Complex Family and Jealousy

9 June 2012 Torah Study Notes by Howard S. (thanks)

• Introduction to 29:31-35

Othello, Act III (scene III) on jealousy as a monster who devours you; it’s cruel and destructive. It’s not the same as envy. In this story, it’s unclear whether the Leah - Rachel relationship is characterized by envy or by jealously.	[Iago to Othello] O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on …
	Envy: wanting something that belongs to another and to which one has no particular right or claim Jealousy - an intense effort to hold on to what one possesses, often associated with distrust, suspicion, anger, and other negative emotions Leah may be jealous of Jacob’s preference for Rachel, but envious of her good looks.

• Leon Kass [The Beginnings of Wisdom, page 427] on Chinese ideogram for trouble: two women under one roof! If Jacob professes to love Rachel more than Leah, an inevitable occurrence in a bigamous household, then trouble portends.
• Poor Leah. She’s in a marriage where she’s not loved.

29:31. And the Lord saw that Leah was hated, so He opened her womb; but Rachel was barren.

• 29:31 on שְׂנוּאָה, “hate” – could mean hate based on status or lower status; see Deuteronomy 15-17 on law allowing firstborn a double share even if born to the less-favored wife. This law is flaunted in Genesis.
• Midrash - God saw that she was not loved; Leah didn’t notice. God was aware of imbalance in the house. But Jacob was doing his job as a procreator. Midrash Rabbah 71:1-2 offers several alternate interpretations of שְׂנוּאָה, base on the contention that a righteous man such as Jacob could not truly “hate” Leah.
• Psalm 69:34, For God hearkens to the destitute, and He does not despise His prisoners. “Destitute” and “prisoners” refer to infertile women who are in effect confined to their homes, downtrodden and forlorn. Leah was initially infertile until “God opened her womb.”
• Psalm 145:14, The Lord supports all those who fall and straightens all who are bent down. In other words, God gives moral support to infertile women, who have “fallen” because of lack of children and “straightens” them by enabling them to bear offspring. I.e., Leah will no longer bow her head in shame, because she has sufficient merit to become fertile.
• Leah behaved like those who were “hated,” i.e., she bemoaned her fate to marry the “wicked” Esau. So, she prayed that Esau would not become her spouse, as previously decreed by Lavan (Midrash Rabbah 70:16). It worked, testifying to the power of prayer to nullify such decrees. Midrash Tanhuma also presents this theme.
• Leah may have been “hated” by the community for her part in the deception of substituting for Rachel, i.e., she behaved like a swindler, which everyone despises.
• David Zvi Hoffmann (contemporary of Hirsch) – of the two principal names of God, יהוה, representing the attribute of mercy, opens her womb.
• Rambam – can God “see?” No, but He perceives, directs, and focuses his divine compassion to whomever needs it [Guide of the Perplexed 1:4, cited in Munk, page 398]. God alone observed what no one else could, Jacob’s deep-seated hatred of Leah. Jacob concealed his feelings so well that Leah did not suspect his hostility. God also knew that Leah, a “righteous and virtuous woman,” did not deserve such feelings. God “saw” her plight, just as He would “see” anyone who was oppressed, such as the Israelite slaves in Egypt [Munk page 398, citing Rashi on Exodus 2:25]

Alter [Five Books of Moses, page 156] – annunciation theme in this theme (like at the well) – a barren woman has a child, just like with Sarah (Hagar) and Hannah (Peninah in 1 Samuel 1).

The term שְׂנוּאָה, hate or despise, in addition to carrying emotional connotations, is also a legal and technical term for the unflavored wife. “The pairing of an unloved wife who is fertile with a barren beloved co-wife set the stage for a familiar variant of the annunciation type-scene.”

