From: Yeshivat Har Etzion Office <office@etzion.org.il>
To: yhe-intparsha@etzion.org.il
Subject: INTPARSHA62 - 07: Parashat Vayetze
YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH (VBM)
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PARASHAT VAYETZE
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Leah, Rachel and the House of Israel
By Rav Michael Hattin
INTRODUCTION
Parashat Vayetze describes Yaacov's flight from his
brother Esav's wrath. After having deftly secured the
Patriarchal blessings and been subsequently granted the
coveted covenant of Avraham his forebear, Yaacov is sent by
his father Yitzchak and his mother Rivka to the land of Aram
Naharaim and to the city of Charan, there to find refuge
from Esav's burning anger and murderous intent in the house
of Lavan, Rivka's brother. Decades earlier, Avraham's loyal
servant Eliezer had traveled the same path in search of
Yitzchak's mate, and had unexpectedly found himself at the
house of Betuel, Avraham's own nephew and Lavan's father.
There, he had secured the hand of Betuel's daughter Rivka to
be Yitzchak's wife, and had lavished her family and
especially her brother Lavan with precious gifts and
delicious dainties. Now, Yaacov retraces Eliezer's steps,
but in contrast to the latter's laden camels and extensive
entourage, he arrives as a fugitive at Charan's outskirts,
pausing at the well to catch his breath. Like Rivka before
her, Rachel, Lavan's daughter, providentially appears on the
scene, not in the guise of a water drawer but as a
shepherdess. Yaacov introduces himself as her long-lost
kin, and the startled girl hurries home to inform her family
of his unexpected appearance. Finally, Yaacov is escorted
to Lavan's door, but unlike his grandfather's devoted
retainer, he arrives bereft of material possessions, and
stricken with fear for his future.
Graciously, Lavan extends an invitation to the hapless
figure before him, and immediately Yaacov takes up the task
of caring for Lavan's sheep. Yaacov, already smitten at the
well with Rachel's kindness and beauty, now offers to serve
Lavan for seven years in order to have her hand in marriage.
Lavan, ever presenting a calm, kind and considerate mien to
the outside observer, but constantly churning beneath with
malicious schemes, immediately accepts, but without delay
conspires to do otherwise. As the fateful marriage day
fades into evening and the shadows flee before night's
gathering gloom, Lavan instead positions his older daughter
Leah, concealed by an impenetrable veil, under the blissful
canopy. Yaacov, blithely unaware of Lavan's subterfuge,
pledges his vows to her instead. Discovering the cruel ruse
on the morrow, Yaacov is politely but firmly rebuffed by his
new father-in-law: "It is not the custom in our place to
give the younger before the older!" But, proffers Lavan, "I
will also give you the other one (Rachel) for seven more
years of service" (Bereishit 29:26-27).
Yaacov readily agrees to the new terms and in the
process acquires for himself a second wife. Much of the
remainder of the parasha, a direct outcome of Lavan's
vicious ploy, is consumed by a description of the terrible
hurt and great upheaval that is occasioned by Yaacov's
marriage to the two sisters, Leah and Rachel. Theirs is a
household torn by envy, racked by resentment, and filled
with unfriendly rivalry for Yaacov's love. Many children
are born to Yaacov between them and their maidservants, but
the joy of childbearing brings in its wake no tranquility or
fulfillment.
