Parshas Vayetzei: The Sisters

We in the 21^st century believe that we have learned a lot about human psychology, about how a person develops in their childhood to become a healthy adult. There are, of course, an extraordinary amount of factors in that process, but we know that, in many ways, we are a reflection of who our parents see us as. It is, therefore, a rather interesting question to ponder just what sort of “dad” Lavan was to his daughters.

 Lavan had two daughters, and life for them does not sound particularly easy. His older daughter Leah was considered not-quite beautiful and was known for being tearful. The Midrash states that she cried often because she knew that she was destined to marry Esau and his reputation preceded him. One wonders, how this information had been presented to her and it is easy to doubt that it was presented in a gentle, caring manner but rather as a fait accompli and now be quiet about it and stop whining. Why can such a crass reaction be suggested, you may ask. Because our text indicates in a rather wide variety of ways, that Lavan viewed his daughters as possessions, as assets, rather than as people.

 You might jump to point out how considerate he was of Leah’s feelings when he worried that the younger should marry before the older, but if he had truly been worried about her feelings, he would never have agreed to Rochel’s betrothal in the first place nor would he have put his eldest in such a fraught position on the night of the wedding. One can, after all, imagine all the ways in which that could have gone wrong!

 Perhaps, one might suggest, there was something in the relationship with Leah that forced him to be more caustic, less caring.  There is, however, a very interesting line that reveals a lot about Lavan as a person and as a father. In Bereishis 29, Yaakov meets Rochel and is smitten. He comes to Lavan, identifies himself (which should have been an indicator of being someone to be greeted with love or respect), and asks for her hand in marriage. Lavan’s response…”Better I give her to you than give her to another man.”

 Wow Dad! Thanks for caring. Tom, Dick, Harry…Yaakov. Ok, you can marry her as long as I benefit.

 With a father like Lavan, it is almost amazing that Leah and Rochel were able to be such loving parents to the flock of children in their household. And, on the other hand, with a father like Lavan, it explains a lot about the behavior of the two sisters in their married home. There is, from both of them, a deep insecurity as to their being loved by their husband.

 While it is made clear throughout the parsha that Yaakov loved Rachel, there is also a distinct feeling that Rachel is not exactly happy. She watches her sister’s brood grow and grows frantic at her own lack. Of course, part of this is because she yearns to be a mother, as many women do, and part of this is because, on a spiritual level, there is a known prophecy that this was the way Klal Yisrael would be formed. However, from a psychological point of view, Rachel may have felt that having children was her way of contributing to the family. As a married woman, it was her “job” to procreate, and she wasn’t doing it. Remember, Rachel was the child that Lavan sent out with the flocks. Rachel had been raised to contribute, to prove herself among the shepherd boys, so that she was a contributing member of the household and thus, perhaps gained favor in her father’s eyes.

 Leah, on the other hand, was sadly too aware that she had to prove her value because her sister was the one Yaakov wanted to marry. One certainly gets the feeling that this was a familiar position. Making assumptions, one could imagine that Lavan believed that Esau, as the eldest son, was going to be the primary heir and so Leah had her value. She may not have been naturally as beautiful, but she was kept from labor so that she was preserved for her future. However, as time went on, Rachel’s work made her, in her own way, as equal – if not more – to her sister in their father’s eye.

 As many children as she had, Leah could never feel confident in her husband’s affection – any level of affection, because all she and her sister had ever known was affection based on value added.

 It would be easy to make this all about Lavan being a bad guy - and, certainly, he was a man of many, many flaws - but his was a common approach to women and family. Indeed, this basic attitude is seen throughout history. Here, now, in the comfortable days of the 21^st century, we have the time and luxury to contemplate such concepts as attachment parenting and the need for emotional affirmations. For most of human history, however, basic life left no room for such reflections.

 It would be wonderful to write that our age of contemplation and reflection has created a situation in which we enjoy a world of confidence and psychological health for all. Alas, most of us are still riddled with insecurities, and each of them individualized to our own personalities. This is what makes us human, of course, just as does the process of learning and growing and overcoming those insecurities. When we study the avos and the imahos, we are empowered to know that they faced such relatable challenges, too, and were able to rise to greatness, even if they still had personal work to do.

 Wishing you all a meaningful Shabbas.

