Gen. 28:10-33:3
Précis: As Jacob travels towards the household of his uncle Laban, he dreams of a ladder (some translate it as a ramp) to heaven, with angels ascending and descending. He vows to build a great House for God on the spot. Jacob meets and falls in love with Laban’s younger daughter, Rachel. Laban agrees to the match, provided that Jacob works for him for seven years. Laban switches the older daughter, Leah, for Rachel; Jacob works an additional seven years for Rachel’s hand. Jacob then works for Laban another six years, and acquires great wealth and flocks through shrewd husbandry. During the stay with Laban, most of the children of Jacob are born. At the conclusion of the parasha, after tense negotiations with Laban, Jacob leaves with his possessions and family.
As I have mentioned before, The Sforno, the 16th century Italian commentator, relates that Jacob, a stranger, chastises the workers for quitting early. From this, he draws an ethical mandate: a righteous man objects to a wrong that he observes, even though the wrong is done to others. Thus, one can’t stand idly by when a wrong is being done to another because one is not personally affected.
This week, I wanted to look at this verse not from Jacob’s perspective, but rather from the shepherds’ point of view. We can’t stand idly by as working people are deprived of the ability to earn enough to support themselves or their families.
Perhaps these shepherds were employed by Laban, an individual who we know from the text was far from an ideal employer. He changed conditions adversely for those who worked for him (including Jacob). Perhaps they were actually justified in stopping work early in the day because their pay was insufficient, or because they were not treated properly by their employer.
Today, we have seen a remarkable change taking place in the American workforce. Some are calling it the “Great Resignation” as record numbers of individuals are quitting their jobs for a wide range of causes. Perhaps because of COVID, perhaps because many baby boomers have decided it’s just not worth going back to work, perhaps because many women lack access to reliable child-care, and perhaps because of limits on immigration, the number of folks actually in the workforce has shrunk. Suddenly, many employers are raising wages, offering new benefits, and beginning to treat their workers in a way which is more humane.
Our tradition is clear in this regard: employees are to be treated with dignity, paid promptly, and dealt with respectfully. In the United States, with the decrease of union representation over the past decades to its lowest level since the Labor Movement began, we see that employers have fought their way to the bottom wherever possible, treating employees with disregard for their ability to provide for their families. Perhaps, just perhaps, we are witnessing the beginning of a turn-around. Living wages are a necessity in a society as wealthy as ours. With the stock markets at record highs, with the insane accumulation of wealth among a handful of uber-billionaires, perhaps the time has come to commit to actually help what politicians love to call “hard working American families” while they sit on their well-padded bottoms and do little to help.
President Biden is seeking a real way to help American families, through enhanced child care benefits, universal pre-k education, improved Medicare coverage, and improved tuition assistance for higher education. In this era of political division, the chances of these changes being enacted are questionable at best. But we, as ever, must see to the needs of the least fortunate among us.
