Disruptive innovation: Parshat Vayetzei

The bicycle is a green transport alternative, a healthy exercise tool, or a means for children to get to and from school. But the invention of the bicycle has also been described by the biologist Steve Jones as “the most important event in recent human evolution” and 19^th-century suffragette Susan B. Anthony said the bicycle had “done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.”

The origins of the bicycle began with the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, a volcano in Indonesia. The explosion on April 10^th was heard thousands of kilometers away, and the ash that spewed out of the crater for the next several months spread around the globe, cooling the atmosphere and changing weather patterns. It led to the “year without a summer” in 1816, an agriculture disaster that led to famine, riots, disease and mass emigration.

The smog and darkness also led Mary Shelley to spend that summer in Switzerland with her husband Percy, Lord Byron and John William Polidon, and was where she conceived the idea of her novel Frankenstein. Shortly afterwards Polidon published “The Vampyre,” the progenitor of the modern romantic vampire genre.

Original Laufmaschine of 1817 made to measure. (Public Domain/ Wikimedia Commons)

The crop failure led to the starvation and death of horses, which until then had been the main form of transport. The need to travel and lack of horses led Karl Freiherr von Drais to invent his Laufmaschine (“running machine” in German) in 1817. This was the precursor to the modern bicycle. It had two wheels, a steering mechanism and a seat, but no pedals. The rider would sit on the seat and stride along the ground. This contraption doubled the average walking speed to about 16 kilometers per hour (10 miles per hour) and allowed for further journeys.

This new contraption became known as a velocipede in French, and then a hobbyhorse or dandy horse in English. It developed and changed in all sorts of ways. Today it survives as a starter bike for children, sometimes called a balance bike or a run bike.

Over the next couple of decades, various three- and four-wheel versions appeared, using pedals, treadles and hand-cranks. And various inventors and tinkerers may have taken steps towards the modern bicycle. However, the first confirmed bicycle with a pedal crank was invented by Philipp Moritz Fischer in 1853.

But it was the French who came up with the first widespread and commercially successful bike design. There are rival claims about who the first inventor was – it may have been Pierre Michaux or his son Ernest or perhaps Pierre Lallement or possibly Alexandre Lefebvre. Lallement was the first to file a patent for a pedal-driven bike, but the pedals were attached to the front wheel, not via a chain to the back wheel like modern bikes.

Man standing next to a penny farthing in Fife, Scotland, 1880. (Public Domain/ Wikimedia Commons)

For about 15 years, in the 1870s and 1880s, high wheelers or penny-farthings were all the rage, because they were faster and lighter than the bikes that came before them. But because of Victorian fashion styles, women could not ride them. And if the bike hit a bump, the rider risked falling face-first over the handlebars from a height of five feet.

So, it was a relief to all when the safety bicycle was invented in the mid-1880s. Fundamentally, the safety bicycle is what we today call a bicycle. It turned the bike from a dangerous toy into a means of transportation that could be ridden by both men and women. A Londoner named John Kemp Starley was most likely the first to create the safety bike in 1885, which he called The Rover. It had two similar sized wheels, a diamond-shaped chassis, and a chain to power the back wheel. However, Starley did not patent his invention, and soon everyone was building them.

1886 Rover safety bicycle at the British Motor Museum. (CC BY, Karen Roe/ Wikimedia Commons)

John Dunlop on a bicycle c. 1915 (Public Domain/ Wikimedia Commons)

A couple of years later, in 1888, Scottish inventor John Dunlop created pneumatic tires for his child’s tricycle. His invention was soon incorporated into racing bikes and then all bicycles, allowing for a smoother and safer ride.

And pretty soon everyone was riding them all over the place. For the first time, people living in rural areas could venture further afield. Instead of being limited to marrying people within their small town, they could travel hundreds of kilometers to find a spouse and thereby widen the potential gene pool.

Studies of parish records in Dorset, England showed that in 1887, 77% of marriages were between people from the same parish (essentially, from the same village). In the years 1907–1916, though, only 41% of marriages were between people from the same village.

And it gave independence to women, who for the first time could venture out on their own. As bicycle prices fell, young women achieved freedom and emancipation. Society tried, in vain, to require women to have chaperones, or to limit their ability to ride with strict dress codes. Doctors warned of the dangers to women of riding bicycles, including “bicycle face,” described as, “usually flushed, but sometimes pale, often with lips more or less drawn, and the beginning of dark shadows under the eyes, and always with an expression of weariness.”

But nevertheless, the bicycle gave a new freedom to women.

To quote Susan B. Anthony:

Let me tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a wheel…the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.

In 1982, Harry Dacre wrote a song which shows how quickly the bicycle had become an important part of culture and marriage:

Daisy, Daisy give me your answer do. I’m half crazy all for the love of you. It won’t be a stylish marriage, I can’t afford a carriage. But you’ll look sweet, Upon the seat, Of a bicycle made for two.

(Though in the second verse, Daisy insists that she will not be married on a bicycle but only in a carriage).

The bicycle also helped break down racial prejudice, as Marshall Walter “Major” Taylor became the first cycling superstar. In 1899, he became the world sprint champion, and in 1900 the American sprint champion. In so doing, became a role model for African-American sportspeople who came after him.

Taylor racing against Edmond Jacquelin at Paris’ Parc des Princes in 1901. (Public Domain/ Wikimedia Commons)

So the bicycle led to widening the gene pool, gave everyone, especially women, greater freedom, and it liberated women from their corsets and hooped skirts as they sought clothing more suitable to the two-wheeler and helped end prejudice.

