Kommentar zu Bereschit 30:40

והכשבים הפריד יעקב AND JACOB PARTED THE LAMBS — Those sheep that were thus born spotted on the ankles and speckled he separated and set apart by themselves, thus forming them into a separate flock. He led that spotted flock in front of ordinary sheep so that the faces of the sheep that followed behind them were gazing at them. This is what Scripture means in saying, “He set the faces of the flocks towards the spotted” — that the faces of the sheep were directed towards the spotted animals and towards all that were brownish which he found amongst Laban’s sheep (i. e., amongst the sickly sheep which Laban had left him; cf. Genesis 5:36).

AND JACOB SEPARATED THE LAMBS. Rashi comments: “Those sheep that were thus born spotted on the ankles and speckled, he separated and set apart by themselves, thus forming them into a separate flock. The spotted flock he led in front of the ordinary sheep so that the faces of the sheep that followed behind them were gazing at them. This is what Scripture means in saying, And he set the faces of the flocks towards the spotted; the faces of the sheep were directed towards the spotted animals and towards all that were brownish which were found amongst Laban’s sheep. And he put his own droves by themselves, and set them not with Laban’s flocks, as I have already explained.” This is the Rabbi’s [Rashi’s] language. But his words here are not correct. For why did Jacob separate the spotted lambs so that there did not remain in Laban’s flock any speckled or brownish ones, neither in the sheep nor in the goats? And if those that he separated were the ringstraked, speckled and spotted which the sheep had given birth to and which belonged to him, and it was from them that he made this spotted flock, why did he separate only the lambs and did not take also the he-goats and she-goats which were born spotted and make from all of them this spotted flock which he led before the sheep? Moreover, Scripture makes no mention of the fact that brownish ones were born. And again, according to the opinion of the Rabbi [Rashi], there were no ringstraked and spotted among the lambs for these were not his hire. Only the brownish were, and for the brownish he had made no sticks.
But the explanation of the verse is that Jacob separated the lambs from the goats and made from them a separate flock. Now he had a flock of brownish lambs and a flock of spotted and speckled goats. He then had the faces of all the flocks — of the lambs and of the goats — directed towards the ringstraked and towards all the brownish which were in the flock of Laban, since he put the ringstraked before the goats and all the brownish before the lambs, this being in accordance with the opinion of the earlier Rabbis, [Rashi and Ibn Ezra, as explained above], or, according to [Ramban’s] opinion, the ringstraked and all the brownish before the lamb. For the purpose of the separation of the lambs from the goats was on account of the brownish which were his hire from the lambs alone.
The correct interpretation appears to me to be that Scripture is saying, Jacob separated [only] the lambs and set the faces of the flocks, which refer to the above mentioned lambs, to the ringstraked and all the brownish in the flock of Laban, and he put his own droves of the ringstraked and the brownish by themselves, and he set them not with Laban’s flocks, for these, [the ringstraked and the brownish], were his hire. And the meaning of the expression, in the flock of Laban, is that he did so with all of Laban’s flocks but not that they belonged to Laban since the ringstraked among the lambs were Jacob’s.
Now do not ask why Scripture at first says “lambs” and then says “the faces of the flocks” rather than “the faces of the lambs”, for it is normal for Scripture to express itself this way. In this section there is a similar case in connection with the mountain of Gilead.¹⁶⁹Further, 31:25. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain, and Laban with his brethren pitched in the mountain of Gilead. “The mountain” mentioned at the beginning of the verse is the “mountain of Gilead” mentioned at the end. And the reason Jacob did this with the lambs more than with the goats is that there were no brownish ones among the sticks he put up. It is possible that he knew that because of their heaviness, it is natural for lambs to require many signs to arouse them — more than the light-weight he-goats require.

והכבשים הפריד יעקב, the spotted and striped ones Yaakov had already previously removed from Lavan’s flocks during the first and second year. He now let Lavan’s spotted and striped sheep see the females of the young ones to encourage them to become pregnant with newly born lambs of the skin pattern which they had recently seen while in a state of stimulation. In order to reinforce the imagination of the sheep to be impregnated, he planted the sticks with the peeled parts near the troughs to enhance the chances of the next crop of lambs to display the skin patterns he hoped for.

אל עקוד וכל חום בצאן לבן, this was after Lavan had already reneged and changed the rules of the contract by allocating to Yaakov newly born lambs with different skin patterns than had been agreed to originally.

פני הצאן אל עקוד, the flocks facing the ankle-striped, etc. Perhaps the reason that only the ankle-striped ones are mentioned here is that the sheep would react more rapidly at the sight of that colour pattern than towards the striped or speckled ones.

