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Treatment of Female Love 
in Jewish Sacred Text 
in the Jewish Interpretative 
Oral Tradition (Midrash)

Freema Gottlieb

We know very little about what the feelings or the internal world of the women in the Bible. Indications of what they might have felt are very delicate, and all the more precious for this reason.

For example, the great biblical romance of Yaakov and Rachel is mainly Yaakov's love story. He left the Holy Land with his bridal clothes on, says the Zohar, only stopped to have his wonderful vision of the Ladder reaching from earth to heaven, with angels going up and coming down, and continued on like a mythological sungod into the kingdoms of the night until he came across a well which for him was an indication that there (like his parents before him) he would meet his predestined bride. As soon as he set eyes on Rachel coming towards him with her sheep he rose up and singlehanded lifted the stone that all the shepherds gathered in the place could not remove allowing the waters of the well to flow free. And the waters of the well rose towards him, a sign of affinity with the woman about to come on scene. Rachel was beautiful of form and lovely to look at. And Yaacov loved Rachel so much that he was prepared to work seven years for her father to obtain permission to marry her.

In all this we have no indication at all what Rachel was feeling but can only suppose since there is no mention of her fending off the kiss with which he greeted her, that she was happy with the attentions of the newcomer. The Maharal asks why Rachel cries more than the other matriarchs. Where do we see that she did? While Jacob and Leah are both overcome with tears at various points in the story, and while the angels cried tear into the eyes of Yitzhak when he lay bound on the altar awaiting sacrifice, tears are not associated with Rachel. On the contrary, she is a figure of joy. Both sisters were equally beautiful, says in Midrash Rabbah, but Rachel, Yaakov's fiancée, radiated joy, when she heard all the wonderful qualities of her future husband, while Leah who was engaged to Esau, cried her eyelashes and beauty away when she sat at the crossroads and listened to gossip about his crimes.

When the Baal Shem asked Reb Nachum Mendel of Tchernobyl which sister he preferred, Rachel or Leah, the latter answered evasively: One can downgrade neither, since both are numbered among our matriarchs, so he had to be diplomatic. Therefore he said: "What Leah effected with her tears, Rachel attained with her joy."

"For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord."(Isaiah 54:1)

In the Bible narrative a kind of silent subversion is very often going on. More often than not it is the younger who gains precedence; therefore in this case, when the younger daughter of Laban (Rachel) was engaged to the younger son of Laban's sister Rivkah, she was the more legally entitled, (and therefore the more complacent). One might have thought, by double subversion then that the elder, being "desolate" and unloved, might have won the prize. And that is indeed what happened. For most of her short life, Rachel remained joyous by nature, whereas Leah's tears got her places, opening doors of compassion in Rachel's heart and in God's.

A Midrash says: "When God in the aspect of mercy saw Jacob's unloving

attitude to Leah, He said: "There is no cure for this but sons. Sons will make him desire her."

Thus Leah, fated to marry Esau, unloved by Jacob "cried", and here tears mean prayer of such intensity that God in the aspect of Mercy, transformed destiny for her sake. Not only did she marry Jacob, but she had the majority of the Tribes. She made such a fuss so that the whole world moves in her direction. She "took precedence even over her sister" Yaakov's predestined wife and mother of the Tribes. The priesthood was hers; royalty was hers; and she was fit to sleep beside her husband in the burial ground of the Couples.

Once the "desolate" wins through to children and marital happiness, however, and the barren Rachel is in danger of being handed over as a sop to the lustful Esau, who then has that privileged position of outcast and brokenhearted whose prayers God listens to!

From the outset Rachel had been gifted with such grace that simply by virtue of walking on stage she won Yaakov's heart. Unlike her mother Rivkah at a similar scene by the well, she doesn't have to do anything to win Yaakov's heart, and therefore prizes it the less. Here she only seems to have the advantage, however. In fact Rachel, Jacob's beloved, does not get her opening for selftransformation out of that relationship.

