A particularly noxious form of falsehood, known in contemporary parlance as gaslighting

In the Torah’s typology, Yaakov Avinu is the exemplar of emes, truth. But it’s also axiomatic that no one comes into this world with their attributes fully formed. One must instead do the work needed to perfect his traits, and that is true of Yaakov and his unshakeable commitment to truth, too.

Chazal teach that “rov banim domin l’achi ha’eim,” children tend to resemble their maternal uncle in certain respects. It would follow that Yaakov, too, might have started off life bearing traces of his mother’s brother Lavan, the very quintessence of deceit.

Arriving at Lavan’s home, Yaakov may have understood that it would not only be a refuge from Eisav but also a crucible of personal transformation. He needed to be there to evolve into that which he could be and ultimately became: the peerless paradigm of honesty — but only after having shed every vestige of Lavan’s influence.

Perhaps this why the pasuk says, “And it was when he saw Rachel, the daughter of Lavan, his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Lavan, his mother’s brother, he stepped forward and removed the stone from upon the mouth of the well and he gave the sheep of Lavan, his mother’s brother, to drink.” The repetitive identification of both Rachel and the sheep as connected to “Lavan, his mother’s brother” fairly jumps off the page.

But it was now that Yaakov perceived that his avodah in the coming years would be to refine the middah of emes from the dross of Lavan, whose influence owed to his status as Rivka’s brother. And indeed, the two major arenas of tribulation for Yaakov would be in connection with marrying Rachel and working with Lavan’s sheep.

The first major test comes when Yaakov, despite working seven long years for Rachel, and despite spelling out his terms — literally, b’Rachel, bitcha, haketanah — is deceived by Lavan, who gives him Leah instead. When Yaakov protests the gall and the injustice of it, Lavan launches a counterattack on Yaakov, effectively telling him: “How dare you, Yaakov, transgress our hallowed traditions by seeking to marry the younger child before the older one.” He uses the phrase “lo yei’aseh chein,” which connotes unthinkable behavior that just isn’t done — as in “ma’asim asher lo yei’asu,” Avimelech’s demand that Avraham explain why he was misled regarding Sarah, and “v’chein lo yei’aseh” that the Shevatim invoked to describe the assault on Dinah.

But whether such things were or weren’t commonly done in Padan Aram, didn’t Lavan explicitly agree to allow Rachel to marry first? No matter. Lavan is saying that Yaakov should have known that Lavan couldn’t possibly have meant what he said. It’s all Yaakov’s fault; he’s the transgressor and aggressor, and Lavan is the aggrieved.

With this, the Torah introduces us to a particularly noxious form of falsehood, which in contemporary parlance is known as gaslighting. The term comes from a 1940s film about a couple living in Edwardian London, and how the scheming, abusive husband uses subtle deceptions — including gradually dimming the gas lights in their home while pretending nothing has changed — in an effort to make his emotionally fragile wife doubt her own perceptions and even her sanity. The day is saved only through the intervention of a detective who realizes what the malefactor is up to, and tells the wife, “You’re not going out of your mind. You’re being slowly and systematically driven out of your mind.”

The point of gaslighting is not just to tell a bald-faced, demonstrable lie, but to do so in a way that knocks one’s intended victim back on his heels, manipulating him to question his basic core beliefs and judgment. The gaslighter weaponizes his lies in a way that seeks to shake the other’s confidence that he knows the truth, and maybe even in the very possibility of knowing the truth. He’s subtly taunting not only his intended victim, but the concept of truth itself.

A classic Jewish vitz tells of two rival businessmen who chance to meet on the platform of the Warsaw train station. “So, where are you going?” says the first fellow. “To Minsk,” replies the second. After a brief pause to warily eye his competitor, the first one shoots back, “To Minsk, eh? Listen here: You’re telling me you’re going to Minsk because you want me to think you’re really going to Pinsk. But I happen to know that you are going to Minsk — so why are you lying?”

Although that (hopefully) apocryphal tale might seem to be about gaslighting, it’s really just a witty story about a Yidel who’s too clever by half. The joke’s on him, not on the businessman on his way to Minsk, who can’t possibly be gaslighted because he knows beyond any possible doubt exactly where he’s going.

But often, when it’s a question of morality rather than cut-and-dried facts, it’s much hazier than that. Lavan tells Yaakov, “Here you are, moralizing to me about being a supposed victim of my conniving, when in reality, that’s a self-righteous pose on your part. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for violating the time-honored standards of this place and for not realizing what our agreement was all along.” It’s enough to make even a man of truth begin to doubt himself.

The same occurs later on, when after decades of being victimized by Lavan, Yaakov flees with his family. Lavan pursues and overtakes Yaakov, and then launches into an epic attack on Yaakov the deceiver, who treats his daughters like hostages. So evil is Yaakov that he even denied Lavan a parting kiss to his children and grandchildren, when for his part, Lavan would have happily given him a rousing musical send-off.

But Lavan doesn’t suffice with that. Instead, he compounds his assault on truth by piling on with the charge of tu quoque, or colloquially, “whataboutism” (because its practitioners begin their sentences with the words, “But what about you…?”) Classic commentators such as the Tzeidah L’derech and the Beis Halevi explain that Lavan’s reference to what is done “in our place” was a veiled allusion to the fact that Yaakov had tricked Yitzchak into allowing the younger brother to preempt the older one. Maybe in your place such things happen, Lavan mocks, but not in ours.

Whataboutism is an amoral cousin of gaslighting, seeking not only to paint the one leveling a perhaps-justifiable accusation as a hypocrite, but also to eradicate wholesale the possibility of an appeal to truth. Rather than arguing that if we all do it, we’re all accountable, with each side’s claims deserving of a hearing, the whataboutist argues that none us are. This is, at base, nihilism. Not only does citing two wrongs not make a right, it threatens to render the notion of right and wrong passé.

Lavan does other things, too, in his efforts to dismantle truth itself. He tells a brazenly public lie about the supposed custom of his community, daring its members to contradict him, and when they do not, making them complicit in his dishonesty.

He seeks to overwhelm Yaakov with the sheer volume of falsehood, engaging in no fewer than one hundred swindles. An appreciation for truth is a delicate thing, an acquired taste, and Lavan hopes to desensitize the Ish Tam through incessant exposure to his flood of lies.

And Lavan hopes that Yaakov will ultimately descend to his level, fighting sheker with more sheker. That too would be a triumph for Lavan, because using noble ends to justify ignoble means is also sheker. But Yaakov perseveres with almost inconceivable integrity, taking not so much as an undeserved pin from his father-in-law, while keeping faithfully to every business agreement the two make. And when he finally encounters Eisav and is able to say, “I sojourned with Lavan but didn’t learn from his evil ways,” his journey to becoming the paradigmatic Ish Emes for all time is complete. —

Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 837. Eytan Kobre may be contacted directly at kobre@mishpacha.com