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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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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
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