Undertones of Character (Parshas Vayetzei)

"Come and learn what Lavan the Aramean sought to do to our father, Yaakov. For Pharaoh issued his edict against only the males, but Lavan sought to uproot us all…” The Pesach Haggadah 

 

Reading through the parshios in which Lavan is mentioned, most specifically Parshas Vayetzei, it is somewhat obscure to see how Lavan is such an evil character as to be referenced as the start of the oppression that occurred in Egypt. In fact, one might ask (and some have) a similar question about both Ishmael and Esau, particularly the latter. In the text, the details of the lives of these reshayim (Heb. wicked ones) are rather mundane. Ishmael is a boy who Sarah accuses of “playing” with her son, which the midrash tells us means a host of misbehaviors. Esau appears as an impulsive youth who is outwitted by his brother into selling his birthright and later as a man cheated of his father’s blessing. Lavan could be seen as a father who went to great effort to protect his daughter Leah from being shamed by her younger sister marrying first and who worked hard at keeping his son-in-law employed and his extended family together. The Midrashim, of course, go into far greater detail about exactly what their real actions and motivations were.

 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the patriarchs and matriarchs, whom we elevate and admire, are often written about in such a way as to leave questions on their behavior. Why was Sarah so unkind to Hagar? How could Yitzchak have been so oblivious to Esav’s behavior? Why did Rachel steal her father’s teraphim (household idols)?

 

Rachel’s theft is a fairly well-known story. Yaakov is done with working for Lavan. His family is almost complete, as all his children except Binyamin have been born. Hashem has told him that it is time to return to the Holy Land. As he takes his caravan and heads for home, Lavan comes galloping after him demanding to know why he has left with no notice as he would have sent him off with great fanfare. At the end of his great pronouncement of shock and disappointment, Lavan also asks why they have taken his idols (Bereishis 31:23-30). Yaakov, who knows nothing about it, tells him to search the caravan. Rachel sits upon the idols and claims that she cannot rise for the ways of women are upon her. Yaakov vouches his family’s innocence and declares that “anyone with whom you find your gods shall not remain alive!” (Bereishis 31:32). One is so surprised that Rachel would steal her father’s idols and, in the way of the “reader-in-the-know,” is horrified by Yaakov’s declaration that curses Rachel that one does not necessarily recall the beginning of the perek 31, which reveals a great deal about the dynamics of Lavan and his daughters…even as it remains subtle within the text.

 

Reading backward through the perek, one comes to Leah and Rachel’s response to Yaakov’s recommendation that they leave Lavan’s house: “Then Rachel and Leah answered him, saying, ‘Have we still a share and an inheritance of our father’s house? Surely, he regards us as outsiders, now that he has sold us and has used up our purchase price. Truly, all the wealth that God has taken away from our father belongs to us and to our children. Now then, do just as God has told you’” (31:14-16). These verses seem innocuous enough but read them again more carefully. Why did they refer to themselves as having been sold? Because everything about the family dynamic hearkens back to Lavan’s deceitful nature. Lavan keenly remembered that Eliezer had brought fine jewelry for Rivka, and felt he had a precedent for gaining from his daughters’ marriages. In the era of the patriarchs it was the normal way of the world for a man to pay the bridegroom’s family a dowry, a bride-price that paid them for taking over her care and maintenance. When Yaakov came to them and was so obviously enamored of Rachel, Lavan did not enter into the usual bargaining of a shidduch. In fact, not only did Lavan not provide a dowry for either of his daughters, but he also took advantage of Yaakov and contracted him to work seven years – each – for his wives. Lavan’s daughters were keenly aware that their husband did 14 years of labor for them, that their husband paid for them in as much,  and then spent six more years in their father’s employ.

 

Whereas some commentaries postulate that Rachel stole the idols to try to protect her father from himself, there is a sense here that there was a lot of family tension, more even than would be expected after the switching of the bride situation.

 

Another interesting dynamic in this perek is the placement of Yaakov’s family in the larger scheme of Lavan’s household. Up until this point in the parsha, one might have had the impression that Lavan’s sole familial interest was his daughters. Not only is Rachel the one tending the sheep when Yaakov first arrives, but Lavan takes great interest in Yaakov’s business. Who, then, are the kinsmen who are noted for camping with Lavan after tracking Yaakov down (31:25)? This goes back to the beginning of perek 31, where it is noted: “Now he [Yaakov] heard the things that Lavan’s sons were saying: ‘Yaakov has taken all that was our father’s, and from that which was our father’s he has built up all this wealth’” (31:1). Suddenly there are sons… suddenly there are brothers. These brothers, however, seem to place no value on their relationship to Rachel and Leah. They have their father’s character and are aggrieved by Yaakov’s success because they see it as a direct threat to their inheritance.