"And when Rachel saw that she had borne no children to Jacob, then she became jealous of her sister." She had taken her position as principal in Jacob's heart for granted, therefore could share him without a pang, until she saw that she was losing out completely and the fate she had tried to save her sister from (of marrying the lustful Esau) might be her own. Rachel only started to taste the bitterness of envy when she saw that while her sister was producing son after son, she remained childless. This is the first feeling we see in her, a quickening of her own nature and capacity to feel. And in that sense it is a good thing. Before it was only Jacob who "saw", Leah who washed out her eyes and beauty with tears at her engagement to Esau, while Rachel was only the adored object of contemplation. But suddenly at the birth of Leah's Messianic fourth son, Rachel was jolted into life as she viewed her situation and did not like what she saw. Then and not before.

Jealousy to Western eyes may not be the most pleasant quality, yet in Rachel, who had lead a rather superficially happy existence until then, it was precisely at the point of denial, (a closed womb) that her eyes were opened to reality and she became capable of enlarging her nature and therefore her destiny. Usually the way to transformation and elevation of the personality does not open in what comes easily to us, but in what is most difficult.

Everybody knows that our Father Jacob turned himself into a hired servant only for Rachel. However, after the birth of Leah's fourth son, when Rachel still remained childless, she began to feel her position even with Jacob imperiled. The original arrangement - Laban and Rivkah, brother and sister, the one had two daughters and the other two sons. Elder to the elder and younger to the younger. But Jacob had ended up marrying both.

What if Esau returned and demanded his fiancée? What would Jacob do? Certainly he would not divorce the mother of four sons, but she, who as yet had no children, who retained the figure of an unmarried girl, who was Ilanit, without a womb, and who had not even been ceremoniously married to Jacob, like it or not, he would have had to satisfy his brother's claim with her instead.

To whom should Rachel turn? Her most convenient resource was naturally her partner with whom she wanted to have those children. While Leah uses children as a means to get close to her husband, Rachel uses her favored position with her husband as a means to obtain children. One of the rare dialogues between Jacob and any of his women in which we actually hear the woman's voice is Rachel's desperate plea for children: "Give me children or I am already dead!" (I have lost all purpose in being alive.)

It is impossible to believe that Yaakov had not prayed that he and Rachel would have children together. That had been his initial dream. In her beauty, he visualized a supernal Twelve Tribes incarnated. But when he saw what was actually taking place, that Leah was giving him child after child, he became fatalist about what God was meting out to him, which was easier for him to do since his need for children had been met, and he only had to cope with the disappointment that he was not having them with the woman he loved most. And since unlike his father in a like circumstance, he had other resources, the anguish of his beloved does not touch his heart.

Rather he blazes with anger against her, singling her out and putting her to shame: "What do you want from me? Am I instead of God who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb. From you and not from me. I have my children...." What he is saying is, it is not his fault; he is not infertile. Implication being, her lack had nothing to do with him. It is her fault, and she must deal with it alone.

But Rachel actually sees the fault of her barrenness as his; because of his excessive love, love of external beauty, an obstacle has been created; God has closed her womb.

And does she not have a case? Consider true love (ha ahavah she lo tluyah badavar), love which is not dependent on any external factor, which abases its own need for reciprocity to that of the beloved, even if it leads away from one's own gratification. The kind of feeling Jonathan had for David, giving up to him the throne; the love Hannah had for her husband Elkanah, Sarah for Abraham, encouraging them to marry other women so that they should enjoy the pleasure of children, despite the fact that in both cases theirs was a perfectly harmonious union. And think of even Rachel's consideration for the pain of her sister, feeling another's need as more important than her happiness.

If a beggar cries for bread, or if anyone is in distress, how can one answer them by saying: "I am on a higher spiritual plane than you as witnessed by the fact that God has given me plenty to eat and I'm not sharing!!!! But Yaakov has dealt like this before. When his brother cried out with hunger, he began bargaining rather than immediately coming to his aid. And it was this that made his own brother into an enemy unto death.

Exactly the same treatment he dealt out to his sibling, he now metes out even to his own beloved Rachel, the person in the world he claims to love the most! How far Yaakov has traveled from the pristine vision of himself as knight errant springing to the succor of the lovely shepherdess! The one who dreamed of Rachel as mother of all his children, all cast in her mold and all of supernal beauty, has become a realist at last! He has accepted their separate fates. What kind of love is this? The same kind of love that permits Yaakov to mistake Leah for Rachel, a love of externals that therefore can be masked and deceived, not empathy with the emotions and suffering within.

