of the flock and at least 50% of the
flock, but instead he asked to receive the spotted offspring which I believe were
approximately 25% of the offspring. Yet,
this was a risk since the number of spotted offspring is not fixed each
year. Why did Yaakov not simply ask for 25%
of the offspring? Why did Yaakov make such a strange offer, when he should have
received much more?
The answer is that Yaakov had two
goals in the negotiations. One he did not want to get anything from Lavan
(30:31) since he did not want Lavan to claim ownership of his flock. Thus, he did not ask for Lavan to give him
some amount of flock to begin with. (Regardless,
later Lavan would make this claim, 31:43!) Two, Yaakov wanted there to be
incontrovertible proof that his flock was his and not Lavan's, 30:33. Thus,
Yaakov wanted that all his flock would have spots, speckles or stripes, which
would be proof that these animals were his.
The goal was that Lavan would not be able to cheat him again after Lavan
had tricked him by switching Lea for Rahel.
Yaakov was not that concerned about how much sheep and goats he would
initially get from working for Lavan because he knew that once he owned some
sheep and goats, then their numbers would increase naturally.
Why did Lavan accept Yaakov's
offer? The deal looked great to Lavan. Lavan had been willing to pay almost
anything to have Yaakov continue working for him, and instead all he had to pay
was some indeterminate amount of offspring which usually amounted to just 25%
of the offspring. Furthermore, depending
of Lavan's knowledge of genetics, Lavan might have even thought that Yaakov was
going to get nothing. Did Lavan know
that if non-spotted sheep and goats mate, they can still have spotted
offspring? (The gene for spotted offspring is a recessive gene.) Yaakov knew
this as he had learned this information from tending Lavan's sheep for fourteen
years. If Lavan did not know this
information, then he should have told Yaakov that Yaakov would receive no sheep
or goats from the deal, but Lavan was not concerned about Yaakov's welfare.
In any event, even if Lavan understood
basic genetics, he must have wondered why Yaakov offered such a weird deal,
when Yaakov could have received a much larger percentage of the flock and a
fixed percentage. Thus, Lavan realized
that Yaakov had a plan how he could profit from this deal, as Yaakov had even
stated during the negotiations that he wanted to succeed (30:30). Did Lavan know of this trick of placing the
bark peels in front of the animals? This was a universal folk belief so
probably yes, but he was not bothered by this trick since it does not work and
Lavan knew that.
Accordingly, Lavan was gambling
when he agreed to Yaakov's offer. Lavan knew that Yaakov had a plan to increase
his number of offspring, but Lavan was gambling that Yaakov's plan would not
work. Lavan was not deceived when he made the deal. He knew that it was possible that Yaakov would
receive more animals from the deal than from a fixed percentage, but Lavan
gambled that he would be the one who would get the better of the deal.
In the end, Yaakov was correct
about the genetics but incorrect about how to stimulate breeding, while Lavan
was correct that the strips of bark had no effect on the animal's breeding but
incorrect about the genetics. Thus,
Yaakov received some of the offspring, and from this base he was able to build
up his wealth. Yet, this was not the end of the story.
31:8 records that Yaakov told
Rahel and Lea that Lavan had changed the wages many times, but G-d had saved
him from Lavan's tricks. Lavan had changed the wages that Yaakov would only receive
the offspring with speckles and not with stripes or spots, or that Yaakov would
only receive the offspring with stripes and not with speckles or spots. What
was the point of this change in wages?
Why did Lavan just not change the wages to a fixed percentage? Also when
did Lavan change the wages?
In the first year or two of the
deal, Yaakov began to receive some of the offspring and this upset Lavan since
he thought that Yaakov was not going to receive anything when the non-spotted
flocked mated. However, instead of
accepting that non-spotted flock can have spotted offspring, he began to think
that the trick of the peeled bark was working. Thus, he changed the wages in
order that the trick could not work. The
peeled bark could only "cause" spotted animals, but it could not
"determine" the type of spots.