 

The more you pull apart the text, the more nuanced the details of Lavan and his family. Lavan’s was not a household that fostered love and family closeness. It seems, rather, that this was a household built on greed and selfishness, on a sense of what is owned and what one is entitled to. Rachel and Leah, like their aunt before them, are exceptions to those norms.

 

Why aren’t the falsehoods and deviousness of Lavan more plainly spelled out in the Torah? Perhaps this is a lesson about judging ourselves verses judging others. The Torah is a guidebook for the Jewish people, and Sefer Bereishis is the history of Bnei Yisrael specifically. It doesn’t matter, really, what it was that Lavan or Esav or Ishmael did that cut themselves off from being part of this future nation; it only matters that we know that their lives and the lives of their descendants are on a different track. We do not need to judge others. We do, however, need to judge ourselves, and this is why the Torah describes the lives of the forefather/foremothers with what may be a more honest tone. This is not to say that the Torah is dishonest in its discussion of the reshayim, but that the text follows our conscientious laws of avoiding speaking negatively about others without reason. The patriarchs and matriarch are our ancestors and our role models and so their challenges and mistakes are the situations from which we must learn. We must understand their fallibilities in order to overcome similar faults in our own selves and thus live the full spiritual lives that is our inheritance from them.

 

 

 

 

The Internal Struggle (Vayetzei #3)

Next week's parsha, Parshas Vayishlach, contains the famous scene of Yaakov wrestling with the angel. Did you know, however, that this week's parsha also contains an inference to wrestling?It is part of the process of naming Naphtali, and perhaps it does not get noticed because it is one verse in the middle of 28 verses related to the birth and naming of Yaakov's first 12 children. Perhaps it is given less attention because this sixth son of Yaakov is the second son of Rochel's handmaid Bilha. Nevertheless, it is an interesting pasuk: "And Rochel said, ’With mighty wrestlings have I wrestled with my sister, and I have prevailed,’ and she called his name Naphtali" (30:8).

The word for wrestling here, naftal, is not the same as the word used for wrestling at the end of the parsha, which is y’avak. There is no need to imagine Rochel and Leah physically attacking each other, as happened to Yaakov. Rochel's struggle was more internal. Indeed, it is quite possible that Leah did not even realize the extent to which her sister saw them as adversaries.

One can only imagine how painful it was for Rochel to watch her sister bear the man that she loved child after child. Her sadness, anger, pain, and resentment must have constantly been at odds with her basic love and loyalty that she felt for her sister; a love proven by the help she provided her sister on the the night that Leah wed Yaakov. Knowing, or assuming to understand, how hard it was for Rochel to share her husband with Leah, one can only imagine Rochel's internal conversations that led her to give Yaakov “Bilha, her handmade, to wife” (30:4). She did this only after she felt strangled by envy (“Give me children or else I die" - 30:2). And so she named Bilha’s firstborn child Dan, saying “God has judged me and has given me a son" (30:6), which shows that she was anxious in her choice of action until Hashem blessed the union. With the birth of her second son through Bilha, Rochel could finally begin to let go of her negative feelings. She could finally begin to feel on par with her sister. And thus she could now admit how difficult her relationship with Leah had been.

The internal nature of her struggle can, perhaps, be recognized by their contrast to Leah’s actions. Leah followed Rochel's lead and gave her handmaid Zilpah to Yaakov. Her choice of action was because of her sister’s successful course, not because of the same desperate desire that inspired Rochel. Zilpah bore two sons in Leah’s stead, and the choice of names, and their reasons, are also clues to how differently Leah saw their relationship. (Although in the naming of Leah's first four sons we do see her struggle to feel loved too, but that angst is directed at Yaakov, not Rochel.) Leah named the first son of Zilpah Gad, saying “What luck!”, and the second son she named Asher after declaring, “What fortune!” Both of these names indicate that Leah took the addition of these sons as a happy, but not necessarily significant, event.

Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch comments that Rochel's use of the term Noftulee Elokim means sacred wrestling (whereas others translated the term as mighty) and says: "a sacred wrestling competition did I wage with my sister, not a match that struggles for something low or common, of which one would be ashamed, but for a sacred end did I compete against my sister, to do my part, too, for this spiritual building up of our house.”

An internal wrestling match with one's feelings of jealousy and loyalty, resentment and love, is extremely human. It is worth noting here because the important thing is what one does with those emotions. The Tur HaAruch understands Noftulee Elokim Niftalti as Rochel declaring “I have writhed repeatedly in prayer before God,” which, he further explains, is also prophecy of Naphtali's descendant Chirom being in charge of the construction of the Beis Hamikdash (as opposed to Leah’s descendant Betzalel, who constructed the Mishkan).