והכבשים הפריד יעקב, he separated the females from the goats whether male or female, not watering the two species at the same time, in order to prevent goats with undesirable skin patterns being born. None of the goats that were not black belonged to Yaakov [according to Joseph Kimichi’s commentary, there was nothing wrong in what Yaakov did or failed to do, since these goats never had displayed such skin patterns, so why should Yaakov encourage their being born with new skin patterns. Ed.] Yaakov watered the goats elsewhere where they did not observe any sticks or branches that could arouse their imagination. Yaakov did not have any black paint which would have enabled him to paint sticks black. Even if he had possessed such paint, his stratagem would have become public knowledge as naturally black sticks or branches did not exist in that region. He therefore had to content himself with increasing his share of the births of the sheep, foregoing any artificial measures to make the goats throw young ones that were black-skinned. [the interested reader will find that different commentators arrive at different conclusions regarding exactly what was agreed between Yaakov and Lavan, and they each explain his procedures according to their understanding of the agreement. Ed.]

והכבשים הפריד יעקב, “Yaakov had already separated the sheep, etc.” According to Rashi this means that he set aside as his own flocks all those that had been born with the skin patterns agreed upon as his wages. He made separate herds of them and made them walk in front of the mature flocks in a manner that caused them to face those flocks. This is the meaning of the line ויתן פני הצאן אל עקוד וכל חום בצאן לבן, “he made them face all the ankle-striped and the brown ones among the sheep.” The problem with this commentary, writes Nachmanides, is that it does not explain why he had separated the sheep only and not the goats, both male and female, so that they too would reproduce young ones of the desired skin pattern. Why did he not make a separate herd of the goats also? Furthermore, seeing that according to Rashi’s opinion the sheep do not produce the skin pattern called עקוד as we surmise by the fact that Yaakov was not given such as part of his wages, as opposed to brown (speckled) ones, there was no point in his peeling aspen sticks when these sheep came to the water troughs. It therefore made perfect sense that Yaakov kept the sheep completely apart from the goats. He had a flock of goats, both male and female, which were נקוד וטלוא; these he made walk in front of the senior generation of sheep. All this makes sense according to those who hold that any נקוד וטלוא among the sheep would not belong to Yaakov in any event. According to Rashi’s own opinion that all the skin patterns mentioned applied to both goats and sheep, the reason he separated the herds of sheep from those of the goats was that among the goats there were not (as yet) any which showed brown patches of skin.

So that the flock faced the... the brown ones that he found among Lavan’s flock. The [second] flock mentioned here means the goats, as Lavan had taken away all the brown sheep, as it says in v. 35. But Lavan did not separate the brown goats since this [kind] was not Yaakov’s wages. Similarly, he did not separate the speckled and spotted from the sheep, only from the goats, as I [Re’em] wrote above. This is because these [kinds of sheep] were not Yaakov’s wages. (See the Re’m’s elaboration here.) Re’m writes further that [when Rashi says, “Those that were born spotted and speckled,”] the phrase “those that were born” is likely a misprint [and should be omitted], unless we say it refers to those already born before Lavan took away [part of his flock]. Then, Rashi would be saying: Those speckled and spotted [sheep] already born to Lavan’s flock, which Lavan did not take away because these [kinds] were not Yaakov’s wages.

ולא שתם על צאו לבן, and he did not keep them near the flocks that belonged to Lavan. He did not want Lavan to be able to say that he had mixed them among Lavan’s flocks in order that Lavan’s sheep would produce young looking like those of Yaakov.

וישת לו עדרים means he formed them into a separate flock as I have already explained.

וישת לו עדרים לבדו, from the lambs that were born as his share, year after year, Yaakov formed separate flocks which he kept apart seeing that they amounted to a formidable number of animals. He did not let them graze anywhere near where Lavan’s flocks were grazing. Lavan had displayed envy of Yaakov, and therefore Yaakov did not want to inflame his envy by letting him see his flocks all the time, knowing that Yaakov’s share of the newly born sheep had outnumbered those born as his own share

וישת לו עדרים, he set aside droves for himself. This was designed so that these flocks should never look at any other varieties than the ones with the skin pattern Jacob had chosen. In this way they would automatically give birth to young ones of that same skin pattern. If that were not so Jacob would have to give to Laban all those young sheep or goats which were not speckled or striped.

The construction: על צאן לבן, must be understood as similar to Leviticus 25,31: על שדה הארץ יחשב, “shall be considered as open country.”

And it is appropriate to know that, although Yaakov performed intensive actions, nevertheless without Hashgacha Pratis (Specific Divine Providence) it would have been impossible for the technique to be so effective. Rather, the main (effect was caused by) Hashgacha (Providence) combined with an action- as in a hidden miracle. (This is just) like a curse at an inopportune time (Heaven forfend). The Midrash states in Eicha Rabba that (when) one hits with a stick between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av, a destroying angel hits with an iron stick and kills (the victim). So too with blessing, a small action on the part of a person causes a great impact (from) above. The actions of our fathers are a sign for the children in their exile amongst many nations, that their success is based on diligence and knowledge and preparation, and the assistance of Heaven completes them.

על צאן, as if the Torah had written עם צאן, “with the sheep.” A similar construction is found in Exodus 35,22 ויבאו האנשים על הנשים, “the men came together with the women.”