In today’s Chumash, more of the Shevatim are born. Yaakov finishes his 14 years of working for Lavan, and wants to go home.

Reuven was taking a walk in the fields, at the time of year when all of the wheat was ready to cut. He found some flowers there that didn’t belong to anyone, and knew they were a special flower that can help someone have a baby. He knew his mother wanted another baby, so he brought them home to her.

Rochel saw that Reuven was giving Leah the flowers, and asked Leah if she could have them, since she wanted a baby very much. Leah said, “Yaakov likes you so much, it’s like you took him away from me! Now you want my flowers too?”

Rochel said, “Let’s make a deal. Even though it’s my turn for Yaakov to spend the night with me, you can take my turn if you give me the flowers.” Leah agreed.

When Hashem saw how hard Leah was trying to have more children for Yaakov, He made her able to have another baby. She had another set of boy and girl twins. Since she felt like it was a reward (sechar) for having Yaakov marry Zilpah, she called him Yissachar.

Then she had another set of twins, and called the boy Zevulun, since she said that Yaakov would for sure now decide that she is the most important wife, and live (zevul) most of the time with her. Because if there are only 12 shevatim, and she already had 6 of them, that means that she had half of the shevatim by herself!

Then Leah realized she was going to have another baby. She davened that the baby be a girl, because she knew that most of the shevatim were already born, and now there were only 2 left to be born. If Leah would have another boy, it would mean that Rochel would only have one baby boy — even less than Bilhah and Zilpah. Hashem made a neis, and the baby changed to be a girl. Leah named the baby Dina (judgment), since she judged herself and decided she didn’t want Rochel to be embarrassed.

Then Hashem remembered that Rochel had given Leah the signs so SHE wouldn’t be embarrassed. Hashem also saw that Rochel was afraid Yaakov wouldn’t want to stay married to her if she doesn’t have any children, and then maybe Esav will want to marry her! Hashem listened to her tefilos and made her able to have children.

Rochel had twins. She felt that now Hashem didn’t want her to feel embarrassed or be afraid she would have to marry Eisav. She named the boy Yosef, which means to add more, asking Hashem to also give her another boy, the last of the shevatim. Yosef was born with a bris milah already.

Now Yaakov was finished working his 14 years for Lavan!

When the fourteen years were over, Rivkah sent her nurse Devorah to Padan Aram, to tell Yaakov that Esav wasn’t so angry anymore, and he could come home. At first Yaakov was afraid! But he felt that since Yosef, such a special baby, had just been born, in his zechus he didn’t need to worry. So he told Lavan that he wanted to go back to Canaan with his family, since he did his job well.

Lavan said, “I wish you would stay! I learned through tamei magic that I finally had baby boys because you lived here.” (Before he only had girls, which was why Rochel had been taking care of the sheep at the beginning of the parsha. During the years that Yaakov was working for him, he had boys too.)