A VEILED CAUTION
Over the course of the twenty years that Yaacov spends
in Lavan's service, his wives bear him eleven sons and one
daughter. Six of the children are the offspring of Leah,
two of her maidservant Zilpa, two are born by Rachel's
maidservant Bilha, and the last, beloved Yosef, by Rachel
herself. The names of the children invariably address their
respective mothers' feelings of rejection, anguish and
perpetual hope of securing Yaacov's exclusive love. On the
one hand, the Torah's account presents a powerful argument
against the practice of bigamy or polygamy, for it suggests
that a household of two or more wives is fertile breeding
grounds for more than just children. It is a recipe for
strife, jealousy, and never-ending grief. In fact, the vast
majority of polygamous relationships described in the Tanakh
were full of distress and confrontation: Avraham and
Sarah/Hagar, Yaacov and his wives, Elkana and Chana/Penina
(see Shemuel/Samuel 1:1), David and his wives (see for
instance Melakhim/Kings 1:1), and of course the extreme case
of King Solomon. The inherent menace of polygamy is spelled
out in the Torah's directive to not overlook the first-born
son, though he may be the offspring of the 'hated' wife (See
Devarim 21:15-17).
In short, it is not surprising that normative Judaism
eventually outlawed the practice over one thousand years ago
with the proclamation of the famous 'Ban Against Bigamy' by
Rabbenuu Gershom Me'or HaGola (10th century, Germany), the
acknowledged leader of Ashkenazic Jewry. Of course, the
modern State of Israel also proscribes it, and Sephardim are
duty-bound to abide by its laws.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE PARASHA
On the other hand, we are left to ponder the deeper
significance of the Torah's account. How are we to
understand the narratives of Leah and Rachel? Why does
Providence conspire to create a household full of discord
and dissension? Is there more to the account than simply an
expression of the protagonists' personal trauma? We may
begin our investigation by noting that the parasha of
Vayetze is a self-contained unit. Thus, in the Torah
scroll, there are no breaks between the episodes of the
parasha because they represent a single continuum.
Structurally, we may nevertheless note the following
discrete elements:
1) Yaacov's flees from Canaan, is vouchsafed a nocturnal
promise of Divine protection and eventual return, and Yaacov
utters a vow (28:10-22).
2) He arrives in Charan at the well, there meets with
Rachel, and is welcomed into Lavan's home (29:1-17).
3) Yaacov becomes Lavan's shepherd hoping to marry Rachel,
but in the end abruptly acquires her sister Leah as his wife
as well (29:18-30).
4) Leah has offspring but her hopes of securing Yaacov's
love go unanswered, Rachel is jealous of Leah's fecundity, a
'competition' ensues to produce more children (29:31-30:24).
5) Yaacov states his desire to return home and requests
his wages, but Lavan deceives him forcing Yaacov to adopt a
stratagem to secure what is rightfully his (30:25-43).
6) Yaacov and his now-substantial household flee Canaan-
bound from Lavan, as the latter is preoccupied with his
sheep shearing (31:1-21).
7) Lavan pursues them and overtakes them at Mount Gilad,
but in a nocturnal message, God warns him from harming
Yaacov (31:22-43).
8) Yaacov and Lavan conclude a mutual non-aggression
treaty and Yaacov continues his journey westwards towards
the land (31:44-32:3).
It is readily apparent from the above breakdown that the
story's most prominent theme, the thread that draws together
all of its separate episodes, is that of exile and
redemption. As the parasha begins, Yaacov is forced to
leave Canaan, finds refuge as a foreigner in the house of
Lavan, there acquires wives and wealth but no existential
security, and in the end is forced to 'flee' back to his
rightful home - the land of Israel. Lavan the gracious
host, soon stripped of his mask and self-transformed into
the oppressive tyrant, attempts to foil the Divine plan but
in the end, cannot but acquiesce. God's watchful concern,
ever present and supportive but almost never apparent,
ensures Yaacov's survival and sets into motion the mechanism
of his r In short, the Torah here spells out the kernel of
the Jewish historical experience, to be repeated over and
over again at 'Charans' almost too numerous to recount.