In the one great lover's treatment of his beloved in the bible we see no trace of the selflessness and devotion of a Jonathan or a Rachel. Certainly Yaakov worked seven years in exchange for Rachel, but that was an expansion of his own virility; he did not give seven years to her. Working for Rachel energizes him and draws out his virility so he can engage in feats of strength that magnify his own ego as her beauty does when it also becomes his prize. Whereas love often means listening in to the other's need, curbing one's own life energies to make room for a totally different point of view, and submitting to a selfimposed restraint in exactly the same way as mystics say God does to make room for the "otherness" of creation. If this kind of selfrestraint for love's sake is a "feminine" quality it is also divine! And it is one which Rachel has, rather than Yaakov; if she does not yet have the gift of tears, she does experience tears vicariously, and her heart is open to the suffering of her fellowhuman.

And so immediately we come to the story of the mandrakes. What were these magical fruits? Here there is a parallel between Rachel and Esau; Esau bartered his birthright for a pot of lentil soup and Rachel her love relationship with Yaakov forever and two more Tribes for the sake of ... some delicious fruit. There is no Midrash that puts Rachel's appetite for fruit on the same plane as Esau's greed for soup. But several Midrashim do point out that some exchange was made. The mandrakes are symbolic. Rachel wanted something. The rabbis deduce backwards. Rachel wanted children. So the mandrakes must have been some kind of fertility pill. But the word Dudaim means "love"; the fruit must have been an aphrodisiac. No wonder, Leah grudges Rachel a share! It is Reuven and Leah, not Rachel, who initially believe in their efficacy. Leah, obviously more jealous than Rachel replies: "Is it not enough that you have almost taken my husband away from me, but you want my mandrakes (that is, my aphrodisiacs, which might help me win his love back) also!" A Midrash explains: "You pull out a piece of my beard to stick into my beard." Obviously it was Leah and Reuven who believed in the magical property of this fruit, whereas Rachel did not want or have any need of Dudaim. She did not need an aphrodisiac. Yaakov had only to look at her and it was enough! She wanted children. Immediately after Yaakov, her great love, had spurned her request for prayers for children, she saw Leah's first born son, Reuven, return from the field with aphrodisiacal mandrakes for his mother, and she was moved and lonely because of the empathy Reuven had to stand up for his mother's real need. While there was no man, neither husband nor son, certainly not Yaakov, to say as Elkanah said to Hannah lovingly and with his whole heart: "Amn't I better to you than 7 sons!" And that is what she asked for - "Dudai Benech." The love gifts and honor and consideration of children.

Leah's refusal: "Is it not enough that you have taken away my husband; now you also want my mandrakes," is plainly outrageous. For who took away whose husband? But it's so absurd that Rachel is not even angry. She knows what her sister said is the opposite of the truth, but, instead of being angry, realizes her sister could only have said such a thing if it was true for her. Her sister said it; her sister feels it, so in a way it is true. It is a plain expression of her sister's pain even after the birth of Yehudah, at being unloved. For a moment Rachel experiences the marriage through her sister's eyes, and feels what she feels, and the unfairness of it.

So instead of being quick to anger (like Yaakov with the needs of his own beloved) she responds: "Yes you are right. So you can have him tonight. If that is what you feel."

Many commentators take Rachel to task over this barter of conjugal rights with her sister as a contempt for "that righteous man." And see her punishment in that for the one night she gave up, she lost him for eternity. An exchange was made at that time. One lost the mandrakes and got the husband, the burial plot, the birthright ....., the other lost the husband, the burial plot, the birthright and got .... mandrakes!

"Leah, the elder sister, had the priesthood forever, in her portion, the kingdom forever, as her right, whereas Rachel, the younger, had the priesthood for a time and the kingship, Messiah the son of Joseph, temporarily." Biologically, she became an afterthought.

