![]() The Torah is insightful because it lets us know that families have been struggling with these issues for thousands of years. We want, sometimes demand, our partners’ devoted sympathy to our pains, and when they can’t help us, it can be deeply painful. Though our story is complicated by the fact that two sisters share one husband (something that the Torah later forbids), the truth is that even in monogamous relationships, life is often not simple. Life - and especially love - among human beings is never easy. (pp.209-210) Learning from the Relationships of The Bible Her deprivations are different from his and must inform her own personal relationship with God. On one level, he is simply saying that his life would be amply fed by his relationship with her. Therefore, perhaps Jacob speaks out of the anger of a man whose love meets with poor response. Essentially, all the protagonists most want what they cannot have. And a profound frustration underlies the relationships between Jacob and his two wives: Leah loves Jacob and names her children as a record of her changing relation to her husband Jacob loves Rachel, and Rachel’s main passion is for children. Jacob is now married to two women: a storm of emotion - hatred, jealousy - replaces the calm harbor of fulfillment. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, modern commentator and author of The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesisadds another layer to the mix of emotions felt in this story. Though it doesn’t make Jacob’s words kind, it at least gives us a better idea of what he may have been thinking and feeling about Rachel’s cry to him. Radak’s portrayal of Jacob makes his response somewhat more palatable. He’s doing what he can, but he is a limited human being and can’t produce the miracles that God does. He can’t do anything about the situation. ![]() ![]() Please - from Him.įor Radak, Jacob’s angry answer is a cry of frustration. What can I do if you are barren? From God you should request that He open up your womb as He did for your sister. Ask that He give you children, because I give you what I am able to give you when I sleep with you. It’s God who denied you, and not I who denied you. While the midrash hones in on Rachel’s pain, the medieval commentator Radak (Rabbi David Kimhi) points out Jacob’s frustration. And of the numerous stories that point out human complexity in the Bible, the stories in the book of Genesis are particularly poignant. Defending Jacob’s Responseīut, human beings, as we know, are complex creatures. ![]() As a rabbinic dictum teaches: “ Midah k’neged midah” (one unkind deed will be paid back by another). In the not too distant future, Jacob’s other sons are at the mercy of Rachel’s son Joseph, when they hear language very close to the cruel words Jacob had spoken. The midrash responds that an insensitive comment like this one will not go unpunished, and it doesn’t. Jacob just dug the knife in deeper by saying that God had denied her the ability to produce children. Yes, she overstated, but her comment reflected how terribly pained and unworthy she felt by not being able to bear children. The midrash is acutely sensitive to Rachel’s feelings here and to Jacob’s cruelty in answering her as he did. Said the Holy One, Blessed be God, to him : “Is that a way to answer a woman in distress? By your life, your children will one day stand in supplication before her son, who will answer them, “Am I a substitute for God ( hatahatelohim ani)?” (Genesis 50:19) Midrash Rabbah (71:7), avoiding any of the apologies later commentators will make, cuts to the chase when it comments: And the Torah records his response: “Jacob was incensed at Rachel, and said, ‘Can I take the place of God (“ hatahat elohim anokhi“), who has denied you fruit of the womb?'” The Midrash Rebukes Jacob “Give me children, or I shall die,” she says to Jacob (Genesis 30:1). She has seen her sister Leah bear Jacob three sons (presumably within three years), and can no longer take the pain of being the barren wife. Particularly galling is Jacob’s reaction to Rachel - the wife whom he loves deeply - when she cannot become pregnant. The struggle between two sisters for the love of the same man, the back-and-forth attempt to win his affections by bearing more and more children, and the visible jealousy and pain that each one of them experiences leaves me feeling angry every time I read the story. I cannot read Parashat Vayetzei dispassionately. Commentary on Parashat Vayetzei, Genesis 28:10 - 32:3
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