Speckled and Spotted
Yaakov was now ready to go back home, so he approached his boss, Lavan the Cheater, and said, “It’s time for me to move on. Let me take my wives and children and go back home.”
Lavan replied, “All right. Let’s figure out how much I owe you. Let’s see, you worked here for 14 years so you could marry my 2 daughters. How much do I now owe you?”
Yaakov thought, “Rather than gold or silver, I will request just a few sheep and with HaShem’s help I can still make a profit.
So Yaakov replied, “I’ll take all of the spotted goats and brown sheep that will be born this season.”
Lavan thought, “Heh, heh! Sounds like a great deal for me. That means he will get just a few goats and sheep. I can’t believe how terrible a businessman that son-in-law of mine is.”
“It’s a deal!” replied Lavan as he smiled his cunning smile.
But, to Lavan’s surprise, that season many of the newborn goats indeed had spots and almost all of the baby sheep were brown!
When Yaakov was ready to claim his payment, the wicked Lavan panicked and cried, “Hold it, I’m the one who’s supposed to get these brown and spotted animals. You picked something else!”
Although Yaakov knew that Lavan was playing tricks with him, he went along with it anyway.
“OK, I’ll take the animals with stripes instead,” Yaakov said.
“You got it,” exclaimed Lavan.
Soon enough, all the newborn animals came out with stripes!
Lavan was beside himself. “Huh?! What’s going on? I must have made a mistake. Let’s make a new agreement.”
So it went, on and on and on. In the end, Lavan changed his mind 100 times! In spite of the cheater Lavan, and of course with plenty of help from HaShem, Yaakov was blessed and he became a very, very wealthy man.
