This is our Land

And Lavan answered and he said to Jacob, the daughters are my daughters and the children are my children and the flocks are my flocks and all that you see is mine.
And now, let us make a covenant.
If you will afflict my daughters and if you will take wives in addition to my daughters, no man is with us, see G-d is witness between me and you. (From this week's Torah portion, Vayetzeh, Genesis 31: 43-44, 50)

It's strange. Time and again, Jacob catches Lavan in his lies, but Lavan persists in playing the role of the victim - and not of the perpetrator.

"The daughters are my daughters?" Jacob worked for them - above and beyond the time upon which they had originally agreed. Furthermore, he continued working for Rachel even after Lavan tricked him into marrying Leah.

"The flocks are my flocks?" Here, too, Jacob kept up his side of the bargain, while it was Lavan who dishonestly changed the rules.

Where does Lavan get the chutzpah to lie without compunction? What makes him so confident? How can it be that after Lavan makes a treaty with Jacob and bids him farewell, he makes new conditions; "If you will afflict my daughters," as if Jacob was some sort of lowlife from the Charan marketplace?

It seems that Lavan is playing on the last vestiges of Jacob's dependence on him. While it is true that Jacob honestly earned his family and possessions, the platform upon which they were earned belonged to Lavan. Jacob has not yet completely freed himself of the "womb" in which his family and wealth developed.

The evil Lavan immediately identifies Jacob's weak point.

Today, the Arabs in the Land of Israel will settle for nothing less than the entire Land. All of our groveling and attempts to "compromise" have not helped. They abduct a soldier and conduct negotiations for his release as if they were the lords of the Land.

Where does their chutzpah come from? Like Lavan, they have identified our weak point; the point at which we feel dependant upon them. Israel's leaders also believe that the Land of Israel really belongs to the Arabs, that their struggle against us is just and that they kill us because we have stolen their land. In the eyes of Israel's leaders, the daughters are the Arabs' daughters and the flocks are their flocks.

Our weakness allows them to portray themselves as victims and not as perpetrators.

Leadership that is incapable of relying on our covenant with G-d and declaring that this is our Land will come out on the short end of every negotiation.

Shabbat Shalom,

Moshe Feiglin