Mike Eisenberg

מומלץ להאזין לידידי ג׳ייקוב. האיש הנכון במקום הנכון. תאזינו לכל הפודקאסט איתו. מונה להיות תת-מזכיר המדינה לצמיחה כלכלית, אנרגיה וסביבה. האיש הנכון בזמן הנכון.

Parashat Vayetzei — Fertility By Michael Eisenberg In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Vayeitzei, Jacob is exiled to Haran. There, his uncle Laban promises him Rachel but deceptively marries him to Leah instead. When Jacob discovers the deception, Laban gives him Rachel as well, beginning the story of the birth and development of the twelve tribes. These tribes are born one after another as Jacob’s family expands. Since Leah, the less-loved wife, bears children while Rachel does not, a complex narrative unfolds. Rachel demands of Jacob, “Give me children, or else I die,” to which Jacob responds, “Am I in God’s place, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” Later, when Leah pauses bearing children, Rachel attempts to “influence” her own fertility by giving her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob as a wife. Bilhah bears two sons to Jacob, prompting Leah to counter by giving her maidservant Zilpah to Jacob, who also bears two sons. At a later stage, when Reuben, Leah’s son, finds mandrakes—a natural aphrodisiac of the time—in the field and brings them to his mother, Rachel again attempts to influence her fertility. She asks Leah for the mandrakes, and Leah agrees in exchange for Rachel relinquishing her turn to sleep with Jacob that night. That night, Leah conceives and later gives birth to Issachar. Drawing on the verse from Song of Songs, “The mandrakes give forth fragrance, and at our doors are all choice fruits,” (7:13) one could suggest that the power of the mandrakes to influence fertility lay in their fragrance, which Leah had already breathed in from her exposure to them, as opposed to the simple fact of possession. The first chapter of this story concludes with the birth of Joseph, after which a second chapter begins. This new chapter parallels the first but shifts to the economic realm: “When Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, ‘Send me away, that I may go to my own place and to my country…. Laban said to him, ‘If I have found favor in your eyes, I have divined that the Lord has blessed me for your sake.’ He said, ‘Name your wages, and I will give it.’ Jacob replied, ‘You know how I have served you and how your livestock have fared with me. For it was little that you had before I came, and it has increased abundantly, and the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned. Now, when shall I provide for my own household also?’ Laban said, ‘What shall I give you?’ Jacob replied, ‘You shall not give me anything. If you will do this for me, I will again feed and keep your flock. Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep, and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats, and such shall be my wages…. Laban said, ‘Behold, let it be according to your word.’ And that day he removed the streaked and spotted male goats and all the speckled and spotted female goats, each one that had white on it, and all the black ones among the lambs, and gave them into the hands of his sons…. Jacob then took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the rods. He set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, the watering places where the flocks came to drink, so that they would conceive when they came to drink. The flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth streaked, speckled, and spotted offspring. Jacob separated the lambs and made the flocks face toward the streaked and all the black in Laban’s flock. Thus, he put his own flocks apart and did not put them with Laban’s flock…. Thus, whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding, Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the flock in the troughs, so that they might conceive among the rods. But for the feebler of the flock, he did not lay them there. So the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger were Jacob’s. Thus the man increased greatly and had large flocks, female servants and male servants, and camels and donkeys.” As in the first chapter, where Laban blends personal and familial relationships with business, creating tension between divine providence and human action, this second chapter begins with Laban acknowledging that Jacob’s work has brought him divine blessing. It ends with Jacob manipulating livestock reproduction for his own benefit, possibly applying a lesson learned from the mandrakes. In the following chapter, this tension reappears when Jacob tells Rachel and Leah that everything depends on divine providence (despite his own ‘scientific’ intervention) while simultaneously accusing Laban of repeatedly renegotiating their agreement: “Your father has cheated me and changed my wages ten times, but God did not permit him to harm me. If he said, ‘The speckled shall be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore speckled; and if he said, ‘The striped shall be your wages,’ then all the flocks bore striped. Thus God has taken away the livestock of your father and given them to me. At the time when the flocks conceived, I lifted up my eyes and saw in a dream that the male goats leaping upon the flock were striped, speckled, and spotted. And the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob.’ And I said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Lift up your eyes and see, all the male goats that leap upon the flock are striped, speckled, and spotted, for I have seen all that Laban is doing to you.’” To attempt to decode this story, with its seemingly contradictory dynamics, I would like to introduce two phenomena recognized in modern science: epigenetics and gametogenesis. The process of gametogenesis is critical for preserving genetic traits across generations while simultaneously creating genetic diversity in offspring. Epigenetics, on the other hand, involves changes in gene expression that are not caused by alterations in the DNA sequence itself but rather by mechanisms that regulate gene activity. These mechanisms influence how genes are activated or "silenced" and are connected to various biochemical processes. For instance, the addition of a methyl group (CH3) to DNA can "silence" certain genes. Modern science, much like machine-learning algorithms, has discovered that sheep are capable of facial recognition, and animals generally exhibit sophisticated sensory abilities (such as dogs being able to detect cancer through smell). Similarly, specific visual stimuli can trigger a stress response. Stress can lead an animal to undergo physiological changes, including the release of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones can affect gene expression processes, especially in the brain, immune system, and metabolic pathways. In essence, gametogenesis is a universal phenomenon reflecting the natural drive of organisms to diversify the genetic traits expressed in different individuals. Epigenetics, meanwhile, demonstrates how environmental and biochemical factors can influence which genes are expressed or suppressed. In the narrative, Jacob agrees to shepherd Laban’s flock in exchange for owning all livestock that are not solidly colored. According to the agreement, any speckled or spotted animals would belong to Jacob. The text describes how Jacob avoided taking white livestock. The word white (lavan) here has a double meaning: it could refer to sheep and goats that are entirely white or to the flock belonging to Laban. (In Hebrew the letters of lavan and Laban are the same.) Some commentators note that the Hebrew grammar supports the latter interpretation. (It is worth noting that Rabbi Yosef Bekhor Shor rejected the possibility that the text refers to sheep specifically white in color, arguing that the grammatical gender of the word tzon (small cattle) is feminine, and therefore the text should have said tzon levanah rather than tzon lavan. However, the Academy of the Hebrew Language has determined that the grammatical gender of the word tzon is masculine.) This raises the possibility that Laban’s brand was pure white livestock, a branding reflected in his name. Such naming patterns are common in the Bible, seen in figures like Cain, Seth, Noah, Ishmael, Isaac, and even Jacob. If this interpretation is correct, it would explain why Laban was willing to give Jacob all the “defective” animals—those that were speckled or spotted and thus not considered purebred. Indeed, Laban’s identity and livelihood seem deeply intertwined with sheep farming, a connection reinforced by the names of his daughters. Rachel (Rahel) literally means ewe, and according to scholars, Leah (Le’ah) in Ugaritic translates to "cow," (Hebrew:” PaRaH) symbolically reflecting the narrative—Leah becomes the wife through whom Jacob “fruitfully (PeReh) multiplies.” If this interpretation of Laban’s name is accurate, it may also explain why he was willing to give Jacob all the “defective” sheep—those with spots or streaks, which were not considered purebred or of a single, unblemished lineage. For Laban, whose identity was tied to maintaining a reputation of purity, these animals likely held little value in terms of his branding. Still, an unresolved question remains: Are appearances deceptive? Are livestock that appear purebred truly so, or do they carry hidden genetic traits for speckled or spotted patterns? Jacob conducts an experiment utilizing environmental factors to activate these dormant traits, hypothesizing that if they do not appear, they are not present. What infuriates Laban and his sons? “Jacob heard the words of Laban’s sons, saying, ‘Jacob has taken all that was our father’s, and from that which was our father’s, he has gained all this wealth.’ And Jacob saw that Laban’s countenance was not toward him as before.” At the beginning of the chapter, Laban praises Jacob and acknowledges that God has blessed him through Jacob. If Laban gained wealth from Jacob’s work and Jacob had already given Laban all the pure white animals, why begrudge Jacob’s own prosperity? Jacob left a homogeneous group of white livestock for Laban. Laban’s flock should have maintained only certain genetic traits and fulfilled expectations of divine blessing for high-quality, branded livestock previously under Jacob’s management. Yet the natural biological tendency for genetic diversity persisted. Through his experiment, Jacob used gametogenesis and epigenetics to reveal the hidden speckled and spotted traits, exposing Laban’s “purebred” brand as a falsehood. Over the twenty years that Laban entrusted Jacob with his flock, expecting divine blessing without effort, Laban and his sons became complacent and their expertise and work ethic ossified. In contrast, Jacob faced challenges, experimented, refined his skills, and accumulated scientific knowledge. Just as in the previous portion where Jacob acquired Esau’s birthright without immediate benefit, here too, his long-term investment in experimentation and knowledge eventually yielded great wealth, even though the path was unclear at the outset. When Jacob’s wealth grows and he faces hostility reminiscent of modern antisemitism, it signals the time to return to Israel. Armed with technological innovation, immense wealth, and driven by external animosity, Jacob’s dream is more than material ambition—it is a vision. As I wrote in the first book of my series The Tree of Life and Prosperity, in the next portion, Jacob gives the livestock he acquired in Haran to Esau and, before entering Israel, rebuilds his wealth in Sukkot, ensuring he does not bring Laban’s tainted results into the Promised Land. Abraham’s values are like the genetic code of the nation, and Jacob strives to express them nobly. To establish a model nation in its land, Jacob begins with knowledge, initiative, and human innovation to create a thriving economy. From ancient times, humanity’s drive to explore and understand the intricate, hidden world created by God has distinguished successful nations. Jacob’s technological and intellectual innovation brought him immense wealth. Yet what sets apart truly admirable nations is moral behavior that reflects the Divine image within humanity and the potential for material and technological blessings inherent in Creation.

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