HaShem told Yaakov, "Go back to the land of Israel." Ya akov went right to Lavan and said, "It's time for me to move on. Let me take my wives and children and go back home."
Lavan said, "All right. Let's figure out what I owe you. Let's see... you worked here for 20 years, and 14 of those years were for my two daughters. So that leaves six years that I owe you for. What would you like as payment?"
Yaakov thought and replied, "I'll take all of the spotted goats and brown sheep that will be born this season."
What Lavan thought was, "Heh, heh! That won't be very many animals at all. Few of the animals right now are brown and have spots and certainly their babies will be the same!" But all he said to Yaakov was, "It's a deal," and he smiled his wicked smile.
To Lavan's surprise, al most all of the newborn goats had spots! And almost all of the baby sheep were brown!
When Yaakov was ready to claim his payment, Lavan realized that something went wrong for him, He exclaimed, "Hold it, I'm the one who's supposed to get these brown and spotted animals... You pick something else!"
Even though Yaakov knew that Lavan was playing tricks with him, he went along with it.
"OK, I'll take the animals with white stripes instead."
"You got it," said Lavan.
Can you guess what happened next? That's right-all of the animals from then on were born with white stripes!
Lavan was beside himself. "Huh? What's going on? I must have made a mistake... Let's make a new agreement..."
And so it went, on and on and on. In the end, Lavan changed his mind about the deal 100 TIMES! Whew!
