Jacob, Rachel, Leah and Love

Rabbi Z Aviner

As part of the lessons on various matters in Genesis, this time we will discuss the encounter between Jacob and Rachel (chapter 29)

And Jacob lifted his feet and went to the land of the easterns

Usually legs carry the body, and here Jacob carried his feet (Midrash).

Rashi says. “When we received good news that he had been promised on guard, he lifted his feet and became easy to walk.”

Indeed, there is a huge difference between the beginning of the portion – and Jacob left Beersheba – and what is happening to him now. First he left depressed, poor, worried about his future, and all he asked God was bread to eat and clothing to wear and return home safely. Now. After the dream of the ladder – when God promised him that he would protect him – his spirits were lifted. And it was in this elation that he met Rachel. Is there a connection? Would he have fallen in love without the exhilaration that preceded it?

And he went to the land of the eastern –

Walked all the way from Mount Moriah to southern Syria. It’s a long way – he went through Samaria, the Galilee, and part of Syria, all on bare foot, dusty clothes, not yet knowing where he would find his mother’s brother’s son.

Bnei Kedem –

That is, a country in the East. He went to Haran, but his wanderings led him to an unnamed country in the East. He didn’t know exactly where he had gone.

And behold, there is a well in the field

The Torah emphasizes the coincidence. Well in the field – without a name and without an address. Whose well? Who uses it? Jacob had no idea. Beer in the field – casual description.

But the Midrash says that the word “vira” is superfluous, indicating that he saw prophecy.

What did he see? Here is a list from the Midrash:

3 Herds – Moshe Aharon and Miriam

Well in the field – this is a score

3 Herds – C Holidays, Feet

Well in the field – the temple from which the Holy Spirit (Jonah) draws

3 Herds – C Sanhedrin on the Temple Mount that they water Torah for all of Israel

3 herds – C kingdoms and today we are under the fourth

Bad inclination – heavy stone

And there are more and more images that they have in common that have nothing to do with the story itself

Let’s get back to the story

And my brother said, where are you from? The atmosphere is good.

Where are you from? Wanted to get an idea of where he was. And they answer him, ‘We are tomorrow.’ This is a first surprise for Jacob. He came from Galilee on foot and here he is in his destination – at the birthplace of his mother, Haran.

And he keeps asking: So did you know Ben Nahor?

And they will say, ‘We knew.’ This is a second surprise

And now a third surprise awaits him – he kept asking – hello to him? And they say hello, and they add – and here Rachel his daughter comes with the flock. It turns out that he has gone straight to where he wants, to his mother’s hometown, and soon he will meet Rachel, his cousin.

This news seemed so fantastic that he did not believe them.

“And he said that they are still a great day, not the time of the gathering of the cane, water the flocks and go pasture. ״

He scolds them. You can’t be telling the truth. After all, the day is great, and the way of the shepherds and shepherds is to gather at the well in the twilight of the day, just as Rebecca left in the evening when the girls left.

The Midrash says that he suspected that they were taking over the well and driving out other shepherds until their friends came. And Jacob did not like this, for they were doing an injustice.

And here we have Jacob’s connection with the search for justice, the fifth Commandment of Adam and Noah. And this fits with the idea that all the stories about Jacob revolve around judgment, seeking and doing justice. It is no coincidence that the first thing he saw was social injustice and it was regrettable to him.

So he said, water the flock and go.

But they answer him, “We can’t, until all the flocks have gathered and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the sheep.”

And here is a fourth surprise – we are still talking to them and Rachel comes with the flock which her father believes isa shepherd.

Jacob understands that there is a miracle here, because as soon as her name is mentioned, she appears.

And it was when Jacob saw the

Rachel, daughter of his mother’s brother

and the white sheep of his mother’s brother

Jacob came forwards and unrolled the stone

And watered the sheep of his mother’s brother

Three times the Torah repeats the phraseto his mother’s brother’s son, to teach us that not only did Rachel’s beautiful sight beat his heart, but the fact that she was his cousin, and that the sheep belonged to his uncle. He recognized God’s providence.

His mother’s brother – he also remembered that his mother met Eliezer near a well – perhaps the same well. If so, it is possible that this girl is summoned from heaven to be his life partner, just as his mother was destined for Isaac.

And this realization filled him with immense power. He got up and rolled the heavy stone easily, as if opening a cork from a bottle, says Rashi.

The simple explanation is that he was filled with strength because he felt God’s providence. And just as Rebecca watered Eliezer’s flock, Jacob watered Rachel’s flock. And then it says –

Jacob kissed Rachel

And he lifted his voice and wept

There are commentators who cried in the way of prophecy – that he saw that she would die young and not be buried next to him. But according to the simplicity, it seems that he cried out of a burst of emotions – thanks and love for G-d, and love he felt for Rachel at first sight, and the thought that maybe it was meant for him as a woman.

