Parsha Vayeitzei
Kislev 6/ November 9
By: Jeanne Reisman
I dedicated my study of Vayetzei and this Drasha to the memory of my beloved father, Dr Robert Reisman z”l (Yehudah ben Hersch) whose first Yahrzeit was 2 Kislev
A year ago last August; I set out on a journey with my Dad to Maine. This trip, while prompted by a specific purpose, to visit with my ailing uncle, my father’s older brother Dave, was also the opportunity to savor wild blueberries, take in the beauty of rugged coastal inlets, and keep watch for elusive Moose. Our journey together was filled with both joy and sadness. The joy in our shared company and in hearing the brothers’ stories was alongside the sadness of my uncle’s diminishing health. We left teary eyed, and in anticipation of loss.
The irony was that my family did experience a loss just a few months later. It was my vital, energetic Dad, who died, after a very sudden and aggressive illness. I embarked on a second journey, then, a dark and inward time, unlike the expansive and joyful road trip of August.
The Parasha Vayetzei begins and ends with leaving. It may not be a surprise that I was drawn to themes of loss: tears, vulnerability, and loneness. I was pulled to Leah’s tears of grief, and to Jacob’s initial vulnerability as he left home alone. How did their sadness or loss transform them respectively? What can we learn from Leah’s tears? What can Jacob’s response to his path taken teach us?
V’anai Leah Rakot “Leah had weak eyes”
(Gen 29:17).
The text describes Leah as follows:
“ And Laban had two daughters. The name of the elder was Leah and the name of the younger Rachel. And Leah’s eyes were Rakot…“ (Gen 29:16-17)
From the start of the narrative, we know little about Leah other than that she is the elder of the two sisters. While Rachel is described as a beauty, Leah, by contrast, is depicted by her eyes, described as Rakot. Given a lack of textual detail about Leah, and the ambiguity of the word, Rakot, others have contributed to our sense of her character.
Rakot has been interpreted as beautiful (Targum, Rashbam), weak (Ibn Ezra), sensitive (Netziv suggesting Leah was unable to go out with the flocks because the sunlight hurt her eyes). According to Rashi, the Radak, and other midrashic writing, “Leah’s eyes were Rakot,” meant that she was easily moved to tears. Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explained that this meant, “She was vulnerable, lacking her younger sister’s resilience, that she was thin-skinned, sensitive, attuned to nuance, and easily hurt.”
It was said that Leah cried and wept, after hearing a rumor that she would be married off to Esau, (Gen. R. 70:16) “Leah cried so much her eyelashes fell out.” According to Aviva Zornberg, this was to her credit, as her tears of disappointment and grief galvanized her. In other words, through the force of her tears, she shifted her fate, and moved out of that deep grief. A related thought of mine looks at the dynamic between the sisters. Perhaps Leah grieved for the loss of closeness between the sisters. Enmity was likely to occur between them as a result of Leah taking Rachel’s place under the chupah. Or, given the emotional interpretation of rakot, perhaps Leah was overwhelmed seeing the deep love between Jacob and Rachel, and his preference for her sister, of from the sense of a lacking within herself.
Whatever of these thoughts or others prompted her tears, the consequence of her emotional turmoil led to profound transformation.
Aviva Zornberg offers the following thoughts:
“Her tears generate her many children. For a formidable energy builds up in her, in her deprivation… She takes Rachel’s place under the marriage canopy; and in the darkness, in which forms and structures become fluid, in which transformations, fantastic combinations and splitting become possible, Leah becomes Rachel”.
That is to say, Leah’s apparent sense of helplessness and tears yields to action, she steps under the Chupah with Jacob, her eyes veiled.
And what of Jacob, and his leaving, his aloneness and vulnerability? Jacob, strongly attached to home (his mother), to his life of study, is directed by his parents, to leave, to set out on his own, to flee his twin, and to find a wife. Jacob is alone, about to experience and navigate the world. He lives with the consequences of deception, a fractured relationship with Esau. Something is lost; there is an empty place within him. According to Aviva Zornberg, “Rashi speaks of a void left behind Jacob as he begins his journey, but that perhaps the void is in Jacob as well “
Again Aviva Zornberg,
“This is clearly more than a physical journey; it involves a movement away from the essential place of family and destiny…”
Jacob sets out on the road for Haran and “came upon a certain place and stopped there for the night, for the sun had set.” (Gen 28:10) Jacob is alone, afraid and vulnerable in that dark place, and he dreams. Dreams provide a way of accessing our deepest selves. For Jacob, he is transformed from a sense of fear and vulnerability, through his sleep and his dream. He connects with the divine, and he feels more complete, energized, altered, less alone. Through the process of connecting with his self, a shift occurs; the place of darkness becomes a place of holiness, of comfort, of reverence, of safety, and of connection. It becomes a place that both invigorates and empowers him and yet having found it a place of comfort, may be a place difficult to leave.
“And Jacob lifted his feet…” and went on. This particular idiom is unique to this context in the Torah, and while according to Etz Chaim Chumash, “lifted his feet” meant the going was easier or that Jacob went with resolve and confidence, has also been interpreted that he had to force himself to leave this place.
Like Leah, the mourner’s eyes are Rakot; sensitive, overwhelmed by grief. And like Jacob’s journey in that place, mourning is solitary. One is alone, life more narrow in scope. One finds oneself in a dark place, a place of vulnerability and with a heightened sensitivity to the environment. Drawing inward allows one to access inner strength, and in time, the tears and sense of utter aloneness yield to a place of comfort.
Loss is inevitable, a part of living for all of us. Sometimes our experience of loss might, like Jacob’s, stem from leaving (home), or from an estranged relationship. (Esau) Perhaps it may stem from disappointment, as in the example of Leah, or from mourning, as in my recent experience.
I learned from this parasha, and from Leah’s grief and from Jacob’s vulnerability, that when faced with darkness in life, the capacity exists within ourselves to find strength, courage, comfort, and a way forward. And when it is time to emerge from a dark time, that we, Like Jacob, can find the strength to ‘lift our feet’ – perhaps energized, perhaps still heavy in step, to move on to the next phase of our journey.
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