THE EGYPTIAN PARALLEL
The most striking parallel to our parasha, however, is
the story of the descent to Egypt. The story of Egypt
contains so many obvious thematic similarities that we may
almost regard it as exactly the same tale. Thus, the
descent to Egypt begins with the exile from Canaan of
Yaacov's offspring, the initially kind reception of the
Pharaoh soon becomes the brutal reaction of his namesake
successor, the few Israelites nevertheless persevere to
become many in spite of Egypt's cruel preventative measures,
Israel eventually merits 'miraculous' delivery from bondage
and ventures forth accompanied by great wealth, and
Pharaoh's pursuit leads to a climactic confrontation in
which Israel triumphs while the god-king's hordes are
defeated. Again, the constant and palpable presence of God
guides the chain of events to its preordained conclusion.
To augment the almost complete thematic correspondence
between the two accounts, we must take note of the following
literary parallels as well: Yaacov 'works' ('vayAVoD' -
29:20) for Lavan and Israel labors for Pharaoh ('vayAViDu' -
Shemot 1:13, etc), God 'sees' ('Raiti' - 31:12) Yaacov's
bondage and He perceives ('Rao Raiti') Israel's subjugation
(Shemot 3:7), Yaacov's family and wealth increase 'greatly'
('MiOD MiOD' - 30:43) and Israel multiplies abundantly
('biMOD MiOD' - Shemot 1:7), Yaacov 'flees' ('vayiVRaCH' -
31:21) from Lavan's rage and Israel escapes from Pharaoh
('BaRaCH' - Shemot 14:5), Lavan is 'told' ('vaYuGaD' -
31:22) that Yaacov has fled and Pharaoh is informed
('vaYuGaD' - Shemot 14:5) that Israel has escaped, Lavan
gives 'chase' ('vayiRDoF' - 31:23) and Pharaoh pursues them
('vayiRDoF' - Shemot 14:5). In fact, according to an
ancient tradition, Pharaoh learns of Israel's failure to
return on 'the third day' of their Exodus and finally
catches up with them at the Sea of Reeds on the 'seventh
day' (see Rashi's comments on Shemot 14:5), exactly as is
recorded concerning Lavan: "Lavan was informed on the third
day that Yaacov had fled.he pursued him a distance of seven
days." (Bereishit 31:23-24)!
In short, the story of Yaacov/Lavan is the selfsame
story of Israel/Pharaoh, but with one critical and
significant difference: Yaacov's enslavement and redemption
is the account of an individual, and Israel's bondage and
exodus is the story of a people. The God of Israel,
however, is interested and concerned with both dimensions of
human existence, the personal and the particular, as well as
the communal and collective.
THE BIRTH OF THE JEWISH NATION
If the parasha of Vayetze is the story of Jewish exile
and redemption, if Lavan is the archetypical host nation and
Yaacov is his temporary and vulnerable guest, then Yaacov's
wives and children must be the microcosm of the Jewish
people. This is hardly surprising, considering the fact
that the birth of these children constitutes more than the
making of a family. The names of these children will be
immortalized as the names of the Twelve Tribes, indicating
that their births represent the nascence of the Jewish
nation. Bearing in mind the Egyptian parallel, our
structural model also indicates that the birth of the
various children to Leah, Bilha, Zilpa and Rachel in turn is
in fact a description of the dawn of the community of
Israel. The personal story of Yaacov and his wives is,
according to this reading, transcended by the more pertinent
tale of the entry of the people of Israel onto the stage of
human history.
Echoes of this idea are preserved in a number of early
Rabbinic sources indicating that these matriarchs themselves
were aware that they and Yaacov were embarking on a new
phase of historical development, one in which the seminal
idea of ethical monotheism would no longer be the exclusive
preserve of individuals alone. Avraham and Sarah had stood
against the world, and their embryonic, nuclear family
remained separated from that world by their belief in One
Absolute God. Yitzchak their son, and Rivka his wife, had
taken the place of their elders but were no more successful
in disseminating their predecessors' ideals. These earliest
stages of Jewish history were essentially 'proto-national'
and were lived out within the framework of individuals and
their circumscribed lives.
