Learn When to Keep Quiet

In Parshat ויצא, we learn a very valuable lesson that is most appropriate during these troubled times. This is the scenario:

Lavan is furious with Yakov and wants to kill him. Hashem comes to Yakov’s aid by appearing to Lavan in a dream. He warns him that he better not harm Yakov, or else. The next day, Lavan casually tells Yakov that his G-d spoke to him the previous night and he will not harm him.

If Lavan wasn’t a רשע, he might have been moved by his spiritual experience and should have considered doing Teshuva. Instead, he made light of this, and remained Lavan the Cheat.

We learn from this, that we need to carefully consider when it is worth our while to try to convince others of our opinion. We see that people can be so stubborn and set in their ways, that even Divine intervention will not move them.

We need to be wise enough to know where it is worthwhile to make efforts to influence, and when we are better off keeping quiet.