Parshas
Vayeitzei
Mirror
Mirror on the Wall: Look Within or Be Without
By:
Daniel Listhaus
וַתֵּרֶא רָחֵל כִּי לֹא יָלְדָה לְיַעֲקֹב וַתְּקַנֵּא רָחֵל בַּאֲחֹתָהּ וַתֹּאמֶר אֶל יַעֲקֹב הָבָה לִּי בָנִים וְאִם אַיִן מֵתָה אָנֹכִי: וַיִּחַר אַף יַעֲקֹב בְּרָחֵל וַיֹּאמֶר הֲתַחַת אֱלֹקים אָנֹכִי אֲשֶׁר מָנַע מִמֵּךְ פְּרִי בָטֶן: וַתֹּאמֶר הִנֵּה אֲמָתִי בִלְהָה בֹּא אֵלֶיהָ וְתֵלֵד עַל בִּרְכַּי וְאִבָּנֶה גַם אָנֹכִי מִמֶּנָּה
“Rachel
saw that she had not borne children to Yaakov, and Rachel became
envious of her sister she said to Yaakov, 'Give me children - if not
I am dead.' Yaakov's anger flared up at Rachel, and he said, 'Am I
instead of G-d Who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?' She
said, 'Here is my maid Bilhah, come to her, that she may bear upon my
knees and I too will be built up through her.'”
-Vayeitzei
30:1-3
It
is hard to imagine the emotional distress that Rachel was going
through during the early years of her marriage. First, her brother,
Lavan, tricked Yaakov and gave him Leah as a wife when he was really
supposed to marry Rachel. Not long after they got married, Leah gave
birth to four children, one right after the other1.
Following this, Bilhah and Zilpah, the maidservants of Rachel and
Leah, respectively, married Yaakov and had two children each. After
all this Leah had an additional two children, leaving Rachel with the
possibility of having a maximum of only two children.
In
the midst of all this, Rachel turned to Yaakov and started to blame
him for her inability to have children. Rashi2
writes that Rachel approached Yaakov and said, “Give me children.
Is this the way your father [Yitzchak] acted toward your mother
[Rivkah]? Did he not pray for her?” Rachel challenged Yaakov that
he was not davening (praying) for her and it was therefore his fault
that she had no children. Rashi
continues
that Yaakov responded, “Am I in the place of Hashem? You say that I
should act like my father and daven
for you. However, I am not like my father. My father did not have
sons, and I do have sons. Hashem has withheld children from you and
not from me.”
This
Rashi
is
hard to understand. Rachel was clearly upset and felt that Yaakov was
not davening hard enough, so why did Yaakov respond so harshly?
Furthermore, it is implied from an earlier Rashi3
that Rachel was someone who worked extremely hard on perfecting her
middos
(character
traits). Even though the Torah says that Rachel was jealous of Leah,
Rashi
is
quick to explain that this jealousy was the good type of jealousy –
one who is jealous of someone else's good deeds and uses that force
as a drive of motivation to became better oneself. As Rashi
writes,
Rachel said to herself, “Were she not more righteous than I, she
would not have been worthy of bearing sons.”
If
so, that there was no real flaw in Rachel which could be the cause of
her not being able to have children, why did Yaakov feel comfortable
shifting the blame back onto Rachel anymore than accepting the
responsibility himself?
The
Kli
Yakar4
explains
that Yaakov was teaching an extremely valuable lesson here. Yaakov
told Rachel that someone who has worked on oneself and perfected his
middos
is sure to have his tefillos
(prayers)
answered. This makes sense. After all, one who works on himself to
achieve da'as
elyon
and seek ratzon
Hashem would only ask for things which he feels he needs, and recite
tefillos
which he is confident Hashem would answer positively. On the other
hand, one with who has not achieved this level will find a blockage
in the communication line between him and Hashem. Such a person could
not expect that all his tefillos
will automatically be answered.
At
this point, Hashem had granted Yaakov a beautiful family with many
children. When Rachel came to blame Yaakov for not davening
enough, he told her to simply revisit the facts. Hashem had not
refrained from giving children to Yaakov, it was only Rachel
specifically who was not answered. Yaakov therefore explained that
there must be some imperfection in Rachel which was stopping Hashem
from answering her tefillos. The Kli
Yakar continues
and writes that Rachel took these words to heart and looked within
herself to search for some aveirah
(sin)
or
imperfection which may have existed in her, and thereby causing the
hindrance in communication between her and Hashem. Indeed, Rachel
searched and realized that she had been jealous of her sister. She
attributed this as the reason why Hashem was not answering her
tefillos. Immediately she did teshuva
(repentance)
and gave her maidservant to be as a wife to Yaakov, in order to
demonstrate that she had now fully removed the bad middah
of
kinnah
(jealousy)
from
within her. She had now achieved the level of not getting jealous
even though her maidservant was married to the same husband as she
and had children before her. In this zechus
(merit)
of conquering her middah
of
kinnah,
Rachel davened
again as a new person that Hashem finally answer her tefillos.
The
problem with this Kli
Yakar is
that Rashi
already
told us that Rachel's jealousy was only for good reasons, as she
herself declared as a means of self-motivation, “Were she [Leah]
not more righteous than I, she would not have been worthy of bearing
sons.” How could the Kli
Yakar say
that it was this exact middah
of
kinnah
which
Rachel discovered as the cause for her suffering?
It
must be that the Kli
Yakar is
teaching us that despite the fact that Rachel originally thought that
her jealousy of Leah was purely good and a motivation to achieve
higher levels, after some introspection, Rachel realized that perhaps
in that jealousy was a small degree of real jealousy of her sister.
This
is a tremendous lesson that Yaakov is teaching us in his conversation
with Rachel. Oftentimes, we are very quick to put the blame on
others. We assume, without thinking, that our actions and intentions
are pure. Sometimes we are not even trying to fool ourselves. We may
really feel at the time that we are doing what we are for only the
best reasons. This is a tremendous mistake, however, and such a
person will never attain greater heights. One must always be willing
to find imperfection in himself by revisiting what he did, said, and
thought at the end of each day. If one is unwilling to admit to the
possibility that his middos
are
imperfect, then one will always blame, and constantly find fault in,
other people. Instead, what we must do is take a step back and
pretend that we are a mirror on the wall and reflect on our own
actions and rejudge them objectively after the event. This is the
only way to honestly determine the real nature of what we do and what
could be done to make them better.
When
Yaakov responded to Rachel he was telling her to take a step back and
think about what she was saying. It was clear that the impediment was
on her end because Yaakov already had children of his own. Rachel
took his words to heart and looked within herself to determine why
Hashem was not answering her tefillos.
We must follow in Rachel's footsteps and feel comfortable to
reviewing our own actions and replay our day as a mirror on the wall
watching every move. One who does not spend the time to look within
oneself, will surely end up without a way of working on himself and
achieving greater heights.
May
Hashem help us be able to review our actions objectively in order
that we could pinpoint our flaws and work to perfect our middos.
1Reuvein,
Shimon, Levi, and Yehuda. Being that Yaakov had four wives and it
was known that he was to have twelve children, the wives figured
that each would have three children. When Leah had her fourth child,
she named him Yehuda because she was thankful that Hashem gave her
more than “her fair share”. (See Rashi 29:35)
2Beraishis
30:1
3Ibid.
4Beraishis
30:2
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