Rochel's declaration of her feeling of having wrestled with her sister could have been hurtful, but we see no such reaction from Leah. This, too, points to the internal nature of Rochel’s struggle. And, as noted by Rav Hirsch, it is a struggle that has as much to do with the desire to build Klal Yisrael as it is the wanting of children. This struggle, based in something larger than one's personal and immediate gratification, leads to a positive end. The RADAK notes that Rochel's use of the word Noftulee may come from the root of pey sav lamed, Pitel, to twist or be twisted as in “two strands of yarn combined to make a cord, twisted. By pulling the two strands together, the whole stream becomes stronger.”

It is well known that the lives of the matriarchs and patriarchs had challenges. Some commentaries like to whitewash them, but the truth is that what makes them great is how they handled those challenges, how they overcame their internal battles, and how they strived to build for the future. These are exactly what makes them so important. Divrei Torah focus on Yaakov’s wrestling match with the angel because it is a powerful turning point that shapes the future nation. What is often overlooked, however, is the significance of Rochel’s wrestling match, of her coming to terms with her feelings, which, perhaps, eventually was critical in her being able to bring forth Yosef and Binyamin. But for all time, one cannot diminish the importance of understanding Rochel's feelings of an internal struggle against her sister as a means also of demonstrating the normalcy of emotions and the challenge of overcoming them. 

Now That’s A Rock! (Vayetzei #2)

Remember that old saying, “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend”? Perhaps if your goal is gashmius (materialism) that is true, but in this week’s parsha, the Torah presents the first significant gift of a rock from a guy to a gal … and it’s ALL ruchnius (spiritual). It’s also a really big rock!

When Yaakov arrives at Haran, he finds the local shepherds and their flocks relaxing near the well. When he asks why they are not shepherding the sheep, it is explained to him that all of the shepherds gather together so that they can unite their strength and move the large rock that covers the well. No sooner have they explained this, then Rochel appears shepherding her father’s sheep. “And when Yaakov saw Rochel, the daughter of Lavan, his mother’s brother, and the flocks of Lavan, his mother’s brother, Yaakov went up and rolled the stone off the mouth of the well, and watered the flocks of Lavan, his mother’s brother. Then Yaakov kissed Rochel, and he lifted his voice and wept” (Bereishis 29:10 – 11).

A romance columnist might say he rolled the rock to impress the girl with his superior strength. But the Torah certainly isn’t wasting space with basic bravado. According to Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, the repetition of “his mother’s brother” is an indicator that Rochel looked a great deal like her aunt. He writes: “For in everything that Yaakov did here, he was moved by the thoughts of his mother who appeared living before him in the person of her nearest relative.” More than that, perhaps seeing her approach with Lavan’s sheep had a specific meaning for Yaakov. Here he was, a stranger in Haran, sent by his mother, and his cousin arrives looking like a vision of Rivka. Seeing the similarity indicates to him what he must do to demonstrate who he is. After all, as he tells her later on, he has no possessions, nothing as proof of his identity. Therefore, just as his mother did for Eliezer, Yaakov must hurry to bring water for Rochel and for her animals. When the rock moves with such tremendous ease, he knows that this is a sign from Hashem.

It is interesting that Rabbi Moshe Alshich comments on pasuk 29:10’s vayigal et ha’even (and he rolled away the rock) that “Yaakov did not even have to roll the rock away, all he had to do was reveal the mouth of the well. The word vayigal is derived from gimmel lamed hey גלה, to reveal, not from gimmel lamed lamed גלל, to roll.” So what was revealed by moving a rock?

The fact of the matter is that there are a lot of rocks in parshas VayetzeI. In Bereishis 28, Yaakov arrives and arranges his camp with the stones of the place and goes to sleep. Hashem then brings him his famous dream of malachim on a ladder to shamayim (heaven). When he wakes up, he takes the rock upon which his head has rested, and he sets up a matzeva, a libation stone - for lack of a better English translation.

Yaakov has just been promised a great spiritual future. One might say that he has had confirmation that the brachos he received from Yitzchak had Hashem’s full approval. Now he needs a life partner to make that future happen. He wasn’t going to Haran just to escape from Esau; he was going to Haran to find his spiritual partner. When he was able to remove the rock, he knew that Rochel, too, was important for the future he was building.