With Yaacov's taking of wives and their birth of many
children, the possibility arises for the first time of a
larger family or group that will maintain its covenantal
relationship with God, but at the same time slowly transform
that relationship into a communal and eventually a national
model. To quote Rashi (11th century, France): "The
Matriarchs were prophetesses who were aware that twelve
tribes would be born to Yaacov, and that these twelve would
descend from four wives. When Leah gave birth to her third
child Levi, she exclaimed 'Now Yaacov can harbor no
complaints against me, for I have provided him with my full
share'" (commentary to 29:34). We may suggest that instead
of a prophecy the Matriarchs possessed a dim awareness, an
intuitive subconscious realization that theirs was the task
and privilege of driving the historical process forward to
eventually culminate in the establishment of a nation. To
put the matter differently, fully developed states are not
generated out of thin air. Rather, they are the patient
product of generations of cultivation and nurturing and no
small amount of struggle and pain. Great indeed are the
individuals who are perceptive enough to comprehend that
their labor of child rearing also constitutes nation
building.
THE FUTURE CHALLENGES OF ISRAEL THE PEOPLE
All of this inevitably brings us back to Leah, Rachel
and their fractious family. Why does the Torah seem to set
up a dynamic that is sure to produce friction? Why does the
text devote so much attention to the convoluted relationship
of these two? How do we explain the Torah's only recorded
case of polygamy involving sisters?
The commentaries have not attempted to provide a
comprehensive explanation for every episode in the account
of Leah and Rachel. Although the local, individual account
strikes us as troubling, projecting the story to its
national dimension makes it eminently intelligible. Just as
surely as the essence of Parashat Vayetze is not simply
describing events in the lives of Yaacov and Lavan, but
rather amplifies them to trace the broad historical sweep of
Jewish history, so too the story of Leah and Rachel and
their children is more than the account of their personal
lives. It is a concise description of the awesome trials
and challenges that their descendents will face in their
valiant attempts to forge a nation and maintain its unity
and integrity.
YEHUDA AND EFRAIM
The children of Leah include a number of prominent
players but chief among them is Yehuda. In the course of
the Joseph narratives he will emerge as the most significant
of the brothers, and as Biblical history unfolds, the tribe
of Yehuda will become its most potent element. The Davidic
line will eventually descend from Yehuda and the capital of
Jerusalem will be established on its borders.
Rachel's children are but two, Yosef and Binyamin. The
remainder of Sefer Bereishit will revolve around the saga of
Yosef, and the tribes of Menashe and especially Ephraim that
will descend from his sons will constitute the counterweight
to Yehuda's influence in the national polity throughout the
Biblical period.
These two poles, Yehuda and Yosef, Leah and Rachel
respectively, represent two disparate elements that tend to
be in a constant state of rivalry and conflict. The discord
and hostility between Leah and Rachel, between the two
sisters who cannot transcend their differences to unite in
mind and purpose, foreshadows the future divisions that will
hamper national unity and eventually drive the people of
Israel apart to form two separate states. As the larger
Biblical story plays itself out over the course of a
thousand years, Yehuda and Yosef, or 'Yehuda and
Ephraim/Yisrael' ithe typical prophetic formulation,
gradually grow distant, eventually to become two
disconnected monarchies in the aftermath of Solomon's
ignominious end. The 'Kingdom of Ephraim' with its eventual
capital sited at Shomron/Samaria is, in the end, exiled by
the King of Assyria in the 8th century BCE. The 'Kingdom of
Yehuda' with its capital at Jerusalem, enjoys another 150
years of partial independence until itself suffering exile
at the hands of the Babylonians.
Thus, considering our parasha from this more 'cosmic'
perspective, it is clear that the animosity, enmity, and
strife that color the relationship of the two 'sisters,'
foreshadows the very difficult struggles that will unfold as
the nation of Israel takes shape, and alludes to the
conflicts that would continue to mold its development until
the termination of its sovereignty and national independence
almost two millennia after Leah and Rachel had been laid to
rest.
