YAAKOV HAD BEEN INVOLVED IN AN ACT of deception, and now he becomes the victim of deception.  After seven years of working for his uncle Lavan, he wishes to marry Rachel, Lavan’s younger daughter.  “And it was in the morning, that behold it was Leah.  And [Yaakov] said to Lavan “What is this you have done to me?  Did I not work with you for Rachel?  And why did you deceive me?”  (Bereishit 29:25). Lavan, the champion deceiver, tricked Yaakov by switching Rachel with Leah.

LAVAN EXPLAINS HIMSELF, after all, he is a recognized leader in the community.  When he presents his excuses, he makes a not-so-veiled reference to Yaakov’s own act of deception, in which he took the place of his older brother Esav in receiving their father Yitzchak’s blessing:  “It is not done so in our place, to put the younger before the older.  Complete this one’s [Leah’s] week [of celebration] . . .” (29:26-27)

THE NEXT WORD in Hebrew is critical to our understanding of Lavan’s character:  “V’NITNAH.”  Theoretically, there are two ways of translating this word.  Ibn Ezra interprets it passively:  “she will be given”? after the week of celebration for Leah, it will be acceptable for Rachel to marry Yaakov.

MOST COMMENTARIES, however, (including Rashi, Ramban, and Onkelos) translate this word as active and plural:  “We will give” Rachel to you as wife.  But the plural form is hard to understand.  Surely, Rachel is Lavan’s daughter only!

THE RAMBAN EXPLAINS:  “Lavan’s words were spoken with cunning.  He said to Yaakov ‘It is not done so in our place, for the people of the place will not let me do so, for it would be a shameful act in their eyes.  But you fulfill the week of this one and we - I and all the people of the place - will also give you this one, for we will all consent to the matter, and we will honor you and make a feast as we have done with the first one.”

LAVAN IS SAYING “I am not to blame for what happened. But what can I do?  I am, as you are, at the mercy of social convention.” Lavan shifts the responsibility away from himself to others.

ANYONE WHO WISHES to have his own way at the expense of others and “get away with it” takes refuge in the “system,” claiming to be but a small cog in the machinery.  He “passes the buck.”  He argues “I was only following orders.”  In this way he can perhaps assuage his own conscience, and he might even satisfy the public.

BY BLAMING THE SYSTEM - and each of us does this from time to time - a person splits himself in two:  there is the personal “I,” who always does what is pleasant and right, and there is the “I” which is part of an abstract corpus (the Public, the State, the Community, the Organization, etc.).  He compartmentalizes himself but demonstrates a shocking disregard for moral responsibility.  Once begun, it is a hard habit to break, and the results can be terrifying:  moral schizophrenia.

JUDAISM INSISTS that each person be one fully integrated “I,” that he take full responsibility for his actions, and act according to what the Torah says is right.

THE TALMUD TEACHES (Kiddushin 42b, ff.) that “there is no agency for sinful acts.”  This means that if I am appointed by another to commit a sin, I cannot excuse my actions by claiming “He made me do it.”  I am responsible for my actions, not anyone else, not the society, not even another part of myself.  At times, this might require standing in opposition to and resisting the nameless, faceless “Them.”

THIS IS THE CENTRAL THEME of the approaching holiday of Chanukah. During the Second Temple period the world was greatly influenced by Greek culture and its outlook on life.  The Jewish people also saw value in Greek civilization and philosophy.  However, there came a point when fitting in with the Greek lifestyle would have meant abandoning Torah values. 

THE GREEKS ADMIRED PHYSICAL PERFECTION, and thus condemned the observance of Brit Milah as mutilation. Shabbat and Kashrut became social barriers, and were compromised, then abandoned.  Worshipping the Greek gods became a step towards social acceptance.  The primacy of man in Greek philosophy supplanted the primacy of God. Many Jews rationalized their adherence to Greek values by referring to the “spirit of the times.”  The entire world was falling in line.  To be modern was to be Greek.