This week’s parasha is the first
ever episode of Sister Wives in the universe. Ok, so, I’ve never actually seen
that show, but from what I know about television and the way women are
portrayed in the media, I assume it’s really melodramatic and centers on the
women’s insecurities and jealousies, and generally plays up an idea that women
are crazy, obsessed with “their man” and always willing to stab each other in
the back. In case you weren’t sure, this is not a fully accurate portrayal of
women. However, the picture we get of Sister Wives Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, and
Bilhah is not much different. Rachel and Leah, Jacob’s real wives, are sisters,
and beside them there are two handmaidens Jacob takes as secondary wives. There
is one – one! – very nice ancient rabbinic midrash that shows love and care
between the sisters: Jacob, knowing that Laban is a trickster, gives Rachel
some sort of token, so that when she comes to him in her wedding veil, he will
know for sure that it is her. When Rachel sees that Laban is taking Leah to
marry Jacob, and the Midrash gives no indication that Rachel was really in on
this trick, rather than being angry or jealous, she is concerned that Jacob
will publicly shame her sister. So, she gives the token to her sister, so that
Jacob would still think that it is Rachel under the veil, and Leah may be
spared some humiliation. However, other than this Midrash, most of the text and
traditional commentaries show that the image of women in media have not changed
much in the last couple thousand years.
I know last week I spoke about
looking at the text for what it is, and not necessarily accepting the ancient
rabbis’ interpretations at face value, but sometimes the text, as it is, is
uncomfortable. But we learn from Rabbi Ben Bag-Bag, who seems quite wise in
spite of his silly name, “Turn
it, and turn it, for everything is in it. Reflect on it and grow old and gray
with it. Don't turn from it, for nothing is better than it.” And of course, the “it” here, is the
Torah. The Torah teaches everything, if we know how to look at it, and there
are no parts of the Torah without value, no matter how obscure the value may
seem at first glance.
One
value learned in this Torah portion is how multi-faceted people can be. The
women are shown to have seemingly petty jealousies with one another over a man,
but this is a world where a woman’s status was determined by how many sons she
could give to her husband. Rachel and Leah seem to have clear moments of
cleverness, bargaining with each other, making deals about Jacob without his
input, negotiating their fates with each other and with G-d. This is actually
one of the closest things to feminism the Torah will show us. Many women in the
Torah are very one-dimensional, but in this parasha, they are the stars.
Meanwhile, Jacob the trickster learns what it is like to be tricked. After
pretending to be Esau, he now has to deal with the fallout of Leah pretending
to be Rachel. We see him grow up a little. It turns out, tricky Jacob who lied
and stole to get a blessing and birthright from his father, actually does have
a great work ethic. He takes great care of Laban’s sheep and goats, works hard
for many years, and is a successful man. Although he clearly doesn’t love Leah,
he seems to do right by her, and that’s how a lot of marriages were back then.
So we see that even our patriarchs and matriarchs, the righteous ones, were not
perfect. We all have moments where we are good, smart, hard-working, and loving
people. But we also do all have moments were we are jealous, irrational, sneaky
liars. This is life. Although at first glance it might be frustrating that our
supposed role models of the Bible are not perfect, it’s also kind of
comforting. We don’t have some ridiculous standard to hold ourselves up to. We
just have to be the best we can be. G-d trusted Jacob to become Israel despite
the fact that he was a sneaky liar, and G-d trusted Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, and
Zilpah to raise the twelve tribes of Israel despite being jealous and petty.
Who knows what G-d may trust in us?
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