AFTER RACHEL HAD BORNE YOSEF, YAAKOV SAID TO LABAN, "GIVE ME LEAVE TO RETURN TO MY PLACE, TO MY LAND. GIVE ME MY WIVES AND MY CHILDREN, FOR WHOM I HAVE SERVED YOU, THAT I MAY GO; FOR WELL YOU KNOW WHAT SERVICES I HAVE RENDERED YOU.

AND HE CONTINUED, "NAME THE WAGES DUE FROM AND I WILL PAY YOU..." HE SAID: "WHAT SHALL I PAY YOU?"

AND YAAKOV SAID: "PAY ME NOTHING!... LET ME PASS THROUGH YOUR WHOLE FLOCK TODAY, REMOVING FROM THERE EVERY SPECKLED AND SPOTTED ANIMAL - EVERY DARK-COLORED SHEEP AND EVERY SPOTTED AND SPECKLED GOAT. SUCH SHALL BE MY WAGES."

BUT WITH THE FEEBLER ANIMALS HE WOULD NOT PLACE THEM THERE. THUS THE FEEBLE ONES WENT TO LABAN AND THE STURDY TO YAAKOV.

SO THE MAN GREW EXCEEDINGLY PROSPEROUS, AND CAME TO OWN LARGE FLOCKS, MAIDSERVANTS AND MENSERVANTS, CAMELS AND ASSES.

NOW HE HEARD THE THINGS THAT LABAN'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."

 (Bereishit Chap. 30)

 

"Give Me Leave - And I Will Go To My Place, to My Land"

Place, Land, Birthplace

Yitro said (Bemidbar 10:30): To my land and to my birthplace I will go"; geographically speaking, this is the correct order; one cannot be in his dwelling place unless he is found in his land. But the situation was different with Yaakov; he had a dwelling place, but he had no land. The land was only a goal, it was a land of the future. Therefore, it seems, he said: ""u'lartsi" (connoting "for the sake of my land"), rather than "el artsi" - meaning only "to my land." The land, as it is today, does not attract him; upon his return he will be no closer to it than when he was Avram. But when he will build his home in his birthplace, he will live for the sake of the land of his future. He will raises his family in that place, which is destined to become the land of his grandchildren's birthplace.

 (Hirsch, Bereishit 30:25)

 

 

"WAS IT NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU TO TAKE AWAY MY HUSBAND?!" WORDS WHICH REVEAL ESSENCE

Yair Eldan

 

Our parasha presents us with the web of Rachel's relations with Leah. The story of the mandrakes, which follows the birth of the maidservants' sons, is the climax of the tension in their relations. Rachel asks Leah to give her some of the mandrakes brought by Leah's son, Reuven. Leah's answer to the request is sharp and stinging - "Was it not enough for you to take away my husband, that you would also take my son's mandrakes?!" This answer seems totally out of proportion to Rachel's request, a request which is not marked by tension; it even has elements of softness and search for pity. Leah's barbed response indicates that she had been long waiting to fling that accusation at Rachel; sisterly communication had been, up to this point, sorely inadequate. Leah's answer, in which she reveals her view on the triangular relations between herself and her sister and her husband, become the turning point in Rachel's attitude to Leah. A second before this sentence was spoken, Rachel is deep in emotional crisis, involved with herself, with her anguish, with her envy of her sister, and mainly with her anger at Leah for having taken her place alongside Yaakov. Until this moment, Rachel saw all life through the perspective of her conflict with her sister. She was bound by her point of view that Leah behaved arbitrarily, wounding her again and again throughout her relationship with Yaakov, beginning with the wedding night in which she collaborated in their father's deceit, and concluding with having children - both she and her maidservant - as though with malicious intent to pain childless Rachel.

