Lavan vs. Pharaoh

There is a line in the Passover Haggadah that compares Pharaoh to Lavan. It says that Lavan was worse, because Pharaoh only wanted to kill the first-born sons, and Lavan wanted to destroy everything. The only problem is that the Torah never records any instance of Lavan wanting to kill anyone (let alone everyone).

The commentators trace that statement back to this week’s portion. Jacob decides that it’s time to leave Lavan’s house and go back to the land that G-d promised to give him. He tells Lavan about his plans to leave, and Lavan hugs him and tells him he is family and shouldn’t go.

Most explanations of this passage reflect poorly on Lavan. Because of Jacob’s blessings, he is very prosperous while in Lavan’s house, and thus Lavan becomes very prosperous. Lavan knows that it’s all Jacob’s doings, so he doesn’t want him to go. Some commentaries even go so far as to say that the reason Lavan hugged Jacob was so that he could pick his pockets. This might not reflect well on Lavan, but it hardly seems like he was trying to ‘destroy everything�.

But what would have happened if Lavan had been more persuasive and convinced Jacob to stay? As I said last posting, Jacob’s family became a nation when they left Lavan’s house. So if Lavan had convinced them to stay, they would have never become a nation. This is why the Haggadah says Lavan wanted to destroy everything. He wanted to prevent Jacob from becoming a nation so he cold personally benefit from his blessings. He tried to do that by telling Jacob that they are family – that they are all one people. In other words, he tied to assimilate Jacob’s family into his own.

What the Haggadah is telling us, is that the threat of assimilation (Lavan) is greater then the threat of physical violence (Pharaoh). While physical violence can kill individuals (or many individuals), assimilation can wipe out an entire generation, and thus the entire nations.

We are all very conscious of the physical threat we face today in many parts of the world. Lets make sure we pay as much (or more) attention to the even bigger threat of assimilation

Shabbat Shalom.