After living with Lavan for 20 years, Yaakov and his family finally left for the land of Canaan. To announce their arrival, Yaakov sent a message to his brother, Eisav: “I have sojourned (גַּרְתִּי) with Lavan and I have tarried until now.”
The literal meaning of the word גַּרְתִּי is “I stayed there as a foreigner.” Yaakov used these words to emphasize that despite spending 20 years in Lavan’s company, and amassing much material wealth there—“oxen and donkeys, flocks, manservants and maidservants”—he continued to view himself as a stranger in Charan. It never became his natural home.
Yaakov’s view of himself as a stranger to Lavan and everything Lavan represented was the secret behind the other interpretation that Rashi suggests for the word גַּרְתִּי: גַּרְתִּי has the numerical value of 613. That is to say: I lived with the wicked Lavan, but I kept the 613 commandments, and I did not learn from his evil deeds.”
Yaakov’s success at maintaining his observance of תרי״ג, the 613 mitzvos, was due to his firm resolve to keep his relationship with his material affairs in a state of גַּרְתִּי, foreignness. He therefore never allowed it to disturb his worship of G‑d, and could proudly say, “Despite 20 years of Lavan’s company, I kept the 613 commandments.”
—Likkutei Sichos, vol. 1, pp. 68–69