Lavan began to change the wages to certain types of spots in order that
the trick would fail and then Yaakov would work again for nothing.
At this point, G-d intervened, as
indicated in 31:8,9,12,16, that G-d made sure that the offspring would be born
based on the new mark as fixed by Lavan.
It could be that G-d caused all of the offspring to be born with the
particular mark fixed by Lavan, or maybe just all the offspring that were to
have marks were born with the particular mark fixed by Lavan. These two possibilities depend on how one
understands the words ya-tzel in 31:8 and he-tzil in 31:16. If
the words mean that G-d took Lavan's flock, then G-d intervened that all the
offspring would be marked. However,
Speiser (1964, p. 244) suggests that the words should be understood as
salvaged. G-d then salvaged from Lavan
those animals that Yaakov was entitled to based on their initial deal, and G-d
did not allow Lavan to gain from changing the initial terms.
Why did G-d intervene at this
point? Hoffmann (1969, on 30:39) writes that it was to punish Lavan for how he
treated Yaakov for not paying him wages during the first fourteen years that
Yaakov worked for Lavan. I would vary
this idea that now G-d intervened since Lavan was attempting to take advantage
of Yaakov by changing the conditions of the deal.
It is not even clear if Lavan
lost from the deal. By the first stage
of the deal, before Lavan started to change the wages, Lavan was still getting
the majority of the offspring, approximately 75% of the offspring. Also, there is no indication that the blessing
he received from G-d, which he acknowledged before the deal, 30:27, stopped
after the deal was made. Even by the second stage of the deal, when Lavan began
to change the wages, if he did start to lose, then this would serve him justly
since he was trying to cheat Yaakov.
However, if G-d intervened to just change the animals that were to be
born with marks that they would have the particular mark fixed by Lavan, then
it is possible that even in the second stage of the deal, Lavan was still
benefiting from the deal.
31:1 records that that Lavan's
sons complained that Yaakov took everything from their father, Lavan. Is this
complaint credible? Lavan's sons were
probably jealous of Yaakov. Yaakov had initially come to their house penniless,
and they would have begrudged any success by Yaakov. They viewed Yaakov' success
as being a zero sum game, that any success that Yaakov had lowered their wealth
and income. They were unaware that Lavan had been blessed due to Yaakov and
hence due to Yaakov they were much richer than had Yaakov never came to their
house. In addition, they probably were unaware of Lavan's offer to Yaakov to name
any wage, and Lavan's attempts to cheat Yaakov.
The fact that the complaint came
from Lavan's sons indicates that Lavan knew that he was not cheated. Later
Lavan accused Yaakov of stealing his gods, 31:30, but he did not claim that
Yaakov stole his animals. Lavan did
claim that all of Yaakov's flocks were really his, 31:43, but this was clearly
a falsehood since Yaakov deserved to be paid something for watching Lavan's
flocks, and in the same breath Lavan also claimed that Yaakov's wives belonged
to him and not to Yaakov! A proof that Lavan did not lose from the deal is that
if Lavan was really losing from deal, then he would have ended the deal and not
just attempted to changes the wages.
Accordingly in the deal between
Yaakov and Lavan for Yaakov to watch Lavan's flocks, Yaakov's offered to work at
a much lower wage than he was worth since his goal was that Lavan could not claim
ownership of his future flock and in order that he should not be cheated by
Lavan. Yaakov did not cheat Lavan. Instead
it was Lavan who gambled and then attempted to cheat Yaakov, but G-d intervened
to save Yaakov. In addition, while Lavan did not gain as much from the deal as
he desired, it is unlikely that he lost from the deal.
Bibliography:
Fokkelman, J.P. 1991, Narrative Art in Genesis: Specimens of Stylistic and Structural Analysis, second Edition, JSOT Press.
Hoffmann, David Tzvi (1843-1921), 1969, Commentary on Genesis, Bnei Brak: Nezach.
Speiser, Ephraim Avigdor (1902-1965), 1964, Genesis: The Anchor Bible, Garden City: New York: Doubleday & Company.