How Many Times Does Yaakov Travel to Padan Aram?

(End of) Toldos

by Rabbi Avi Billet 

Here is a translation of the last five verses in Parshas Toldos (28:5-9), and the first verse of Vayetze (28:10), and the first verse of chapter 29. The Hebrew phrases included below all indicate Yaakov’s having embarked on a journey, and possibly arriving at his destination. 

 28:5. And Yitzchak sent Yaakov, and he went to Padan Aram (וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ פַּדֶּ֣נָֽה אֲרָ֑ם) to Lavan son of Besuel the Aramean, the brother of Rivkah, mother of Yaakov and Eisav. 6. And Eisav saw that Yitzchak had blessed Yaakov and sent him to Padan Aram (וְשִׁלַּ֤ח אֹתוֹ֙ פַּדֶּ֣נָֽה אֲרָ֔ם) to take for himself a wife from there; and when he blessed him he instructed him “Do not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.” 7. And Yaakov (had) listened to his father and mother and he went to Padan Aram (וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ פַּדֶּ֥נָֽה אֲרָֽם). 8. And Eisav saw that the daughters of Canaan were bad in the eyes of Yitzchak his father. 9. And so Eisav went to Yishmael, and he took Machalas, daughter of Yishmael, son of Avraham, sister of N’vayos, in addition to his wives as a new wife.

10. And Yaakov left from Beer Shava and he went to Charan (וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ חָרָֽנָה).

29:1. And Yaakov lifted his legs, and he went to the land of those in the east (וַיֵּ֖לֶךְ אַ֥רְצָה בְנֵי־קֶֽדֶם). 

 At least 4 of these phrases indicate his having left, while the one about Yitzchak sending (29:6) him could also indicate not only that he left, but that he arrived in Padan Aram (the others could be read either way – that he also arrived, or only that he began his journey in that direction).

Are all of these describing the same exit? How many times did Yaakov go to Padan Aram, Charan, or Eastern lands? 

Netziv indicates in 28:7 that Yaakov went and arrived there, and that reality (of Yaakov looking to marry per his parents’ wishes) is what caused Eisav to rethink his own priorities, and to take a wife from Yishmael’s family. This would suggest, however, a first trip, since in Vayetze Yaakov is clearly leaving Beer Shava and heading to Charan, an exit only possible if he had returned. 

 An alternative view is advanced by the Pesikta (and Rashi, and many others), namely that this is the way people speak. Saying “He went to Charan” (28:10) means “He’s going to Charan,” and it can be said even if he hasn’t left his home yet. Which is all very well and good. But unless we say that either Charan or Padan Aram is a more localized destination of the region which is the other, he clearly has two destinations. The verses in the end of Toldos focus on going to Padan Aram. 

The Rabbis tried to downplay Yaakov’s journey(s) altogether by simply suggesting that he was able to arrive at his destination in an unbelievable short amount of time, through a mechanism known as kefitzas Haderech. Chizkuni quotes “the Chakhamim” who said that it’s a 17-day the journey from Kiryat Arba to Charan, but Yaakov did it in 12 hours. (Rabbenu Bachaye quotes a Midrash that it was a 3-day journey that he did in one day.) 

On the other side of the spectrum, Ibn Ezra in Vayetze indicates a return to a well that he had been to before, implying a previous trip, and that there is no way – as others suggested – that he made the journey in one day, since he spent the night somewhere (where is debated – but Ibn Ezra suggests Beit El) and had his famous dream. 

 R Yehuda ben Eliezer (known as Riv’a, but not to be confused with the Baal Tosafot Yitzchak ben Asher) has an approach he learned from his teacher R Eliakim, which goes against just about everything mentioned until now. Yaakov ended up in “Beis Ever” for 14 years before he got to Charan (this is a commonly quoted Midrash). That indicates that when “he went to Charan,” he didn’t exactly go to Charan because he had a very long stopover for study. But more than that, when he DID arrive in Charan, he realized that he had passed the place where his fathers (Yitzchak and Avraham) had prayed, and so he turned around and went back to Beit El (see also R Ovadiah MiBartenura). That is when he experienced the kfitzas Haderekh, of covering a great distance in a short period of time – on the return trip. “The implication is that this story [of the dream, the ladder and the angels] happened after he had gone to Charan.” - משמע שענין הפרש' היה אחר לכתו לחרן {Rabbenu Bachaye also notes the Midrash about Yaakov arriving in Charan and then ending up back at Mt. Moriah, having experienced kfitzas haderech). To state the obvious: If he went to Charan (or Padan Aram) and then returned to Beit El, when he arrives in Charan in Vayetze would be the product of, at the very least, a second trip. 