Of course, the Biblical people of Israel never
succeeded in overcoming sectarian and narrow interests to
become a truly unified nation. The tribes often pulled in
different directions as a function of their local needs and
concerns, and their leaders frequently found it difficult to
see beyond the limitations of tribalism and factionalism to
address the broadest possible concerns of all of the people.
First as tribal confederacies and later as independent
kingdoms, Yehuda and Ephraim were often in competition with
each other and occasionally in open warfare.
Nor did the destruction of the First Temple bring an
end to the divisiveness. The strife of Leah and Rachel is
sadly still with us awaiting its resolution. Fortunately,
the Prophets who lived through the destruction of the first
Jewish State were granted a comforting vision of a Messianic
future, when Israel would be restored to its land and would
finally succeed in transcending its internal divisions to
become a single people.
"God said to me: Mortal man, take a branch and inscribe
upon it 'for Yehuda and the children of Yisrael his
compatriots,' and take another branch and inscribe upon
it 'for Yosef the tree of Ephraim and all of the House
of Yisrael his compatriots.' Draw the branches
together to become one in your hand.for thus says the
Lord God: Behold I will take the children of Yisrael
from among the lands of their exile, and I will gather
them from afar and bring them to their land. I will
make them into a single nation in the land of the
mountains of Yisrael and they will have one king. They
will no longer be two nations and will no longer divide
into two kingdoms.They will dwell in the land that I
gave to My servant Yaacov, the land in which their
ancestors dwelt, and they will dwell upon it, they and
their children and their children's children forever.My
presence will be upon them and I will be their God, and
they will be My people. The nations will then know
that I am God Who sanctifies Yisrael, for My Temple
shall stand in their midst forever" (Yechezkel/Ezekiel
Chapter 37).
Shabbat Shalom
YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH
ALON SHEVUT, GUSH ETZION 90433
Copyright (c) 2001 Yeshivat Har Etzion.
All rights reserved.
NOTE FROM EDDIE:
This Weekly Torah portion contains some VERY IMPORTANT concepts
in understanding the rabbinic concept that: 'The events of the life's
of the Patriarch's are prophetic of their future descendents'.
As explained above, this is a MAJOR theme of 'From Exile to
Redemption'. The events of the lives of the Patriarch's are
PROPHETIC of the future history of the TWO HOUSES of Israel.
The reason why this concept is SO IMPORTANT to US is that the
HISTORICAL EGYPTIAN redemption is a type and shadow of the FUTURE
restoration of both houses of Israel (Ezekiel 37:15-28).
The Hebraic concept is that we are to see ourselves as if WE were delivered from
Egypt and were at Mount Sinai. In I Corinthians 10:1-4, the Apostle
Paul told us to NOT BE IGNORANT that ALL of our fathers were
'redeeemed from Egypt' and that the ROCK of that redemption was the
Messiah.
Because we have departed from Torah and understanding this
FOUNDATIONAL Torah concept that 'The events in the lives of the
Patriarch's are prophetic of their future descendents', we have to be
re-educated that the restoration and reunification of BOTH houses of
Israel (Ezekiel 37:15-28) is a MAJOR REDEMPTION concept of the Torah
and the prophets. Furthermore, we need to understand that Messiah
died to restore and reunited both houses of Israel (John 10 and 11)
and Messiah was asked WHEN this event would happen in Acts 1:6 and
the Apostle Paul was called into the ministry to preach this message in Acts
26:6-7.
If you are not one of the MANY people who have already read my
book, "Restoring the Two Houses of Israel", I would encourage you to
do so to help you to understand this MAJOR theme of the Bible. If you
read this article and would like to order the book, you can do so for
a limited time for $18 postage paid.
Understanding the issue of the restoration of both houses of
Israel is a MAJOR element of embracing your Hebraic roots.
Hebraic Heritage Ministries Int'l
PO Box 81
Strasburg, Ohio, USA 44680
Eddie Chumney
Hebraic Heritage Ministries Int'l
END OF NOTE
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