But something else was going on during this heart to heart between sisters. True at that moment Rachel was not at all thinking of Yaakov. Compassion moved her more than love. Her sister's pain and need was all involving and immediately she jumped to help her and give to her. "Yes. You are absolutely right. Therefore you can have him tonight, and tomorrow night and the night after that" and the Tribes and .... And what did she get in exchange for her generosity? In exchange she got "Dudai Benech."

Roni Akara

Sing O barren, thou that did not bear,
Break forth into singing and cry aloud.,
You that did not travail with child.

For more are the children of the desolate
Than the children of the married wife, says the Lord.

(Isa. 51:1)

From that time on, she gradually and with great agony and sacrifice, achieves what she wants. First in her short life span, "The love-apples of your son." She yearned above all for children who would stand up for her honor as Leah's did. And she got what she wanted.

Not only did Rachel overcome barrenness, and become a mother, but she gave birth to Yaakov's firstborn of intention and desire (Joseph) who leapt to protect his mother from the lascivious gaze of Esau. And she also brought all the Twelve Tribes to completion. Now when Rachel was moved to name her son Joseph, saying, " The Lord has gathered in my reproach. May the Lord add to me another son", Jacob knew that it was she that was destined to complete the number of the tribes, and that she herself would not survive.

However, though her sister had produced the bulk of the Twelve Tribes, symbolically at least, by having given birth to both the first and the last, she could be regarded as true mother of all of them.

Not until the very end of her life, and beyond does Rachel learn the gift of tears? Yet the Maharal sees a germ of it already there, in the very first meeting of the lovers.

According to the Zohar the rising of the waters at their first encounter spelled out the perfect affinity of male and female and there was perfect unity between them comparable only to the perfect union of God with the Shekhinah before He created the world. The moments of time were telescoped and became as one before such an ideal coming-together. When Jacob kissed Rachel and burst into tears, presumably he was not the only one to cry and there was an ocean of tears (what had originally been the waters of the well) between them. Not only Jacob but Rachel also, according to the Maharal, after one moment of overwhelming unity, sensed the ebbing of the current, the separation and disruption that overwhelms every ideal state in this world. Then while Jacob saw what would happen in the future, that there would be separation, that there would be exile, and that she would not be buried with him in the end, since Rachel was a prophetess, she saw into the very heart of reality. Lacrimae rerum. And what she saw was the separation, disintegration and flux that are an indissoluble part of the nature of this world, the "tears" at the very heart of things.

She saw, too, says the Maharal, that were such an union as existed between her and Jacob to be fully realized in this world, time itself would fold up, Israel be truly at one, and there would be no chronological unfolding of Jewish or world history. Because Rachel saw all this, she accepted with even greater alacrity perhaps than Jacob himself the principal of dualism not only in reality but also in marriage and the inherent necessity, this world being as it is, for Jacob to have two wives.

Said Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev: "Yaakov loved Rachel more than Leah." What that means is that he loved her even more. He loved her as he always had and he loved her "more", mi-Leah", because of Leah, because of her unselfishness in breaking up personal romance, so that her sister should have a stake in the upbuilding of the Jewish People. That is, he loved her for her compassion for her sister which made her capable of interceding for all the Children of Israel, whether hers or not. Rachel's compassion served as an additional, and perhaps the most powerful, attraction to Yaakov.

From the one figure of love and beauty which she was to Yaakov, Rachel through her shared marriage grew into the prime figure of the mater dolorosa representing compassion in the midrashic tradition. Like her son Joseph, she cared for the unity of all Klal Yisrael, not just her own children. And therefore she could give up her own for the larger interest.

"Everything depended upon Rachel: (Her "tears", her gift to her sister, are the building blocks on which the Jewish Nation is founded.) Therefore are all the Children of Israel called by her name; (Whoever gives his/her life for someone, that person then takes on the name of the person who has made the sacrifice. Therefore, the entire Community of Israel is called "Rachel"), and not only by her name but by the name of her children And not only by the name of her sons but by the name of her grandsons. (All Israel is called Joseph; all Israel is poetically called Ephraim, as in "He is my child, and I do love him....."