 I think there is a simpler explanation to Yaakov’s comings and goings, in light of a small tidbit shared in Seder Olam - that Rachel was 36 when she died and that Leah did not live past age 44. It further suggests they were 22 when they married because they were, in fact, twins. 

If we work backwards based on this information, basic math will paint a very interesting picture. Virtually everyone agrees that the incident in which Yaakov is disguised by his mother to take the blessings happens when Yaakov and Eisav (twins) are 63 years old. We come to this number based on an assumption that Yitzchak’s thinking “not knowing when I will die” (27:2) is because he is 123 (see Rashi), though Rashi pins the thought to his being within 5 years of the age Sarah was at her death. More likely, I believe, is that when Yitzchak is 123, his brother Yishmael (14 years his senior) is 137 (the age of Yishmael’s death – see 25:17), and so it is his brother’s mortality which opens Yitzchak’s concerns of his own mortality more than anything else. Moreover, that realization is what gets him to think, like his father before him, that “I haven’t tended to my son’s shidduchim and I either need to send Yaakov away or send someone to bring a wife for him from Lavan’s house.” The parsha opened telling us Yitzchak was 60 when his sons were born, so a 123-yr-old Yitzchak equals a 63-year-old set of twins. 

 A long calculation in Rashi on 35:29, based on Talmud Megilah 17a proves that Yaakov and Eisav are 63 now, and that Yaakov is 84 when he marries first Leah, and a week later, Rachel. This is after he’s worked for one 7-year-stint. This suggests Rachel and Leah were 15 when he started working for Lavan (at 77), and it further suggests that when he was sent to find a wife at 63, unbeknownst to everyone, Lavan’s daughters were a year old! Now we understand quite clearly why he needed to spend 14 years in Beis Ever (and Beis Shem). 

Now we can understand how there must have been multiple trips described at the end of the Parsha, because Yaakov left, on the one hand, to give Eisav a chance to calm down, and his looking for a wife, on the other hand, only to find none, left it making no sense at all for him to stay in Lavan’s house. Furthermore, there is a difference to be gleaned from his “going” (וילך) in comparison to his “leaving and going” (ויצא... וילך), as noted by the Beis HaLevi and the Beis Yosef Lehava. When he “leaves” (first word in Parshas Vayetze), he is exiting for a longer-term, not sure if and when he’ll return. When he simply leaves (end of Toldos – the repeated term of וילך), the door is open for him to return more easily. The discovery on arrival that Lavan’s daughters are babies gets him to leave Padan Aram, disappearing for 14 years until they are of marriageable age (these 14 years are never considered as “time away” from his parents). 

 A later trip – as we will read in Vayetze – brings him to the well, where he meets 15-year-old Rachel. Still too young in his eyes, he will offer to work 7 years before marrying her. R Yosef Duchas (“Beis Yosef Lehava”) suggests Yaakov was aware that Lavan had two daughters that he’d eventually marry, and had a premonition that he’d work for two 7-year stints (14 years in total) for the rights to marry them. As such, he spent 14 years in “Beis Ever” so he’d have 14 years of study in him to counter the environment of Lavan’s home that he’d be subjected to over the course of a different 14-year period of time (על כן היה נטמן בבית עבר י"ד שנים, כדי שיהיה לו זכות התורה על הזמן שיהיה בבית לבן). 

 How many times did Yaakov leave? I don’t know. How many times did he arrive in the region? At least 2, possibly 3. 

What difference does it make? It proves that the narrative is selective, and that not everything needs to be presented to us. It also shows a human side and a spiritual side, some of which are glossed over and lost in the simple reading of the narrative. And if this is hinted to (rather clearly!) in the text, what else is hinted to in the text that help us navigate deeper understandings from Torah narratives and the lives of our forefathers? 

 !ואידך זיל גמור!