Dearest Rivka……….
I deserve better from you. You know perfectly well that on the morning Rokhel found Yaakov he’d smoked so much hash that he was literally seeing angels walk up and down a ladder. Now, when he’s nearly ninety, he finally gets his act together and absorbs invaluable corporate experience, and that’s not enough? You remember Dad, do you really think Abba Betuel was any different with me than I am with Yaakov?
I know you love your son, but you have another son whose scribe keeps writing me about how you treat him. Esav is doing better than ever for House Avraham, but after what they wrote me it’s a little tiresome to read you accuse me again of dishonesty.
That birthright story was really shocking. Esav offered Yaakov his birthright in exchange for a bowl of soup as a joke, and once Yaakov jokingly took it, he threatened to burn it rather than give it back; and when you heard about it, you not only didn’t demand Yaakov return it to its rightful owner, you deliberately tricked ‘Yitzhak’ into giving Yaakov the Blessing too.
Do I really have to remind you that our firm’s ‘tricks’ are the reason you have any sons at all? You’re the one who wanted to marry that crazy side of the family which claims they’re ‘chosen’ by a god they never see, cuts the foreskin off its babies but doesn’t sacrifice them, and thinks themselves so morally superior to the rest of the world that they whore out their wives and expel their concubines (and don’t think all that ‘explulsion’ in the House of Avraham is over just because your meshuggeh father-in-law is dead). How many of your grandchildren will even be able to stay in Canaan? Your side of the family is so fucked up that your favorite son had to run away to save his life. Fortunately he had a rich uncle to employ him, though apparently if he’s rich he has no problems at all…
Please understand, the head of the house always gets the plumb herds, that’s the way it’s always been; you know that very well, but what you might not understand is how difficult things still are. Whatever luxury we knew in the old days of Ur, An & Enlil and Enki be praised, that’s over now. We came to this new country with nothing, and over fifteen years we built a successful multi-empire syndicate that still isn’t half the organization we had in Sumeria, which I shouldn’t need to remind you was liquidated due to anti-semitic discrimination.
I’m just trying to keep expenses low, and as head of Terakh House, if I didn’t take the best shares, Yaakov’s life would be threatened. You never met my son, I discipline him as best you can a schnorrer, but he runs with a very bad crowd of Assyrians. If I let Yaakov keep the best herds, what defense would Yaakov have if my son decides Yaakov’s a threat to the inheritance Boer refuses to work for? Yaakov isn’t a hunter-gatherer like his brother, and even if Boer is as unathletic as the rest of us, his friends are not, and any one of them would make quick work of your son. So please understand, if we made business decisions on the basis of all your womanish worries, we’d all have died a hundred years ago
Rivka, please understand, I love you, I love Yaakov, I love Leyah and Rokhel, even if Rokhel is a hur…, and I want to see them all thrive. I’m doing what I think is best for us all, especially Yaakov, and very soon he can choose whether to be head of House Terakh or House Avraham.
So as a show of good faith, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Kharan’s annual livestock fair is in half a year. In six months we’ll have more goats and sheep than any of us know what to do with. Yaakov will get all the black ones, all the spotted and speckled ones, and I’ll just take the pure white.
Your unappreciated brother who loves you, An & Enlil and Enki be praised,
Lavan
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