The Torah in Parashat Vayetze tells of Yaakov’s arrival in Charan, where he would spend the next twenty years with his uncle and father-in-law, Lavan.  Yaakov first arrived at the well outside the city, and soon thereafter, he saw Rachel, his cousin who shepherded her father’s sheep, bringing the flock to the well.  The Torah relates, “When Yaakov saw Rachel, the daughter of Lavan, his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Lavan, his mother’s brother, Yaakov went ahead and rolled the stone off the mouth of the well and watered the sheep of Lavan, his mother’s brother” (29:10).

            Upon reading this verse, one is immediately struck by the triple repetition of the phrase, “Lavan, his mother’s brother.”  The Torah has already introduced Lavan as Rivka’s brother in earlier narratives in Sefer Bereishit, including as recently as the final verses of Parashat Toledot, when Rivka instructed Yaakov to go to her brother’s home (27:43, 28:2,5).  And even if the Torah found it necessary to remind the reader of Lavan’s relationship to Yaakov (which would be difficult to imagine, as we already know that Yaakov was traveling to his uncle), why would this need to be repeated three times?

            Rabbenu Bechayei suggests (as the first of his two explanations):

The text says several times, “Lavan, his mother’s brother” to teach that Yaakov’s efforts with Lavan’s flock and his mercy upon Rachel, Lavan’s daughter, were not done in Lavan’s honor, but rather for his mother’s honor.  Thus, whenever the text mentions the wicked man Lavan, it mentions [that he was] his mother’s brother… [Yaakov] remembered in his heart his mother who loved him and advised him to go to Lavan.

According to Rabbenu Bechayei, the text emphasizes that Yaakov’s desire to assist Rachel was motivated by his devotion to his mother.  Aware of Lavan’s devious and corrupt character, Yaakov would not have ordinarily volunteered to assist in tending to Lavan’s flocks.  But Yaakov nevertheless sought to assist Lavan because he was, after all, his mother’s brother, and he viewed helping Lavan and his daughter as a way of showing honor to his mother.

            Rav Asher Brander (http://kehilla.org/parsha-reflections-1/vayetzei-5770-stuff-of-greatness) notes a practical lesson that perhaps emerges from Rabbenu Bechayei’s comments.  Simply put, if we do not feel naturally inclined to deal kindly with an undeserving beneficiary, we should nevertheless consider other factors that warrant doing so.  Lavan was not somebody whom we would deem worthy of special kind gestures, and we could have forgiven Yaakov had he shown no interest in doing his uncle favors. But Yaakov looked at the broader picture and found good reason to lend a hand despite his understandable misgivings about his wily uncle.

            Even if we don’t naturally feel like helping somebody – and even if those feelings are justified – we should take a moment to examine the situation more fully, and we will likely discover compelling reasons to extend help despite our instinctive ambivalence.