"Torah Lights"
 
Video Insights on the Parsha
 
 by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - "And Jacob took fresh rods of poplar laying bare the white of the rods" (Genesis 30:37).

This week's biblical portion includes a fascinating incident in which our father Jacob outwits his scheming uncle Laban, using poplar rods to influence the color of the flocks and to recover his lost wages. The story is puzzling to us since it doesn't seem to correspond with modern scientific thought. I would like to offer an interpretation which will explain the story as a metaphor for what transpired within Jacob from the moment he received his father's blessings until the end of his sojourn with his uncle.

Jacob leaves his ancestral home in Israel to escape from his brother Esau and find a wife. He travels to his mother's family in Aram Naharayim (Syria), where he becomes the victim of several deceptions perpetrated by his uncle Laban. First, he is tricked into marrying Leah instead of his beloved Rachel. Then, he finds himself forced to work for 14 years as an unpaid laborer in order to pay off the double dowry. Somehow, Jacob manages to adapt to this difficult life: "So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her" (Gen. 29:20). Jacob looks after the flocks, continuing to draw his subsistence wage, while Laban becomes increasingly wealthy. As time goes on, Jacob settles into this routine, raising a family and working for his uncle. But Jacob's willingness to live in exile under these conditions comes to an abrupt end when his beloved wife Rachel gives birth to her firstborn son, Joseph. Jacob believes that this most-favored son must be brought up in the Promised Land, and in a healthier moral environment. He realizes that the time has come for him to bring his family home (Gen. 30:25).

Jacob's imminent departure threatens his uncle's growing prosperity, so after years of abusing his nephew, Laban is willing to strike any deal that will keep Jacob at his side. Jacob offers a fair pact; he will continue to work as a shepherd, and in return will receive any spotted or speckled lambs and goats that are born. Laban agrees to the deal, but immediately embarks on his next act of deceit; hiding all the spotted and speckled livestock to prevent them from breeding offspring for his nephew. So Jacob is forced to find a way to recuperate the hard-earned wages coming to him. He waits until the mating season, and then he prepares fresh rods of poplar, hazel and chestnut, peeling white streaks in them to lay bare the inner white (lavan) of the rods. Once this is done, he places the rods near the water troughs, so that when the sturdiest flocks come to drink, they face the striped poplar rods, cohabit, and produce young that are striped and speckled. In this way, Jacob recovers the wages that had been denied him and becomes the wealthy owner of prolific livestock (Gen. 30:43).

The reader will immediately be puzzled by the method employed by Jacob. In our times, we have a very different understanding of the way genes are transmitted, so what is the point of this Biblical tale? I would suggest that Jacob's success was not the result of a scientific ruse, but a Divine miracle; God wanted him to leave the foreign land where he had been persecuted, but the Almighty did not want him to depart as an impoverished laborer, cheated of his earnings. Rather, God determined that Jacob would leave "with great wealth" (Gen. 15:13,14).

The story of the poplar rods actually has a deep and significant moral message. The poplar rods are symbols of Jacob's internal moral and ethical journey. Jacob began his life as "a wholehearted man, a dweller in tents." As his father lay dying, Jacob's mother persuaded him to dress in Esau's garb in order to obtain the birthright, which was rightfully his. This clothing was only external garb - a momentary veneer which enabled him to pose as the wily Esau. But after 22 years of exposure to Laban's deceit, Jacob stood in danger of actually becoming like Laban and Esau. This is the danger of any masquerade and now, as "Jacob peeled white stripes [in the poplar rods – in effect, he peeled away his own outer skin], laying bare the white [‘halavan’ – the inner Laban] of the shoots [at his own core]" (Gen. 30:37).

Jacob recognized that he was absorbing the inner qualities of Laban and Esau. To become fully worthy of his birthright and bring up his children in the way he wished, he knew that he had to leave his uncle's home, exorcising this evil from within himself.

Shabbat Shalom