• Munk [page 397 on 29:30] citing Midrash Rabbah and Tanhuma – Jacob and Leah argued over the situation; both were bitter over the deception. Only on his death did Jacob appreciate what Leah did.
• From above (Sanhedrin 22a and Proverbs 5:18), Jacob initially loved Leah, but his feelings turned to hatred on the wedding night when he discovered the sisters’ trickery. The following conversation ensued:
• Jacob: “Deceiver, daughter of a deceiver! You have become your father’s accomplice and are just as treacherous as he.”
• Leah: “And you! Did you not trick your father when he asked, ‘is it not you, my son Esau?’ And you replied, ‘I am Esau, your firstborn.’ Did your father not tell Esau about you, saying, ‘your brother came wit cleverness (27:35)?’ And you think you have the right to reproach me for my deception?”
• Jacob had no response to Leah’s words. He thought, on the one hand, the trickery must be accepted as reflecting Divine will, just as Isaac had acknowledged Jacob’s ruse. On the other hand, he had received just punishment for all his ruses, even though it was his mother’s command to disguise himself as Esau.
• In either case, the atmosphere was embittered, leading Jacob to contemplate divorce. But these thoughts vanished when Leah became pregnant. Even after bearing him four sons, Jacob’s resentment festered long after Rachel died. Only on his deathbed in 49:31 did Jacob pay homage to Leah by mentioning her burial site. This mention of Leah was the first since chapter 30 [?].
• Chassidic reading – Leah did not love herself. Like a righteous person always seeing his/her faults, she was hyperconscious about her behavior.
• 29:31, “[God] opened her womb … Rachel was barren.”
• Reference to barrenness is inserted to prepare for subsequent verses on Rachel’s children.
• Midrash –links עֲקָרָה, “barren” to the main theme or principle – Rachel was the main person in the household, who brought light to her husband’s eyes.
• Rav Kook (Gideon Weitzman) on fusion based on Rachel and Leah and their differences. Kabbalah (Zohar) – Rachel was in physical world; Leah, the spiritual world, pious (she mentions “God” many times). Characteristics blend together to sustain the Jews. Rachel was the proselytizer (like Abraham); Leah handled the home. The twelve tribes were based on this fusion; some go out in the world to spread the word; others preserve the sanctity of the home. [Sounds like male-female roles in the orthodox world.]
• Are Rachel’s and Leah’s issues the result of polygamy?
• Zelig Pliskin – God saw Leah’s sadness; Leah was an introvert, who lived in her house and was unloved, and kept to herself. Lesson: be sensitive to “pain” of others through body language as well as in words.
• Adin Steinsaltz and Naomi Rosenblatt on analogy of dinner dishes:
• Steinsaltz – Leah is meat and potatoes; Rachel is dessert.
• Rosenblatt (page 277) – If so, then Bilhah and Zilphah are side dishes.

32. And Leah conceived and bore a son, and she named him Reuben, for she said, "Because the Lord has seen my affliction, for now my husband will love me."

• 29:32, Leah conceived, bore a son, and bestowed his name.
• Midrash - proximity of verbs suggests that baby was conceived the first time they had sex
• Reuven – combination of Hebrew words for “look” and “a son”, i.e., “see, a son!” However, Leah interprets it as a way to please Jacob and make him love her.
• According to Midrash Rabbah 71:3, Leah was saying, “see the difference between this son and other sons.” The “other son” was Esau, as Rashi explains,

Our Sages explained: She said, “Look at the difference between my son and the son [Esau] of my father-in-law [Isaac], who sold the birthright to Jacob (above 25:33). This one (Reuben) did not sell it to Joseph, but he nevertheless did not contend against him but sought to take him out of the pit.”

In other words, Esau lost his birthright to Jacob and hated him for it (27:41) while Reuven lost his birthright to Joseph (1 Chronicles 5:1) but harbored no ill will (37:21 where he tried to save Joseph).

• “… now my husband will love me”
• Leah already felt spiritually empty and abandoned by God. When Leah finally gives birth, she hopes that Jacob will embrace her. However, Reuven’s birth does nothing to win over Jacob; perhaps his great love for Rachel blinded him. “In response, Leah could have chosen bitterness … toward life [and] chosen to curse God. Instead, she choose sto bless God for all the love she has been given. Leah, the so-called unloved one, chooses to experience herself as the beloved of God.” [Ochs, Vanessa. Sarah Laughed. Modern Lessons from the Wisdom and stores of Biblical Women. NY: McGraw-Hill, 2005. Pages 179-180]
• “God may have known how Leah was neglected, but he could not or would not change the heart of her husband, as it leaned toward Rachel, morning, noon, and night and pulled away from Leah despite the birth of the baby, despite Jacob’s pleasure in that birth.” [Roiphe, Anne. Water from the Well. Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah. NY: William Morrow (Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers), 2006). Page 204]
• Rambam on Talmud Nedarim – a man cannot make love properly to his wife if his mind is on another woman. Then why did Reuven turn out to be a beautiful [admirable] child when he was thinking about Rachel? Did Jacob think he was being intimate with Rachel?