The task of completing the Tribes and thus achieving perfection and the "soul" of the Jewish People, was given to Rachel as her last. Similarly, rest, the last work of the Six Days, gave the whole creation the sense of completion and of ideal form that ushered in Shabbat. All the Six Days had been tending towards this goal, the "Desire of the Days". Similarly, Rachel, though she physically had only two, and those not the most important, out of the twelve, through her selfsacrifice, in a sense, gave birth to all of them.

The world was created through the travail pangs of a woman in labor. The world is continuous creation. There is pain in creation of the world. Redemption can only come through pain. There is a price. Something has to be given.

So Scripture says: "And as for me, when I came from Paddan, Rachel died unto me in the land of Canaan" (Gen. XLVIII, 7). Rachel died "unto him"; She died because of him. she died to his own personal cost. Of all his many hardships, says the Zohar, the loss of Rachel was what made him suffer the most.

Rachel had to go because she was the one that Yaakov yearned for. To break such idolatrous images, the greatest suffering and sacrifice was exacted, the life of the beloved. "Rachel travailed and she had hard labour", the term "hard" indicating that a severe doom was issued on high at the instigation of the angel of death.' "And Rachel died." ( Zohar, Bereshith, Section 1, Page 175a) Her breath left her. It returned no more Rashi insists, as if indeed there were some doubt about that, as there is, not only in Jewish folklegend, which links Rachel with Elijah as two who rise up from death to spring to the aid of Jewish children, but already in the Prophet Jeremiah, who, living a thousand years later, has Rachel rise up from the grave and weep for her children who have vanished... A Voice is heard on the Heights, The bitter wailing of Rachel who weeps for her children, She utterly refuses to be comforted for her children who are not.

As if resurrection from death to come to her children's succour were not enough, Midrashim give her an even grander role as the original Mater dolorosa figure who intercedes for all children and all in need.

After the Temple is destroyed as a punishment for Israel's sins, God weeps that He Himself has destroyed His house. But Israel has sinned; punishment is inevitable. Yet he bids Jeremiah go out and get Abraham. Maybe Abraham will be able to put up such a good defense that He will be able at least to spare His children. Of course Father Abraham speaks of his readiness, in his lifetime, to give his son to be sacrificed by God's Will. "And now that you saved my son, will you finish off all his descendants?"

God weeps, but nothing avails.

Then Isaac comes out and speaks of his readiness to give up his life on God's word. God spared his life, only for his descendants to perish! The Holy One commiserates, but it is as if He can do nothing. Then Jacob speaks in defense of his children, but it does not help.

Moses came before God and, as is customary among believers, much that is unbearable in life he was prepared to accept. Destiny was that the glorious Temple would be reduced to ruins, school children would be massacred, and their elders go into captivity or be slaughtered also, but one thing was innacceptable. That a child should be killed in the very presence of his mother.

First he adjured the occupying force: "O captors, I beg you, if you kill, do not add torture to killing; do not kill with a cruel death; do not make a complete extermination; do not slay a son in the presence of his father nor a daughter in the presence of her mother; because a time will come when the Lord of heaven will exact a reckoning of you." But Israel's enemies refused to comply with his request, and they brought a son into the presence of his mother and forced his father to kill him.

Seeing this, Moshe our Teacher turns to the Creator of the word: "Master of the Universe, Thou hast written in Thy Torah, Whether it is a cow or a ewe (rahel), you shall not kill it and its young both in one day." (Lev. xxii, 28) But have they not killed many, many mothers and sons, and You are silent....!"

At that moment Rachel, a human ewe-lamb or mother-sheep, breaks out into speech before the Holy One, and speaks only of her love, and of her sacrifice of her perfect oneness with her husband, out of compassion for her sister.

"Master of the Universe, it is revealed before You that Your servant Jacob loved me very very much and worked for my father seven years for me. When those seven years were completed and the time arrived for my marriage with my husband, my father planned to substitute another for me to wed my husband.... It was very hard for me, because the plot was known to me and I disclosed it to my husband; and I gave him a sign by which he could distinguish between me and my sister, so that my father should not be able to make the substitution."

