Parshat Vayetze
by Rabbi Avi Billet
The Talmud (Yavamos 64a) makes the claim that Avraham and Yitzchak were sterile, unable to father children, until such time as God changed their reality and they were blessed with the pregnancy that resulted in the birth of the next of the Avos (that Avraham had a child with Hagar is ignored in this passage). The reasoning given in the Talmud is מפני שהקב"ה מתאוה לתפלתן של צדיקים. God desires the prayers of the righteous.
A similar claim is made in several Midrashic passages regarding the mothers of the Jewish people, “ולמה נתעקרו אמהות ר' לוי (אמר) בשם ר' שילא ר' חלבו מש' ר' יוחנן שהקב"ה מתאוה לתפילתן ולסיחתן ” (Bereshis Rabba 45:4). God desired their prayers, and eventually opened their wombs.
In watching the birth of the children of Yaakov, first through Leah, then Bilhah, then Zilpah, then Leah, and finally Rachel, one wonders if Leah is included in this group of barren women. The verse tells us “And God saw that Leah was s’nuah (some translate as ‘hated’ though others might argue ‘less loved.’ Still others might say this is a reflection of ‘how she felt’), so God opened her womb.” (29:5) If God needed to open one can infer that her womb had been closed and that she too, indeed, was barren.
Malbim puts it this way: All the mothers were barren, and had Leah not been ‘hated,’ she too would have been barren. Since God saw she was perceived that way, and since Rachel was Yaakov’s preferred wife, the concern was that he would only pray for her (Rachel), and neglect Leah’s needs of having prayer open her womb. As a sort of proof, he suggests that the Torah saying ורחל עקרה (Rachel remained barren) suggests that Rachel was the עיקרה, the main wife, for whom Yaakov would pray. Thus she remained עקרה, barren….
The implication is that Leah was barren, but her barrenness was ended by God rather quickly, perhaps even before it was apparent.
Rabbi Dovid Zvi Hoffman expressed a slightly different point of view on this matter:
שכל אמהות האומה עקרות היו בטבען; כמו שרה ורבקה היו גם רחל ולאה עקרות, רק בחסדו המיוחד של אל הרחמים, של ה', ילדה לאה את ארבעת בניה הראשונים, וכפי שגם נאמר אצל שרה: "וה' פקד את שרה"23), ואצל רבקה: "ויעתר לו ה' ותהר רבקה אשתו"24), ואילו רחל, שלא זכתה לחסד מיוחד זה, נשארה עקרה, משום שהאלהים, זה שבראה, עקרה בראה. רק משום שהיא נותנת לו ליעקב את שפחתה לאשה, היא זוכה לשני בנים,
“All the mothers were barren by nature. Just as Sarah (25 years of infertility) and Rivkah (20 years of infertility), so were Rachel and Leah barren. It was only in the great and abundant kindness of the God of Mercy that Leah birthed her first 4 sons… Rachel only merited to have her sons because she willingly gave her maid to Yaakov as a wife.”
It was only after six years of watching her co-wives having so many children that the prayers of Rachel were heard, and she had the experience of seeing her personal חרפה removed, with the birth of Yosef, at which time she says "אסף אלהים את – חרפתי". And even in that joy, she asks again for God to watch over her and to give her another child - "יסף ה' לי בן אחר"
The takeaway message from this analysis is simply that we don’t know how God works, and what His plan is for each of us. Some people merit to have children. For some, there is a different plan.
God wants the prayers of the righteous, and God wants the prayers of those who are not as righteous.
Is everyone guaranteed to have an amazing and easygoing life? Or does every life have its ups and downs, its trials, its tribulations, its amazing moments, and its moments of difficulty and hardship?
Some people seem to have all the nachas in the world. Some suffer terribly, some more in private, and some more in public; some kinds of suffering are obvious to outsiders, while for other kinds of difficulties, those suffering suffer in silence and in privacy.
Was Leah correct in feeling “hated?” Was she truly hated? Or was she simply less loved?
The verse tells us that Yaakov loved Rachel more than Leah (29:30) which implies that he did have positive feelings towards Leah, just that he loved Rachel more. This is natural! In general terms, people naturally have a preference for friends and even loved ones that are more beloved to an individual. Most people won’t say it aloud, but it’s simply because of a combination of a number of factors that put a person in a more preferred light. This can apply to the person who practices polygamy (which has not been an Ashkenazic practice for over 1,000 years, and has grown out of practice in most Sefardic communities, especially where the law of land forbids polygamy), or even to a parent who has several children.
While all of us would wish for ourselves and for everyone else to have an easy life and for all things to go as best as possible at all times, we are also realists who live in the real world, and therefore know that there are no guarantees.
Rachel, for example, may have been most beloved to Yaakov. He may have showered her with all the care, love, affection, gifts, kindnesses that he could muster. But her barrenness made her marriage a very difficult one. And her life was cut down prematurely in the aftermath of the birth of Binyamin.
Additionally, while we don’t know how long Leah lived, or even if she accompanied the family down to Egypt, it seems most likely that she too passed away in the time between the death of Rachel and the family’s descent to Egypt. It seems Yaakov lived his 17 years in Egypt without a spouse.
This is not to say or suggest whose life situation is most painful or most difficult. But it is to suggest that the way a person embraces God’s role in one’s life may put a person at a greater advantage when it comes to facing and overcoming adversity. Prayer has power that is beyond our comprehension.
The person who has nothing to fall back on may feel groundless and may feel very much alone.
The person who has God to fall back upon can rely on the things we say regularly such as ה' לי ולא אירא – God is with me and I shall not fear (last words of the Adon Olam prayer) and גם כי אלך בגיא צלמות לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי, that even as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for You are with me. (Tehillim 23)
May we merit to connect to God through prayer, may we fear nothing knowing He is with us, and believe fully that whatever He does is for the best.
Leah may have felt hated (or less loved), and the feeling (even if it was in her own mind) of being unwanted is one of the most tragic of human experiences, particularly of the kind in which physical violence isn’t even part of the equation. While Leah’s feeling שנואה may have merited her to have her womb opened and to have children sooner, that she felt that way is a tragedy of large scale proportions.
May we be blessed to be seen for who we are and to love and be loved accordingly.
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