Torah Study Blog

Last week we learned that our patriarch, Jacob, with the help of his mother, had cheated his twin brother, Esau, out of his inheritance. Esau consoled himself by planning to kill his brother. As part of the family dysfunction, we also learned that Rebekah, Esau and Jacob’s mother, despised Esau’s wives, who were not Jewish.

At the beginning of this week’s portion, Jacob has fled from his home, either to get away from his angry brother, or to find a Jewish wife. Jacob knows he could find a Jewish wife among his mother’s people, so Jacob fled to the land where his uncle lived. There, Jacob met his shapely and beautiful (Genesis 29:17) cousin, Rachel, and was immediately smitten. Jacob agreed to work for his Uncle Laban for 7-years in order to earn the privilege of marrying Rachel. But Laban pulled a trick on Jacob and duped Jacob into marrying the older sister, Leah, instead! The description of Leah given to us in the Torah is simply that she had “weak” (Hebew: rachot) eyes (Genesis 29:17).

The job of translating requires interpretation by the person doing the translation. Frequently there are different ways to translate a particular word based on how it is used in a passage. The word describing Leah’s eyes as “weak” leave us with a negative connotation. But Rabbi Jaech pointed out to us other passages in the Bible where the same word is translated differently:

In Genesis 18:7 and in Isaiah 47:1 the same word is translated as “tender.” And in Proverbs 15:1 it is translated as “gentle.” When we, as readers, meet Leah for the first time in the Torah, the passage reads simply, “Leah had weak eyes” (Genesis 29:17). What if, instead, it said, “Leah had tender eyes.” Or, “Leah had gentle eyes.” Rabbi Jaech told us that she understands the passage to mean that Leah had one really wonderful feature; her beautiful eyes. But Rachel was a real knock out!

The detail that Jacob had been duped into marrying Leah first is something that has entered our modern marriage ceremonies – but is an example of Fake News. During a Jewish wedding ceremony there is a custom called

the badeken where the groom lifts the veil of the bride and acknowledges that she is the person he intends to marry. Some people say that the custom was started to ensure that the groom would not be duped, like Jacob. However, the word badeken is a Yiddish word, not a Hebrew word – so the custom is much later than biblical times. The custom actually comes from a story of the generation prior to Jacob, Leah and Rachel – that of Rebekah and Isaac. When Rebekah agreed to marry Isaac, her brother blessed her with the words, “May you grow into thousands of myriads” (Genesis 24:60) and then, when Isaac came to take Rebekah to his home, she covered herself with a veil. That biblical story is the basis of today’s badeken custom.

But, back to our story: Interpretation is not limited to the translators. The ancient Rabbis gave themselves the job of interpreting the meaning of the Bible for their Jewish followers. By the 2nd century C.E., Judah the Prince had collected the wisdom of the ancient Rabbis into writings called the Mishnah, which would later be combined with the Gemara into a collection known today as the Talmud. When we look at the earliest writings about Jacob and Esau, and Leah and Rachel, we get a clear understanding of what the Rabbis wanted their followers to focus on: the Rabbis wanted to elevate Jacob, who is our patriarch, and disparage Esau.

Recall that Jacob took his brother’s inheritance through trickery. Early Jews might have questioned why they should follow the religion of a trickster- patriarch. The Rabbis wove a story around Esau saying that Esau, “is a wicked man, one who robs people,” or “he is an evil man, a murderer, one who robs travelers ... and has done all things abominable to God.” These assertions are not found anywhere in the Bible – they were made up by the Rabbis to put Esau down and to make Jacob look better in comparison.

Regarding Leah’s “weak” eyes, the Rabbis created a story that claimed Leah was originally supposed to marry Esau, not Jacob. And when Leah learned that Esau was an evil man, she cried so much that her eyelashes fell out and her eyes became weak.

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misquotes or misunderstandings in what Rabbi Jaech taught us are the responsibility of Tara Keiter