Vayetze: The Ethics of Trickery

This week’s sedra (Torah portion) follows on from last week’s with Yaakov (Jacob) fleeing the wrath of his brother Esav (Esau) by going to Haran in modern Syria, to stay with his uncle, Lavan (Laban). As with last week, the issue of trickery is central, with Lavan tricking Yaakov into marrying his elder daughter Leah instead of his younger daughter Rachel, forcing him to work twice as long as he intended as a long as dowry for both of them. After Yaakov has worked for fourteen years to pay off the double dowry, Yaakov agrees to work for Lavan longer for wages paid as sheep and goats of particular colours. Yaakov and Lavan then proceed to try to out-trick each other with Lavan constantly altering Yaakov’s wages, but God helping Yaakov to ensure that the right coloured sheep and goats are born.

Yaakov’s trickery last week and this week are often presented apologetically as a necessary evil to achieve certain goals: to stop Esav receiving the blessing of material wealth and power and to avoid being fleeced[1] by Lavan and reduced to penury. According to this viewpoint, by dressing up as Esav, Yaakov took on some of his traits, including deceitfulness, so that he and his descendants will be able to survive a future filled with exile and powerlessness, both individually and nationally.

An alternative, more modern, viewpoint sees Yaakov as acting immorally. There is some support for this viewpoint in traditional sources. The rabbis saw Lavan’s statement that, “It is not done in our place, to give the younger before the elder,” as a sign that this was a punishment for usurping Esav’s blessing. It doesn’t matter, from this point of view, whether Lavan had been told the story of the blessings by Yaakov and was using it against him or if he was just making an excuse, the point is that God was signposting to Yaakov that he had done something wrong. Later, of course, he will be tricked in an even worse way, convinced that his favourite son is dead when he is, in fact, in captivity. Yaakov’s trickery is paid back to him in kind, indicating that God does not approve of it.

The fact that Yaakov married two sisters ends up leaving him with a whole set of unnecessary problems, including a bitter argument between his wives and murderous rivalry between the sons of different mothers. It is hard to read the second half of Bereshit (Genesis) carefully without concluding that Yaakov’s problems all started when he stopped being an ish tam, a wholesome man, and started on his career of trickery.

And yet, Yaakov is considered the father of the Jewish people, known since ancient times as the Benei Yisrael, the Children of Israel, Yaakov’s other name. Indeed, he is traditionally considered the greatest of the Patriarchs, the only one whose children all stayed within the covenant.

If we look at Yaakov’s story, he never seems to regret his trickery. What he does object to, is violence. In next week’s sedra, before meeting with Esav again, he tries to pacify Esav with gifts. He also prays for Divine assistance. Described as “very scared and distressed,” Rashi notes that he was scared to be killed and distressed to have to kill others. He is willing to defend himself with force, but extremely unhappy about it, seeing it as the worst option open to him.

Later, when Yaakov’s daughter Dinah is abducted and raped by the prince of Shechem, his sons get the townsmen to circumcise themselves on the deceitful pretext that this will let them intermarry with the covenantal family. While the townsmen are in pain, the sons rescue Dinah. However, two of the sons, Shimon (Simeon) and Levi, then kill all the townsmen, arousing Yaakov’s anger. Yaakov appears to object to the killing, not the deceit. He had still not forgiven them on his deathbed, where he cursed their anger and their willingness to kill.

Perhaps Yaakov’s aversion to violence is prompted by growing up with Esav, the hunter. Esav lived by his violence and Yitzchak (Isaac) blessed him to live by his sword. Although rabbinic sources consider Esav a trickster too, the simple meaning of the Torah focuses on his violent hunting. Yaakov’s trickery is an alternative to physical violence. It is not the most moral option, but it is not the least moral option either and, in some situations, the most moral option is simply not feasible.

Most Jews were pleased when Israel blew up Hezbollah’s pagers and walkie-talkies. The world, of course, said it was a terrible piece of subterfuge. This was a use of deceit as well as measured violence to inflict a blow at the enemy that was more restrained and caused fewer innocent casualties than a frontal attack, dropping a bomb on them, would have done. Of course, in an ideal world, it would not have been necessary to deceive and to kill. But we do not live in an ideal world – and neither did Yaakov.

Yaakov is the archetypal Jew because his dilemmas are our dilemmas: the dilemmas of supporting a family and defending them morally in violent world, while holding on to his faith in God.

We should be careful to see the moral complexity in Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), but also to remember the context in which these stories occurred. Yaakov made some less than perfect decisions, as hinted by the Torah itself and brought out by the rabbis. Yet Yaakov was also living in a time when violence was an everyday norm, with a violent brother and a deceitful uncle. His decision to use deceit, but not violence, to resolve his problems often seems to be the best decision he could make in these difficult circumstances. Before we judge him, we should remember that Jews historically have had to make many of these bad decisions and continue to have to do so. In a violent world, sometimes trickery is the lesser of two evils.

[1] Pun intended!