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Thoughts on the Parsha ~
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
other[1],
while Rachel remained barren. 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. Rashi[2]
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 Rashi[3]
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 Yakar[4]
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
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.[5]
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 re-judge 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.
[1] Reuvein, 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)
[2] Beraishis 30:1
[3] Ibid.
[4] Beraishis 30:2
[5] See Igeres Haramban.
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