But the bicycle also led to the creation of the highway system, as rutted horse tracks were not suitable for bikes. Proper roads had to be built to accommodate the riders.

And once inventors were tinkering with bicycles, they came up with all sorts of new inventions. Without Dunlop’s tires, automobiles and motorcycles would have been unbearable to ride in. Starley’s Rover bicycle evolved into the Rover Motorcycle company, and eventually they began making Rover automobiles and in 1948 pioneered the Land Rover.

But the impact of the bike went further. Orville and Wilber Wright had a bicycle repair shop, and built and sold the “Van Cleve” model bike. In their spare time, they tinkered with building an aircraft. They used bicycle parts to build their first glider and principles learned from balancing on two wheels. When they made the first powered flight in the Wright Flyer near Kitty Hawk, it was based on their knowledge of how bicycles work.

First successful flight of the Wright Flyer, by the Wright brothers. (Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons)

Beginning with a cataclysmic eruption in Indonesia, the invention of the bicycle gave us  in just a few short years, roads and cars and airplanes. The bicycle was truly a disruptive idea.

In a similar way, I would like to suggest that in this week’s Torah reading (Vayetzei), the patriarch Jacob acts in a way which is truly disruptive. His behaviors and ideas changed the world around him in all sorts of ways for all future generations.

Jacob arrives in Haran (Genesis 29) and sees a group of shepherds gathered around a well. There is a large rock covering the well, and the rock is so heavy that it requires all the shepherds together to raise it. In this way, the shepherds of Haran ensured that everyone had equal access to water, and nobody could come on their own to take more than their share.

While Jacob is speaking with them, Rachel arrives. As soon as he sees her, Jacob single-handedly lifts the rock off the well. According to Ba’al HaTurim and Malbim, this is because he suddenly became strong when he saw his future wife. According to Rabbenu Bachaya, the Torah here shows how strong Jacob was, even at the age of 77 after a long journey.

Either way, this completely disrupted the social norms of that time and place. If one man could lift the rock from the mouth of the well, then the people of Haran no longer had a security system to prevent theft. In all the years that Jacob worked as a shepherd for Laban, we never again hear that the shepherds needed to gather at the well to raise the rock.

Either they had to come up with a different solution to prevent some shepherds getting more than their share. Or equally likely, maybe they realized that the strongest would always be able to help himself, and they were unable to equitably share their resources. In other words, with a single act, Jacob transformed the shepherds of Haran from a socialist collective, into a capitalist society.

Breed known as Jacob Sheep. (CC BY-SA, Evelyn Simak/ Wikimedia Commons)

Fourteen years later, when Jacob has finished working for both Leah and Rachel he asks if he can earn money for himself. Laban agrees to the terms of Jacob’s deal, that Laban and his sons should separate all the speckled, spotted and striped sheep and goats from the flock, leaving Jacob only the sheep of a single color. Jacob said that only variegated sheep or goats that appear in his flock from now on, will be his.

Laban accepts the terms of this agreement, knowing that genetic sheep markings are a sure sign of ownership. But he did not know that Jacob planned to use the now-discredited technique of maternal impression (with a bit of help from some angels) to change the color of his flock. Jacob placed striped logs of wood in front of the ewes when they conceived, and as a result, all their offspring were striped, speckled or spotted.

With this new technology, Jacob had upended Haran’s system of ownership. Sheep could be bred to order. No longer could a shepherd prove which sheep were his based on the pattern of their fleeces. With Jacob’s tactics, there was no way of knowing which sheep were stolen and which were owned. From this time on, the flocks of Haran would no longer be able to graze together on common ground but would have to be kept in fenced paddocks, to prove legitimate ownership.

When Jacob and his family fled from Haran, Laban chased after them. When he caught up with them, he and Jacob made a deal. They built a cairn of stones. This mound, called Jegar-sahadutha by Laban and Galeed by Jacob, served as a border between the two. Or more like a ceasefire line. Laban said, “This cairn and this pillar shall be witness, that I will not pass across the cairn to you, and you will not pass over this cairn and this pillar to me, for harm.(Genesis 31:52).

Bessie’s Cairn in Glen Isla. (CC BY-SA, david shaw/ Wikimedia Commons)

Rashi explains that they could go across the border to trade with one another, or for other constructive purposes. But could not traverse this line for harm. Jacob and Laban created the first ceasefire lines, and we still use similar principles to end wars and feuds to this day. But at the same time, this cairn gave each party certain ownership rights to the land on their side of the border. Until then, borders were marked by some natural feature, such as a river or a mountain. Now, anyone could create their own territorial claims with a few stones. And this led to no end of border conflicts throughout history.

The bicycle began as a simple means of travelling without horses, and led to women’s suffrage, the invention of cars and the airplane  Jacob’s actions in this week’s Torah portion were to help him find a wife and earn some money. Yet they changed the functioning of society, property and borders for all time.

We don’t know how technology will shape our future until we get there. Technologies such as shipping containers, smartphones, internet and now AI have and will change how the world works in ways that would have been unimaginable a century ago. Who knows what the future will bring.

We can never predict the impact our actions will have. A small idea can have influence far beyond what we intended. Even a smile or a word can potentially change the future for all time. Although we never know where our ideas will end up, let’s focus on doing the best we can in the here and now.

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