TORAH FOR CHRISTIANS
SEASON SIX EPISODE SEVEN
LEAH AND RACHEL
I don’t know what it is about Hebrew men and water wells. But it always seems to lead to a marriage. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.
MUSIC
Welcome to Torah for Christians. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr.
When we discussed the story of Rebekah, Eliezer, Abraham’s servant, met her at a well. In this story, one generation later, Jacob rolled the stone off a well, perhaps the same well, when Rachel approached with her flock. And again, it is at the well where our story begins.
When Jacob saw Rachel bringing her flock to the well, he immediately fell in love with her. Jacob thought her quite beautiful. Whether Jacob was being chivalrous or thought that this was the way to gain her affection, he rolled the stone away from the well so that she, and the other shepherds, I assume, could water their flocks.
Jacob immediately discovered that Rachel was his first cousin – but not before he kissed her. She brought Jacob home to meet her father, Laban, Rebekah’s brother, and Rachel’s older sister, Leah.
To the modern reader, the Torah has objectified Leah and Rachel. Torah described Rachel as beautiful and shapely. But Leah was described as Racut, often translated as weak-eyed. But a better translation might be that she had tender eyes. Tender eyes might be a positive description in this case; tender eyes can be attractive. But clearly Jacob loved Rachel and he did not have feelings for Leah. This does not reflect negatively on Jacob; it is human nature to love one sister but not the other.
As we know, Jacob struck a deal with Laban to work seven years for Rachel’s hand. But at the end of the seven years, Jacob discovered on the morning after his wedding night that he had actually married Leah, not Rachel. Laban had deceived him because, in his words, “We do not marry off the younger before the elder.” Jacob was forced to work another seven years before he could marry Rachel. And then, another seven years to buy his freedom. At the end of 21 years, Jacob was allowed to return to Canaan and take any mottled sheep with him. The deceived deceiver Jacob found a way to mottle the fleece of otherwise white sheep and took them as well. This is how 21 years of mutual deception ended.
It’s time to look at the relationship between Leah and Rachel. Usually, we pass over this rivalry, focusing instead on their childbearing prowess. But there are some deep subtexts here that we should analyze.
Leah gave birth to Reuven, the first-born son of Jacob. In the Bible, names have great meaning and especially here. Reuven can be broken down into two words, R’eu and ben. As Leah states in the text, God has seen my affliction and then, R’eu, has given me a son, ben. R’eu-ven.
What was Leah’s affliction? All her life, Leah had been afraid that she would be forced to marry Esau while her sister Rachel was destined to marry Jacob, older to older, younger to younger. This Midrash continues to say that her eyes were dime because she cried so much. Marrying Jacob annulled that horrible fate predicted for her. But Jacob certainly wished otherwise.
Leah knew that Jacob did not love her. Furthermore, she wondered, according to Midrash, if Jacob resented her for taking part in Laban’s deception, of marrying her to Jacob without his knowledge or consent. The birth of Reuven, Jacob’s first-born son, was a relief to here; it indicated to Leah that God favored her, not Rachel.
Leah bore Jacob four children in a row: Reuven, Shimon, Judah, and Levi while Rachel had none. As expected, the infertile Rachel became envious of her older, quite fertile sister, showing us that the theme of infertility is alive and well in this story. At the start of Chapter 30, she begs Jacob, “Give me children or I shall die!” Unlike his father Isaac, who pleaded with God to give Rebekah children, Jacob rebuked Rachel, “Can I take the place of God?” So, Rachel gave her handmaiden Bilhah to Jacob. Through her, Jacob fathered Dan and Naphtali – who became Rachel’s children through this strange Near Eastern custom of handmaiden surrogacy. We saw this before, when Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, leading to the birth of Ishmael. And we painfully remembered what happened because of that encounter.
After Bilhah bore Jacob two sons, Leah – who had stopped bearing children – gave Jacob her handmaiden, Zilpah, who gave birth to Gad and Asher, sons ascribed to Leah. The rivalry was in full bloom.
As if the handmaiden stories were not strange enough, in verse 14 we have the story of the mandrakes. Reuven was wandering the fields and brought his mother Leah some mandrakes, which were widely known for their medicinal and magical powers. Perhaps thinking that mandrakes were the magic potion needed to induce fertility, Rachel bargained with her sister to take the mandrakes. To take possession of the mandrakes, Rachel had to give up her night with Jacob. And to make matters worse, Leah conceived yet again, giving birth to Issacher and later Zebulun. Six sons in all, plus Zilpah’s two children, Gad and Asher. Rachel’s plan backfired. Of course, echoes of Jacob extorting the birthright from Esau come to mind when we read about mandrakes.
And then, Leah bore Jacob a daughter, Dinah. We will visit her in a future podcast, to be sure.
And then, God remembered Rachel. Finally, she conceived and gave birth to Joseph, so named because, in her words, “God has taken away (asaph) my disgrace.” Her disgrace was that God had not opened her womb, to use the Biblical language, while Leah had born seven children.
At this point, Jacob was the father of 11 sons and a daughter. Benjamin, the youngest son, brother of Joseph, borne to Rachel, arrived while the family was on its way back to Canaan, Rachel sadly died giving birth to him and is buried in Bethlehem, where her tomb has long been a shrine, where infertile women pray to God for children.
What does it mean for two sisters to compete for the affections of their common husband? In our world, we would insist that the number of children a woman bears is but one part of a woman’s sense of self. Today, a woman might go to school, work, travel and create – and perhaps never have children, or never even marry. These are all modern conceptions, though. In the Biblical world, things were different; a woman’s status and sense of self absolutely depended upon her fertility, as did her personal safety. The more children, the greater her status.
In our story, the complication is that Jacob loved the sister who was virtually barren – and who later died in childbirth. The fact that Jacob loved Rachel over Leah upended the ancient norm; he should have favored the fertile Leah. To his credit, he loved Rachel for who she was – and not for her childbearing ability.
But then again, nothing in this story suggests that Jacob did anything to defuse the rivalry between the sister-wives. And there is evidence, as we noted before, that Jacob might even have encouraged the rivalry, when he rebuked Rachel in her plea for children. Just as his mother Rebekah played favorites with her children, Jacob played favorites with his wives. This truly was a destructive action, one so bad that the Torah later tries to amend when it states that a man with two wives must treat each wife equally: financially, spiritually, and especially sexually.
This of course is not the end of their story. Far from being passive figures, Rachel and Leah grow in their agency as they approach the time to leave their father Laban and travel with Jacob to the Land of Canaan, a place they have never seen. We’ll continue their story in our next episode.
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In conclusion, let me say, Hinei … L’hitra’ot, till we meet again. I’m Rabbi Jordan Parr and this is Torah for Christians.