"After that I relented, suppressed my desire, and had pity on my sister so that she should not be exposed to shame. In the evening they substituted my sister for me with my husband, and I delivered over to my sister all the signs which I had arranged with him, so that he should think she was Rachel. More than that, I went beneath bed upon which he lay with my sister; and when he spoke to her she remained silent and I made all the replied in order that he should not recognize my sister's voice. I did her a kindness, was not jealous of her, and did not expose her to shame. And if I, a creature of flesh and blood, formed of dust and ashes, was not envious of my very real rival and did not expose her to shame and contempt, why should You, a King who lives for ever and are full of mercy, be jealous of stupid idols in which there are no reality, and exile my children and let them be slain by the sword for worshipping such stupidities...."

Immediately the mercies of the Holy One were stirred and He said: "For your sake, Rachel, for you, I will restore Israel to their place." And so it is written, Thus saith the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are not. (Jer. Xxxi, 15). But immediately following: Thus says the Lord: Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded ... and there is hope for your future, says the Lord; and your children shall return to their own border (ib. 16f).

How does she merit this? What is so special about the tears of our mother Rachel that they should prevail while the argument of all three Patriarchs and Moshe Rabbenu do not? It is not simply her compassion for her sister/Other that moves her to sacrifice the harmonious union with her husband, but her instinctive understanding of the complex nature of reality in this world, in which perceptions are multiple and there are as many viewpoints as people, if not more, and all are right!

Although Rachel learns from precedent to come to terms with polygamy as part of the reality of nature necessary for the upbuilding of the fabric of the Jewish People, that does not mean she condones it. Not only is polygamy analogous with sin and with idolatry, she is saying, but in a sense it is worse. After taking on herself such an ordeal as a rival wife, she feels entitled to steal an idol or two from her father's collection and introduce them into her home without causing anything like the cosmic commotion brought on by the struggle between two sisters. It is precisely through her forbearance for inbetweens (idols, substitute-wives) that we can see how this world is organized so that there exist different perceptions and competing claims in the world of separation. The analogy here is between the wife who suffers from polygamy (Rachel) vis a vis the One who suffers from polytheism and Israel's unfaithfulness (God), and in this the Patriarchs and no man, who rather benefited from this fallible human system, can have anything to say. Here Rachel claims that, realities being so unequal, her suffering is even greater than His.

And God accepts her testimony: "For your sake, Rachel, your children (i.e., all the children, Leah's children having become hers) will return to their country...."He can deny her nothing.

That is her reward. That every last child, every exile and fragment and misfit are hers to reintegrate into God's pattern. If Leah gave birth to the royalty and priesthood of the hierarchy of Israel, of all the matriarchs, only Rachel was a shepherdess; from her, like Abraham, Yitzhak and Yaakov, Joseph, and like Moshe and David, the seven shepherds of the Jewish People, came nourishment for Israel; all her care was to bring every stray sheep home.

Through a series of separations and substitutions throughout the course of her life and beyond, Rachel transcended her own private romance and her heart expanded to embrace the grief of the Shekhinah. Therefore Rachel is not only one of the names of the Children of Israel, for whom she sacrificed herself, but also a name of the Shekhinah. "Rachel" is Ruah-Kel, since her fully human tears play on the strings of the Divine compassion: "For when a humanbeing weeps and sheds tears (and shares another's grief) as their own...) They also cause tears to be shed on high. In fact, God travels in an eternal drought, longing to shed as much as a single tear, and only human tears can bring God Himself relief: As it says: "Oh, that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears that so I might also weep for my dead....." (Jer. 8:23) And this is the function of Rachel who, as her name implies, Ruah Kel, Spirit of God, by supplying a totally human outlet for the Divine suffering, also provides it with catharsis.

The article is an excerpt of a book on which Freema Gottlieb is currently working on.

Freema Gottlieb war born in London and grew up in Scotland. She taught Midrashic Literature at various Jewish institutions in New York. Recently she was a visiting lecturer of Midrash at Charles University in Prague. She is the author of three books: "The Lamp of God: A Jewish Book of Light" (Aronson, New York); "Jewish Folk Art" (Summit, New York); and "Mystical Stonescapes in Prague Jewish Town and the Czech Countryside (Tvorba, Prague, 1997).

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