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In Life, Do We Really Reap What We Sow?
Reading from a Torah scroll in accordance with Sephardi tradition. Photo: Sagie Maoz via Wikimedia Commons.
There is a tradition amongst some Talmudic commentators to try to discount any narrative in the Torah that seems to reflect negatively on our founding fathers and mothers. This is partially out of profound respect for these great human beings. But it also reflects an old Pagan tradition to make well-known human saints, and to cast them as perfect — just as we tend to do with some rabbis.
In fact, the Bible itself indicates that there is no perfect human being. But the Torah is very much concerned with values.
Is “Do as you would be done by” a Jewish value? Last week, we read of Rivkah and Yaakov’s attempt to deceive Yitzchak, taking advantage of his age and blindness. This week, we read of what could be seen as Yaakov’s comeuppance.
Yaakov runs away from Esav to his uncle, Lavan. Lavan is calculating and has no problem with deception. Yaakov falls in love with Rachel. But Lavan deceives Yaakov, when he substitutes Rachel with Leah on the wedding night. He takes advantage of Yaakov’s ignorance of local custom to get him to work for free for another seven years. And then seven more without pay. He deceives Yaakov, which indicates that Yaakov was indeed regarded as deserving for his treatment of his father.
But then Yaakov, having been taken advantage of by Lavan, in turn uses his superior knowledge of animal husbandry to massively increase his livestock at Lavan’s expense. Our own behavior often results in bad and in good things happening back to us. The cycle continues. Is this all not a case of “Do as You Would Be Done by?”
In Shakespearean language, it is “Measure for Measure” — and in modern slang, “Tit for Tat”? And is this God’s will?
The fact is that the Talmud in general takes this position. In life, we see it does not always work out that way. And we have to say that this must be more of an ideal for human behavior, rather than telling us anything about God.
And yet we have all these examples of Divine intervention. The whole of Yaakov’s family flees and Lavan pursues him. During the night, God appears to Lavan and warns him not to speak unkindly to Yaakov. Notice the parallels with God appearing to Pharaoh and to Avimelech, when they took Avraham’s wife, assuming she was a sister. This puts Lavan in their company as people beyond the monotheistic tradition that God somehow communicates to. Finally, Lavan reconciles with Yaakov with the treaty of GalEd. Sometimes it may take Divine intervention rather than a person’s character to bring them around.
For some, it takes external pressure to change. On the other hand, in the case of the personalities we take as human examples, even if or when they make inappropriate decisions, they can sometimes see the issues and change things for the better.
Sometimes our logic tells us one thing, but our intuition tells us something else. Perhaps God works through intuition, too.
The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York.
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US Moves Patriot Missile Batteries from South Korea to Middle East
A Patriot missile battery. Photo: IDF.
i24 News – American Patriot missile defense batteries will be moved from South Korea to the Middle East, according to reports in Asian media on Friday, amid speculation over a potential military action against Iran’s nuclear program and escalating bombardments of Iran-backed jihadists in Yemen.
US President Donald Trump threatened Iran on Sunday with bombing and secondary tariffs if Tehran did not come to an agreement with Washington over its nuclear program, and the United States has moved additional warplanes into the region.
Washington and Seoul have reportedly recently agreed on the “monthslong” partial deployment of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3, in what is understood to be the first known case involving the relocation of United States Forces Korea (USFK) assets to the Middle East.
Iran in recent years has largely dropped the pretense of enriching uranium for a civilian atomic energy program, as it’s reportedly teetering on the nuclear precipice. Israel believes that a nuclear Iran represents a grave existential threat, consistent with the exterminationist antisemitism of the Islamic Republic’s anti-Israel rhetoric.
After the election of Trump, a known Iran hawk, the likelihood of an U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities has increased precipitously.
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Report: Iranian Plot to Assassinate Azerbaijani Rabbi Foiled
The Azerbaijani capital of Baku. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
i24 News – Iran enlisted the services of a Georgian drug trafficker to carry out an assassination of a prominent Azerbaijani rabbi, the Washington Post reported Saturday, citing security officials.
The plot to murder Rabbi Shneor Segal, foiled by the State Security Service of Azerbaijan in early January, also involved a plan to attack a Jewish education center, the officials said.
The plot was set in motion by an officer with Iran’s Quds Force, who met with Georgian criminal Agil Aslanov, handing him a photo of Segal and detailed instructions on how to murder him, the officials cited by WaPo said. Aslanov’s fee for the foiled hit was $200,000.
The State Security Service said the two men “worked to collect information about a member of a religious community, and sent the location of his residence and workplace to a representative of a foreign special service agency via the appropriate mobile phone application.”
Iran is known to be behind multiple plots against Israeli and Jewish targets, many of which have been foiled by Israeli and foreign security services.
However a recent plot saw three citizens of Uzbekistan murder an Israeli rabbi in the United Arab Emirates on Iranian orders. The three were sentenced to death earlier this week for the murder of Zvi Kogan in November.
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Netanyahu to Depart for Washington on Sunday Directly from Hungary to Meet with Trump
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem, Feb. 16, 2025. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will depart to Washington DC on Sunday directly from Hungary—where he is presently on an official visit—to meet with US President Donald Trump, i24NEWS learned on Saturday from an Israeli source.
The visit comes following a phone conversation between the leaders on Friday, and a call with State Secretary Marco Rubio a short while ago.
As a result, the planned visit to Washington of Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz will be postponed once again.
Topics of discussion between the two leaders are expected to include the possible military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, the Gaza war and the future of the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave, the US bombing campaign against Iran-backed Houthi jihadists in Yemen, and the recent imposition of tariffs on Israeli products.
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