YESHIVAT HAR ETZION
ISRAEL KOSCHITZKY VIRTUAL BEIT MIDRASH (VBM)
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INTRODUCTION TO PARASHAT HASHAVUA

PARASHAT VAYETZE

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Mazal tov to Rabbi Alex and Aliza Israel upon the birth of their son Hillel Yitzchak, brother to Avinoam and Ma'ayan.  May they be zocheh to raise him l'Torah, l'chupa u-l'maasim tovim!
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Sixteen years ago today, Jonathan Pollard was sent to jail for spying on Israel's behalf. HaMakom yerachem alav ve-yotzi oto mi-tzara lirvacha, u-mei-afela le-ora, u-mi-shibud le-geula, hashta ba-agala u-bezman kariv ve-nomar amen.
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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 return.  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' in the 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