Feature Tidbit Read... and Listen Lavan wanted to destroy the line of Avraham. His plan was to poison Eliezer so that he would not bring a wife back for Yitzchak so that Yitzchak would not marry nor have children, and that would be that. Years later, Lavan went to plan B and tried to destroy Yaakov. Neither of his plans worked, B"H. But how do we know that Lavan "desires to uproot it all"? How do we know that Lavan was such a bad guy? Read the p'sukim. Lavan greeted Eliezer with an enthusiastic Baruch HaShem and offered hospitality to Eliezer and for his camels. He fed the camels and provided for Eliezer's entourage. He offered Eliezer food, but Eliezerrefused until he had told his story. How do we know that the food was poisoned and that Betu'el died from it? I'm reading the Torah, but I don't see all that. The answer is that READING is not enough. One has to LISTEN to the Torah, the Oral Torah, the Tradition. We can see that Lavan speaks before his father. That is not proper. We can see that Betu'el is mentioned in the first part of Eliezer's visit and then he isn't there anymore, but we have to hear the further details. (Of course, we can technically read them in the many s'farim available, but they are all essentially Oral Torah, and we can still use the term listen, rather than read. This is more than playing around with words. There must be a Torah She'b'al Peh flavor to our Tradition. It should not have been put in print; it shouldhave been verbally transmitted. Reading the book should never replace study with a teacher.) And what about Eliezer and his ulterior motives and his daughter whom he wants to become Yitzchak's wife? We don't really see it in the words. But we hear it from our MASORET. The idea of the absolute necessity of learning from both the Written and the Oral Word, applies to both Aggadic and Halachic issues. In the context of the examples from Chayei Sara, or from most of the book of B'reishit, for that matter, we are dealing with Aggada without a practical halachic application. Buit that doesnot make it any less important. And when our sources equivocate and one opinion says that such-and-such was improper, and another opinion says it was okay, then we must look at both sides of the issue and learn something from each of them. Our Sages did not try to whitewash the Avot. They are very critical of the Avot sometimes. But when they tell us, for example, that "anyone who says that Reuven sinned is mistaken", they were not covering up for him. The Torah is very harsh in telling us what happened. But the Oral Tradition explains what he did and whythe Torah's language is so strong. This is an Aggadic counterpart of the Written Word and the Oral Tradition of "an eye for an eye", in a halachic context. You read one thing and you hear another. What Oral Torah tells us explains what the Written Word means. In either case, the person not committed to the "Package Deal of Torah", will point to the wordsand say - LOOK. Our answer is HEAR the transmission of the Oral Tradition and then you can KNOW what the Torah is saying. This is our commitment. [The Chayei Sara Homepage]
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