This Shabbat:

Friday Candle Lighting: 4:27 pm
Shabbat Ends: 5:15 pm

Torah Message:

Our Place

“Lavan said, ‘Such is not done in our place, to give the younger before the elder.” (13:17)

It’s not what you say — it’s the way you say it.

In the dead of night, the poacher makes his way across the moonlit field to the pond. At this chill hour the chance of being caught by the gamekeeper is extremely slim. Silently he lowers himself down and peers into the shimmering waters of the pool. Beautiful large trout are lazily meandering this way and that. A thin smile spreads across his face. He rummages for his lures and his bait.

“Gotcha!”

A powerful flashlight blinds the poacher’s eyes.

The gamekeeper stares down triumphantly at his catch.

“I see you can’t read signs,” says the gamekeeper.

“What signs?” says the poacher.

“The one above your head that says: No Fishing Allowed.”

“Ahh!” says the poacher, “No — you’re reading that the wrong way. It says: No! … Fishing Allowed.”

“Lavan said, ‘Such is not done in our place, to give the younger before the elder.’”

Lavan was snidely hinting here to Yaakov, “In our place it is not done that the younger precedes the elder. Maybe where you come from you give the birthright to the younger before the elder as happened with you and your brother Esav — but not in our place.”

• Source: Beit HaLevi