Saturday 15 October 2016

avot patriarch fathers - Why does the Torah seem to tolerate cheating esp. with Ya'akov and his sons?


I'm a bit puzzled that the concepts of cheating and deception seem to repeat themselves in almost every weekly parsha from Toldot through Vayechi.


Ya'akov apparently takes advantage of a tired Esav by having him sell the birthright so that he can eat some food. One could argue that a tired starving person isn't exactly thinking straight. Or, even if he knew what he was doing, he didn't expect that selling the birthright meant that he would forfeit the blessings from his father.


Then, Ya'akov deceives his own father to get the blessing and tells him that he is Esav, wears Esav's clothes to fool him, etc.


Yes, we see that Lavan deceived Ya'akov by having him marry Leah first instead of Rachel. But, Ya'akov takes revenge against Lavan with the way he dealt with the sheep. (Doesn't the Torah teach that one should not take revenge or bear a grudge?)



The brothers deceive Ya'akov by convincing him that Yosef is dead.


The brothers deceive Shchem and Chamor telling them that they will live with them providing that they will circumcise themselves and all males in the city. All knowing that they planned on killing everyone, there.


Yosef deceives his brothers by initially jailing them and accusing them of being spies.


Why does the Torah decide to resolve each of these incidents of deception and, apparently, does not depict any charge or wrong-doing for that? Couldn't each of these people have resolved their differences via negotiating or some other means? Or, if G-d is supposed to protect our forefathers, he could have performed a miracle or just altered events so that such deception would have been unnecessary.



Answer



Addressing the ones including Yaakov, where deception is used for seeming financial gain:


The firstborn right was the right to serve as the family Cohen. Eisav was not exactly the right type. Thus Yaakov was ensuring the right thing happened. As for the 'deception':



One could argue that a tired starving person isn't exactly thinking straight.




And indeed, the Torah tells us that Eisav abused the firstborn right after eating.


As for they blessings, they come with the firstborn right - look how Yitzchak, once that is revealed, is perfectly happy with the status quo (even reaffirming according to Chazal (see Rashi there) that the blessings should be Yaakov's


Yaakov did not take revenge with the sheep - he was avoiding Lavan's attempt at swindling him, and his 'stick' trick was only to enable a neis to happen - sheep's colour is not really determined by sticks.


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