Jacob told Rachel that her father’s brother was

And that the son of Rebecca is

And excuse and tell her father

Indeed, Jacob’s actions affected Rachel and she left her flock in Yaakov’s hands and ran home to tell her father what had happened.

The son has two daughters, the eldest Leah and the youngest Rachel

And Leah’s eyes were soft and Rachel was handsome and good-looking

And Jacob loved Rachel

Although he married the two sisters (before the giving of the Torah this was permitted)

Still, there was a difference in his feelings for them-

And here we have two kinds of love

Jacob’s love for Rachel – intense romantic love

Love of Israel for Leah – a woman’s love for her husband acquired over the years

He loved Rachel immediately.

Leah has learned to love – respect and appreciate – over the years. It was not romantic love like with Rachel, but a love that developed over the years into a woman who was devoted to him and bore him Reuven, Shimon Levi and Yehuda, the most important of the sons.

Rachel died young, and remained a painful memory in his heart

But Leah was the lady of the family.

While Rachel was buried alone on Bethlehem Road.

Leah was privileged to be buried with Yaakov in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron

Some say that this is symbolic to every person. In his youth, Adam loved romantic love like Yaakov and Rachel, but over the years such love faded and was replaced by a love established in a family like Israel and Leah.

Is it right that Leah didn’t get love?

Rachel was loved without doing anything.

Leah was only recognized and respected as the boys’ mother

When it comes to love, justice doesn’t work.

For love comes from a place higher than justice.

Love is the glue between the cherubim, O God, who created earth and heaven in chapter two. They created paradise.

Moses described them as two golden cherubs on the Holy Ark, holding wing to wing and the faces of a boy and girl looking at each other lovingly. Their love is Rachel’s, not Leah’s

We will return to Rachel and Leah. So we have two models of love

Jacob and Rachel

Israel and Leah

Maimonides asks: How should we fulfill mitzvot and love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul? Should we develop a romantic love for God like Jacob for Rachel, or an acquired love like Israel and Leah?

To our surprise, Maimonides says (Halachot Teshuva, chapter 10):

“That the Lord was commanded by Moses, that it was said, Love the Lord your G-d with all your heart and with all your soul. How is love? He who loves the stomach is so great and intense that his soul is bound up with the love of God and is always mistaken in it as if he were sick with love. that his mind is not free from the love of that woman, and that he always errs in her, whether he sits or when he eats and when he drinks… It is said with all your heart and with all your soul

“And he who said King Solomon, through a parable of lovesickness, I and the whole Song of Songs was written for this matter…

“After all, it is well known and clear that love of God is not bound in a person’s heart until he errs in it always and leaves everything in the world except it, as he said with all your heart and with all your soul. ״

Maimonides chooses the love of Jacob and Rachel. But he knows that it is impossible for a person to love God at first sight like Jacob. Therefore, he proposes a way to fall in the love of God.

As an experienced doctor, he knows that romantic love flares up in people with a uniqueness of man and woman.

It is common for romantic love to develop between a couple while being close, for example at work or in the office or in the family. Romantic love flares up as if by itself. Suddenly, sometimes without the couple intending to. The very uniqueness brought her

Therefore, a person must draw as close to God as he can, and try to know the wisdom and wisdom with which He created the world. And that is why he will come to a conflagration of Rachel’s love

“A person does not love G-d except with the knowledge that we knew, and according to the mind love will be whether little or much, and therefore a person must dedicate himself to understanding and educating himself with the wisdom and wisdom of intelligence to him his lamentation as a person has the power that a person has to understand and attain, as we wrote in the laws of the foundations of the Torah… ״

And if that doesn’t happen? Others say that if love for God does not flare up through Rachel, a person will try to love Hashem at least in an acquired way, like Israel-Leah

But Maimonides does not mention this at all. For him, Israel-Leah relations are not love but respect and appreciation, but not love as the mitzvah demands

As for Maimonides, there is only one way to truly love Hashem and that is to reach the love of Jacob Rachel

Because only Rachel’s love gives man the strength to lift a gravitational stone and water the world from its waters.

Maimonides, a man of dry law and a great philosopher, understands that it is not enough to study Torah and know halacha in detail. A person must aspire to love G-d, that is, to dive into the world of emotion. And he relies on Jacob to join the love of God and the love of Rachel in one cry

The greatest Hasidic scholars learned from this that one must love God to the point of crying. When they came to pray for the blessings of the Shema, they wept from the heart as the crowd of Hasidim cried with them. Those who saw this occasion will never forget