[From Talmud Nedarim 20a-b] R. Johanan b. Dahabai said: The Ministering Angels told me four things: People are born lame because they [sc. their parents] overturned their table [i.e., practiced unnatural cohabitation]; dumb, because they kiss 'that place'; deaf, because they converse during cohabitation; blind, because they look at 'that place'.

But this contradicts the following: Imma Shalom was asked: Why are your children so exceedingly beautiful? She replied: [Because] he [my husband] 'converses' with me neither at the beginning nor at the end of the night, but [only] at midnight. …. And when I asked him, what is the reason for this [for choosing midnight], he replied, So that I may not think of another woman lest my children be as bastards [figuratively]

See also http://www.mail-archive.com/daf-insights@shemayisrael.co.il/msg00187.html on inappropriate forms of marital relations and offspring therefrom.

33. And she conceived again and bore a son, and she said, "Since the Lord has heard that I am hated, He gave me this one too." So she named him Simeon.

• 29:33 – God now “heard” Leah’s plight
• Just as Reuven is related to the word for see, the name שִׁמְעוֹן, Simeon, is related to the שמע, the root for hear or listen., …71:4
• Midrash –sense of redemption in that Simeon’s descendant Zimri, who sinned by bringing his paramour to Moses and the elders (Numbers 25:1-9) during a time when women of Moab and Midian tried to seduce the Israelites. God’s wrath at this incident resulted in a plague that killed 24,000. Leah’s next son, Levi, would have a descendant Phinhas who would halt this plague [Midrash Rabbah, 71:4]

34. And she conceived again and bore a son, and she said, "Now this time my husband will be attached to me, for I have borne him three sons; therefore, He named him Levi.

• 29:34 - Levi is born.
• Root of Levi is root for attached, לבי. Rashi on “attached” (citing midrash): Since the Matriarchs were prophetesses, they knew that twelve tribes would emanate from Jacob, and that he would marry four wives, she said, “From now on, he will find no fault with me for I have contributed my share in (producing) sons.”
• Also, root for funeral procession (from Mishnah Peah 1:1): הַמֵת לְוָיַת, attending the dead, part of the passage of text study following the blessing for daily miracles during shacharit services. It’s one deed that yields fruit immediately and continues to pay rewards in the next life.
• She hopes baby will save marriage, as she thought at the previous births. See above on “attached.”
• Rosenblatt [pages 273-280] on why life is not fair. People’s situations are result of factors they cannot control.
• “Life is unfair” – President John Kennedy, who had the advantages of privileged upbringing and the disadvantages of serious back pains (not to mention an assassin).
• Everyone has limitations and blessings. “It is painful to accept how little control we exert over the forces that affect us most. We cannot choose our gene pool, our parents, our position in our family, or our homeland. Neither can we choose the time of circumstances of our birth and death.”
• Rachel and Leah are quintessential examples of how character traits are distributed unevenly between siblings.

Rachel	Leah
Beautiful Barren	Homely Fertile
Loved	Starved for affection – “Leah suffered terribly as the undesired wife of Jacob. She hoped in vain that by bearing Jacob a son she would win his love. She continued to bear him children, and with each birth she prayed that she would move closer to his heart” even after Levi’s birth but Jacob was unresponsive. “She continued to dwell on the outskirts of her husband’s affections.”
	With each son she bore, Leah hoped to gain Jacob’s affection, but without success. [Antonelli, Judith S. In the Image of God. A Feminist Commentary on the Torah. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc. 1995. Page 80]
Envious	Upon birth of Judah (29:34), credited God for her births.