Laban's Wedding Trick and the Townspeople Who Helped

"I will serve you seven years for Rachel your younger daughter" (Genesis 29:18). He said: Because the people of your place are deceivers, I will clarify my acquisition. "Rachel," and not Leah; "your daughter," so that you not bring another from the market and call her name Rachel; "the younger," so that you not switch their names one for the other. And even if you put the wicked man through magic tricks, you will not succeed. "And Jacob said to Laban, Give me my wife" (Genesis 29:21). Rav Eibo said: Even a licentious man does not speak in this manner, and would a modest man like Jacob speak this way? Rather, thus he said: The Holy One, blessed be He, decreed that I am to establish twelve tribes, and now I am eighty-four years old; if I do not establish them now, when shall I establish them? Therefore Scripture had to say, "Give me my wife, that I may go in to her." "And Laban gathered all the people of the place and made a feast" (Genesis 29:22). He said to them: You know that we were pressed for water, and once this righteous man came, the waters were blessed. They said to him: And what benefit is it to you? He said to them: If you wish, I will deceive him, and I will give him this Leah, while he loves this Rachel greatly, and he will work with you another seven years. They said to him: Do what is good in your eyes. He said to them: Give me pledges that not one of you will reveal me. And they gave him pledges. He went and brought wine and oil and meats. Why was he called Laban the Aramean? Because he deceived [from the same root as 'cheat'] the people of his place. All that day they were praising him, and when evening came, he said to them, "What now?" They said to him, "You performed kindness in your merit; we too will perform kindness with you." They were singing before him and saying, "This is Leah, this is Leah." In the evening the young men came and the lamp was dripping. He said to them, "What is this?" They said to him, "Do you suppose we are despised like you?" All that night he kept calling her, "Rachel, Rachel," and she answered him. In the morning, "behold, it was Leah" (Genesis 29:25). He said to her, "You deceiver, daughter of a deceiver! Was I not calling 'Rachel' in the night, and you answered me?" She said to him, "Is there a teacher without pupils? Was it not so that your father called you 'Esau,' and you answered him?" "Fulfill the week of this one, and we will give you the other also" (Genesis 29:27). From here we learn that one does not mingle one rejoicing with another rejoicing. "Laban took his two handmaids and gave them to his two daughters" (Genesis 29:24, 29). And were they his handmaids? Were they not his daughters? Rather, by the custom of the land, a man's daughters from his concubines are called handmaids, as it is said, "And Laban gave to Rachel his daughter."