In this week's parshae Vayetze we read about Yaakov Avinu's travels from his home to that of his uncle Lavan's. His Lavan tells Yaakov that he "will take care of him" and then he proceeds to defraud Yaakov numerous times. There are a number of ways in which Lavan defrauded Yaakov, and we are taught that he would "change the deal" with Yaakov whenever he felt it was no longer in his favor. The story ends with Yaakov nevertheless leaving Lavan a very wealthy man, with a huge beautiful family and in the process Lavan alienated his two daughters as well. All of Lavan's attempts were unsuccessful and his fraud ended up hurting him.

In life many times we may feel that we have been "defrauded" by someone else, but we can see from Yaakov, that no matter how much a person tries to take advantage of us they won't be successful whatever is destined by G-d to ultimately come to us will come to us. We also see that it won't help to G-d Forbid take advantage or "defraud" someone else because our efforts will never be really successful.

Shabbat Shalom,

Heath