Community Torah Corner, Dec. 6, 2024

There is a midrash in Breishit Rabbah 6:7 that I have always been particularly drawn to: 

 

 

It feels like a riddle a troll might ask you to get over the bridge…

 

If I focus only on looking at the overarching concept it seems that the midrash acknowledges that sometimes when we are in the middle of the hustle and bustle of our lives, we might miss some huge moments right around us. We may be among these things happening, but do not ‘feel’ them.

 

In the very beginning of our parshah, Vayetzei, we see a moment like this with Jacob who simply falls asleep with a rock under his head for a pillow. He dreams of a ladder with angels going up and down. God appears before Jacob and promises the land on which he sleeps  to his descendants. This is a complicated section itself, but I want to focus more on what Jacob says when he wakes up: 

“Indeed, there is God in this place and I…I didnt know it!”

 

There it is...sometimes there is something earth-rattling, life-altering, God-revealing all around us, and we…we didn’t know it!  

 

But it's ok, now Jacob has "woken up" and now realizes it!  He has had a personal revelatory experience and surely he will be aware of the world around him from this moment on. Perhaps he will be sensitive to those voices we so often miss even as they are buzzing around us.

 

But as I read through this parshah, I see how many verses are dedicated to the births of each of Jacob’s children. And with (almost) each one of these births, comes a drash - an interpretation - which explains the deeply fraught emotional state of our foremothers.   

 

Jacob has already had his trials in this parshah. He fell desperately in love with Rachel and was willing to work for years to marry her. Tricked on his wedding night, Lavan has given Jacob her sister Leah and now has to work years longer than was agreed upon. While he does get to marry Rachel, he is now newly responsible for TWO wives (and their concubines). Life changes all around him and again…he does not know it, and his wives will say as much with each birth. 

 

Rachel is beloved and Leah is not, and God grants Leah the ability to have children. Her first child is Reuven - which could mean “Look, I have a son!” but the Torah explains it as “God has seen my affliction.” Leah says: “Now my husband will love me!”   

What a heartbreaking thing to say as you celebrate your first born’s entry into the world.

 

Did Jacob acknowledge Leah’s pain or help alleviate her insecurities or sadness?  No, he gives no response. 

 

Leah then gives birth to Shimon and explains, “for God has heard how hated I am…” Again, Jacob gives no response.

 

Levi is born, and Leah declares, “This time my husband will be attached to me - after all I gave him 3 sons!” Again, Jacob gives no response.

 

Yehudah comes along, and Leah seems to have stopped begging for Jacob’s attention. She names him, saying: “This time I will thank God!”  Even to this Jacob gives no response, and she stops having children for a while. 

 

Rachel, feeling left out and sad that she has had no children of her own, shares her pain with her beloved husband - begging for children or she will “die.”  To this Jacob DOES respond, but it is not what she was hoping for. He angrily responds, without compassion, that God is the one denying her. 

 

Rachel hands over her concubine, Bilhah, to Jacob and she has two children named Dan and Naftali. For each child, Rachel (not Bilhah) gives the drash that God has helped her succeed, implying it is a contest or war of some kind with her sister.  Jacob gives no response.

 

Did Jacob wake up or not? Was he aware that there was God in “this place,” but this revelation did not help him know what was happening in his own home? Why does the Torah paint him as the progenitor of these 12 future tribes, even while he has no real response to the agonizing namings of his own children?!

 

To top it off, in the middle of this, Leah “buys” Jacob for the night by bartering with Rachel for the mandrakes that her son Reuven has found. I will note that Jacob was oblivious to this arrangement, but did not argue with it. Indeed, Jacob has no response!

 

Yissachar, Zevulun and then Dinah are born and then the Torah turns back to Rachel, who gives birth to her first child, Joseph, saying God has removed my disgrace. Jacob again returns no response. 

 

What does this have to do with the voices that go out from one end of the world to the other, yet are not heard? Because among all the hustle and bustle of the world there are moments that are painful and devastating, and other moments that should be euphoric and life-changing, but we might just be dwelling among those moments and not know it. 

 

We might not have a response. Like Jacob. 

 

And maybe Jacob gave no obvious response to the suffering of his family…but he too is evolving.  For this is the same man who just woke up and realized God was in this placeאָכֵן֙ יֵ֣שׁ ה' בַּמָּק֖וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה וְאָנֹכִ֖י לֹ֥א יָדָֽעְתִּי ׃

 

Indeed there is God in this place, and I didn’t know it. 

 

And maybe next time? Next time Jacob will hear more voices. 

And maybe we will too. May we strive to hear all of the voices that fill this world with both pain and joy, for God is in this place. 

 

Shabbat Shalom.