Leah's reply stuns her. The few words which Leah utters "Was it not enough for you to take away my husband?!" lays bare before Rachel Leah's world and the way she conceives reality. Rachel understands that Leah senses herself rejected and wounded, unloved and abandoned. Leah has been long awaiting an opportunity to hurl blame upon Rachel, certain that Rachel is aware of her suffering, of the hell which she undergoes lacking expressions of love by Yaakov. After having inwardly spoken words of rebuke and reprimand through all the years, it seemed fit in Leah's eyes to respond to Rachel's minor request for mandrakes with a direct attack. This, then, is the connection to the deal "mandrakes for a night with Yaakov" which Rachel suggests. Rachel realizes, for the first time, that there is no point in continuing the conflict; there is no sense in fanning the animosity and no point in monopolizing Yaakov, who is married to both of them and who is the subject of their fight for his affections. Only at this point, after Leah lays bare the configuration of her world before Rachel, does Rachel understand Leah, and actively participate in the attempt to bring her closer to Yaakov; therefore she suggests that she spend with Yaakov the night which was intended for her. It seems that Chazal's famous Midrashic attempt to move Rachel's realization and sacrifice up to an earlier date, having Rachel give her signs to Leah on the wedding night, is not in line with the chapter's dramatic progression of the plot. At first, Rachel requested the mandrakes in order to facilitate conception, but after Leah's eruption, they become the instrument of Rachel's detachment from Yaakov. Therefore Chazal expounded: "Because she made light of the tzaddik's closeness, she did not merit burial alongside him." At first glance, it is difficult to understand why Rachel, the beloved, is denied interment alongside her husband only because she gave up a single night of his company - and that, for the benefit of his other legal wife. (Attention should be paid to the connection between cohabitation and death, as expressed by the shared root sh'kh'v'). But the point is that at the moment Rachel understands her sister's position, she ceases to experience reality solely through her relations with Yaakov. The moment she realizes that her animosity towards her sister is unfounded and she forgoes any contest over Yaakov, she is transformed into an autonomous person. The meaning of her severance from conjugality is that she no longer is dependent upon Yaakov for her self-realization; she sets out upon a new path of her choosing. This behavior results in criticism by Chazal; she is justly sentenced - in that cave of Machpela where couples are buried, there is no place for Rachel, who renounced conjugality. Leah, on the other hand, does not undergo such a process - she continues to maintain her perspective and finds it difficult to appreciate her sister's distress and the processes she is experiencing; Leah is still Yaakov's "helpmeet", and she submits her desires to his wishes, and therefore it is she who merits to buried alongside him. What is happening to Rachel - the transformation from the beloved and the "helpmeet" to an independent woman can be detected in the names assigned her sons. Before her awareness of Leah's point of view, the names reflect Rachel's anger and her struggle with her sister: Dan - "God has vindicated me" - the birth is a ruling in Rachel's favor; Naftali - "A fateful contest I waged with my sister; yes, and I have prevailed" - the name speaks for itself. After understanding Leah's viewpoint, she calls her son Yosef - "May the Lord add another son for me" - the name relates only to her maternal longings, or "God has taken away my disgrace" - an expression of resignation, of self-awareness, a declaration of weakness, all these in contrast to feelings of jealousy and quarrel.

Rachel becomes pregnant thanks to divine interest in her barrenness - "Now God took note of Rachel; God heeded her and opened her womb". Here, too, we find Chazal's explication to the effect that "He remembered that she gave her [to Leah] signs and that she was fearful lest she fall to Esav should Yaakov reject her" contradicts the narrative line. God's taking note of Rachel is juxtaposed to the story of the mandrakes; it flows logically from Rachel's understanding of Leah and of her noble concession. (It is interesting to note that although Chazal draw comparisons between Rachel and Chana, in the case of Chana and Penina there is no parallel awareness of the other's perception of reality). God takes note of Rachel after she has decided to change direction, navigating her life according to her own conscience and wishes, and not in accordance with society's standards. Davka now is she able to imagine life without Yaakov. Davka now apprehension of rejection by Yaakov ("should Yaakov reject her") does not guide her.

One final point. The change in Rachel's relations with Yaakov and with her sister can be seen both at the beginning and at the end of the process. At the beginning, Rachel says to Yaakov "Give me children or I shall die". Rachel is in a situation in which she perceives Yaakov as the one responsible for her barrenness; should she not meet his expectations, her life will have no meaning. At the beginning Rachel experiences the desire for motherhood as part of the wish to compete with her sister and to meet her husband's expectation. Yet more, "Yaakov" is the "Baal" and the god who has the power to grant her pregnancy. Yaakov refuses to take responsibility and play the role which Rachel assigns him; he admonishes her - "Can I take the place of God?" At the end of the process, an inversion transpires. After Laban overtakes Yaakov and charges him with stealing his gods, Yaakov declares that "anyone with whom you find your gods shall not remain alive!" Here, Yaakov does not say "Can I take the place of God?" - he takes responsibility for all that happens under his aegis. At this point, however, Rachel no longer perceives her life as subsidiary to Yaakov and as an object of his expectations. She lies regarding the idols, and thereby renounces Yaakov's ability to rule over her life. Also the manner in which she does this - sitting on the idols with the excuse "for the way of women is upon me" - hints at her newly acquired strength, to the point of manipulative use of her feminine distinctiveness. Thus, she is transformed from one who perceives herself as totally dependent upon Yaakov to one who is in complete control of her life.

