Investing in Human Capital

I was once at the Shabbat table of the dayan and rabbi of Kol Rina, Rabbi Baruch Rubanowitz, and he asked a fascinating question: 

When Jacob gathered his wives in the field to ask them about absconding from Lavan's home, why doesn't he share the vision, or prophecy he had where Hashem explicitly told him to leave Lavan's home and return to Beit El to fulfill his promise of offering a sacrifice in gratitude for Hashem's protection? Why does he make no mention of the fact that Hashem has explicitly commanded him to leave? 

A fascinating question. 

At the time, in response, I shared that Hashem's command is extraneous if one's logical senses bring one to the very same conclusion. Not infrequently the Talmud teaches, "Why bring a verse (fancy word - exegesis)? It's common sense!"

I now find myself remembering that I once said to my grandfather, Moshe Barth Z"L, "Common sense isn't so common," and he smiled and laughed and said, "You're right." 

Irrespective of that, in Rachel and Leah's response they very much parallel Jacob's question:

"Was he like a father to us?! He treated us like slave girls, stealing our money at every turn. Whatever Hashem tells you, you should most certainly do!"

I'd like to add one more thought: Warren Buffett, the founder of Berkshire Hathaway, one of the most valuable company's in the world once said that whenever he buys a stock or company, he writes down the precise reason for doing so, and then when seeking to sell, or exit the position, he re-examines that slip of paper and asks: "Does it make sense to sell given my reason for buying?" 

I think that to make any good decision one needs to know the reason for choosing, or opting to do what one does. That, essentially seems to be what Jacob was doing. For him to go back, was a walk in the park. He was dying to leave. Every unnecessary daily was grating on him, and unnerving him. But, here, he was taking away two sisters, Rachel and Leah, who would never see their family, or home again; Jacob and Lavan would make a pact to never cross over the territorial demarcator, Gal ed, called by Lavan and his people Yegar-sahadutha, the mount of attestment. 

When Rachel and Leah replied as one, "We have no share in our father's home," he knew that they would bear no ill will or remorse, that his - and even God's decision - wasn't an imposition but fully in keeping with their respective joint will, which meant that their will and Hashem's will was one.