Tradition informs us that the rock upon which Yaakov rested his head was no ordinary rock. Rather, as the commentator Chizkuni writes:

According to the sages in Pirkei de Rabbi Eliezer, chapter 35, this stone was the one known in later generations as the even shetiyah symbolising the navel of the globe-  a mystical stone at the site where the Holy Ark had stood in the Holy of Holies during the First Temple. This stone, if removed, would expose a hole going down to the center of the earth. It is supposed to have served G-d as the first piece of solid material of what would be the globe on which we live (translation from Sefaria).

It’s a hard concept to understand – a mystical rock that manifests in different ways throughout the ages, a rock so important to creation that was also a pillow for Yaakov’s head. Like many Midrashim, this should be looked at for the lesson rather than dwelling on the literal meaning. What Yaakov experienced on his way to Haran was a taste of pure spirituality, and that is what is important here.

There is no indication anywhere in Tradition that these two rocks, the one he set as a matzeva and the one he removed from the well, have any connection to each other. On the other hand, there is often a symbolic connection between two sections that are next to each other in the Torah. Between leaving the matzeva and arriving at the well covered by the rock, there is only one pasuk: “And Yaakov lifted up his feet and he went to Haran” (29:1). It’s an odd pasuk. The Torah often says that someone lifted up their eyes, but lifting up one’s feet is not quite so common; and why couldn’t it just say the second half of the pasuk, that Yaakov went to Haran? Rashi says that this pasuk indicates that he was so inspired that “his heart lifted his feet” (citing Bereishis Rabbah). But lifting up one’s feet indicates active effort. The Abarbanel suggests that Yaakov had trouble leaving this place filled with kedusha, especially to head for a place like Haran.

Yaakov knew enough of his uncle, from his mother’s memories and the continued communications between the families, to understand that he was heading toward a place where wealth and possessions, materialism, were valued over spiritual growth. When he got to the well and saw the loitering shepherds, he must have worried further about this new environment. Then he saw the rock, the rock covering the well … the rock that these men mired in the physical could not move. But to Yaakov, the physical world was now secondary, and seeing a large rock reminded him of all that he had experienced. Yaakov rolled that rock from the well and revealed to Rochel that her future was with him, a future of spiritual wealth. And she let him water her sheep, thus accepting his kindness. And so he kissed her and he cried, because he knew he had found his soulmate.

Impact (Vayetzei)

The second verse of this week’s parsha begins “Va'yiphgah Bamakom, and he [Yaakov] came upon the place. . .” (28:11). If you are reading the parsha in English, this language may not seem strange, but the word va'yiphgah is actually a bit odd. In fact, if one were to look the root pey gimmel ayin in a Hebrew dictionary, one would find a strange assortment of translations, ranging from encountering someone to being hurt or struck. (Indeed, in modern usage, a piguah is an unexpected attack.)

The implication of the word yiphgah in the context of encountering someone is that of an unexpected meeting. It is what we today might call “bumping into someone,” which explains how it can also mean being hurt. There is an element of impact to the meeting.

Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch actually brings this idea by stating that the phrase Va’yiphgah Bamakom “cannot simply mean he chanced to come to a place…[it] never mean just a meeting, but always a meeting where the one makes an important impression on the other. Hence it is also used for the intentional going to meet with weapons, or to make a request, to attack or to urge. So that here, too, it must have been a place to which he had been meaningfully attracted and held.”

The rest of the chapter of the text describes Yaakov making a pillow of stones for himself, going to sleep and dreaming of angels travelling up and down a ladder that stretches to Heaven. This is followed by a promise of Divine protection. Until this moment, Yaakov has been Yitzchak’s son. And while he has secured the birthright and received his father’s blessing, this is his first direct encounter with Hashem and the moment when it seems fully determined that he can be the heir to the blessings of Avraham and Yitzchak. Certainly, this fulfills Rav Hirsch’s understanding of the place having a striking impact upon Yaakov!

The words of the Torah are written for all generations, and I cannot help but think that the term yiphga has its own resonance in our own time. Yaakov’s arrival at the place of his dream has an impact on the entire history of the Jewish people and therefore the world. Yaakov wakes from his dream and recognizes the holiness of the place and vows that if all that he has dreamt really does come to pass then he will accept God as his Divine Master - which is what happened.

How often are we in our own lives given an experience that could and should impact us, but we allow the opportunity to build our connection with Hashem to dissipate. Perhaps we can learn from this section of the Torah that when we encounter an unexpected moment or place of holiness, we must grab on to it and let it make a lasting impact upon us.