That short sentence spoken by Leah exposed Rachel to the hopelessness of her earlier perceptions, and liberated her from the turbulence of her inner world. Her attentive listening to her sister enabled her to exploit the one-time opportunity to effect far-reaching changes in her life and to extend a hand to her sister. On a higher level, the logic of the story indicates that the process of her liberation was, simultaneously, both the key to the cessation of her barrenness, and the reason for the heavy price she paid for her emancipation from Yaakov.

Yair Eldan participates in the "Amitey Shalom" project in Merkaz Shalem

 

 

 

"He Rolled the Stone From The Mouth of the Well": Revelation through the Struggle for Justice

"It is still broad daylight": The tzaddik despises injustice, even that inflicted upon others, as is written, "The unjust man is an abomination to the righteous". (Seforno, Bereishit 29:7).

To inform you that contemplation, isolation, and avoidance of the bustle of life and the masses are not the identifying features of one who seeks God's nearness and divine revelation; it is rather the carrying of His banner among the people, action - even dealing with daily routine (often trifling) matters, involvement and integration into daily activity in order to impose justice. This is the reason why the Torah tells of such trivial and unimportant matters such as Yaakov and the shepherd.

(Professor Nechama Leibowitz, "Studies on the Book of Bereishit, p.219)

 

 

"And this stone, which I have set up as a pillar, shall be God's abode" - What Is God's Abode?

As a memorial of the hour, when I stood as a destitute pauper at the crossroads, and I looked out at my blessed future - this stone will be a house of God, in which life will be sanctified unto God, and His divinity will be present. Only when God is our Lord, only then can man's house also be a house of God. A crooked, perverse generation, which glorifies in the temples of its gods, will also warp this truth; it will - as in the words of the prophet "When they placed their threshold next to My threshold and their doorposts next to My doorposts with only a wall between Me and then, they would defile My holy name by the abominations that they committed, and I consumed them in My anger" (Ezekiel 43:8) - build its house alongside My house; everything is in his [man's] domain, even God will have a house, but let not our house be His house! We will visit God in His house, but let Him not visit in our house - His Presence and His demands will only make life difficult for us!

But this is not what is said about the cornerstone of the first "House of God"! The holiness of the home is the condition for the holiness of the house of God; it is called "Mikdash" - a holy place - not because the place has been set aside for holiness - but because it is the center from which holiness will penetrate the realm of humanity and social relations.

 (Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, Bereishit 28:22)

 

 

Holiness is the area which cannot be approached and controlled directly; therefore, 'holiness of a site' implies the prohibition against transforming the place into a tool for human exploitation. The sanctity of a synagogue is expressed also through the prohibition against using the synagogue space as a shortcut, in the words of the Mishna: "One may not enter the Temple Mount with his staff, his sandal, his moneybelt and with the dust on his feet, and he shall not use it as a shortcut." Essentially, kedusha, in its various halakhic expressions, means withdrawal and retreat. Its goal - the limitation of domination and dominion. According to most Halakhic masters, the area of the Temple Mount itself, is, because of its sanctity, off limits to entry by Jews. How can one claim ownership of a place where his foot may not tread?!... Without doubt, the tremendous effort exerted by each side to wave its national flag over the mount is the 'placing of an idol in the sanctuary' and the changing of a holy place into an area of manipulation in a national conflict.

(From an article by Prof. Moshe Halbertal, published in Haaretz 5.1.01 - and in the pamphlet "The Temple Mount - Compromise in the Eye of the Storm")

 

 

 

Editorial Board: Pinchas Leiser (Editor), Miriam Fine (Coordinator),Itzhak Frankenthal and Dr. Menachem Klein

Translation: Kadish Goldberg

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