By Alana Rosenbaum

This week’s parasha is vayetzei, and it’s the story of Jacob. Jacob is traveling from his home of Beersheba to Haran, where his uncle Laban lives. He makes a deal with Laban that he will work for him, tending to his sheep, for 7 years, in return for marrying Laban’s younger daughter Rachel. On the wedding day, Laban tricks Jacob into marrying his elder daughter Leah, and makes Jacob work another 7 years to marry Rachel. Leah gives birth to a bunch of sons, and Rachel has none. They both give their maids to Jacob as concubines, and each maid has two sons. Then Rachel finally has a son. After Jacob’s 14 years of working for Laban in exchange for his daughters are up, he and Laban make another deal for how Jacob will be paid as he continues to work. Jacob asks for all streaked and spotted sheep that are born. Laban agrees, but continues trying to cheat Jacob by separating the streaked and spotted sheep from the rest. After 6 more years, Jacob and his wives and children and sheep leave in the night to return to Canaan.

A large part of this portion is dedicated to Laban deceiving Jacob and trying to cheat him out of any sort of profit. The text gives the impression that Laban mainly cares about getting wealthy without doing much work. First of all, he essentially sells off his daughters in order to get Jacob to work for him, which is messed up on several levels. Treating women as property was more socially acceptable back in those days, but it doesn’t change the fact that Laban used his daughters to get Jacob to work for him, and used them to trick him into doing double the labor he originally agreed to. Then, he tried to cheat Jacob out of the sheep he was owed.

Laban is basically an early capitalist, and definitely not someone who would operate well in a kvutzah. I think it’s important, especially right now with Black Friday happening, to remember to think about others and not just our own gain.

Laban shares qualities with the heads of many corporations, exploiting Jacob the same way they exploit their workers. With Black Friday encroaching more into Thanksgiving every year (stores opening at 4 PM this year? really?), workers don’t get time to have Thanksgiving dinner with their families.

One of my younger cousins asked us earlier today where Black Friday got its name from, and another relative suggested that it was because it’s when retailers start making profit, going from being in the red to being in the black. Whether or not that’s where the name came from, it’s true that Black Friday is a time for retailers to make money. And consumers eat it up, going from reflecting on what they’re thankful for at the dinner table to thinking about the deals they can score for themselves, sometimes hurting other people to get what they want.

Whether or not you’re going Black Friday shopping this year, don’t be Laban. Take a minute to think about other people and put your own desires to the side.