The rewards of responsibility

Rabbi Ramon Widmonte

Mizrachi

I counted the number of days until the bizarre finger pointings began and indeed it took only two days before Israel was officially accused as being responsible for the attacks in Paris (in an op-ed of Al-Hayat Al-Jadida) as revenge for the EU’s decision to discriminatorily label produce from the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

When we read this week’s sidrah, we find a marked difference in the attitude displayed by our forefather Ya’akov and that of his father-in-law, Lavan. It mirrors the disconnect we see today.

After Ya’akov eventually flees from Lavan, his father-in-law chases him down, finally forcing a confrontation at the outskirts of Israel. After accusing Ya’akov of theft, Lavan finds nothing and then 20 years of anger and frustration burst out of Ya’akov:

“And Jacob was annoyed, and he quarrelled with Laban, and he said to Laban: “What is my transgression? What is my sin, that you have pursued me? For you have felt about all my things. What have you found of all the utensils of your house? Put it here, in the presence of my kinsmen and your kinsmen, and let them decide between the two of us.

“Already 20 years have I been with you, and your ewes and she-goats have not aborted, neither have I eaten the rams of your flocks. I have not brought home to you anything torn [by other animals]; I would suffer its loss; from my hand you would demand it, what was stolen by day and what was stolen at night. I was [in the field] by day when the heat consumed me, and the frost at night, and my sleep wandered from my eyes….” B’reishit 31

We hope and pray that Lavan will take this opportunity to perform some honest self-reflection, to take stock of his own responsibility for the breakdown in their relationship, but what we hear is a shocking testament to his complete allergy to any form of accountability.

“The daughters are my daughters, and the sons are my sons, and the animals are my animals, and all that you see is mine…” Ibid.

What a lost opportunity. Lavan will spend the rest of his life sure that everything which goes awry in his world is due to the “other guy”. And the tragic result of this is that things will continue to spiral downward for him without him ever realising that he could stop it, if he would only take stock of himself.

Ya’akov, on the other hand, has begun a process of reconciling with himself and with his own contribution to his life’s turmoil – something we will see over the next few weeks in the sidrah. And his reward? He will slowly metamorphose into Yisra’el, and he will become the singular father of the Jewish people, with all his children gathered round him.

This is the mark of Yisra’el – the ability to reflect critically on ourselves (sometimes too much so) and to move forward again with the wisdom of self. We can only pray that other nations of the world will learn this and see the greatness in taking responsibility instead of perpetually blaming someone else; and in our personal lives, it is a lesson we can apply as well.