This dvar was written in 5777.
Leah’s story has always cried out to me in this week’s parsha—darsheni! And no, it’s not because my Hebrew name just so happens to be Leah. I find much of Leah’s narrative to be deeply resonant and oh so human. Though on its face, Leah’s is a deeply troubling and tragic story, I think there is incredible inner strength to be found within it, as well as a wealth of contemporary spiritual and psychological insight for us all.
Immediately, my attention is grabbed by the first thing we learn about Leah—that her eyes are weak. There’s a classic debate as to whether or not this description of her eyes is intended to refer to a visual disability of some sort—as yet undefined—or whether, as many of us learned, her eyes were weak on account of the rivers of tears she wept upon learning she would be marrying Esau. For me, the important thing to note here is that this is literally the first physical feature we learn about Leah, and the Torah contrasts this optical weakness with her sister, Rachel’s beauty. Why this stark contrast? If, as so many of our Hasidic masters teach, the Torah does not give us extraneous information, why the focus on her eyes? I believe that this helps us set the scene for the way in which Leah’s life will play out. Already, we are here told that there is something physically unsatisfying about Leah, and perhaps this is the Torah’s way of beginning to offer us some justification for why Jacob doesn’t love her—the deceit aside, of course.
Leah, I believe, is keenly aware of her position. Observing daily the love Jacob clearly shows Rachel, Leah is left fruitlessly seeking, both the tangible, temporal love of her husband which seems to be constantly out of reach as well as, perhaps, a sense of closeness to God. If, as the Ohev Yisrael teaches regarding last week’s parsha, Toldot concerning Yitzchack’s wells, each of us has an inner well inside of us, and it is our task to ensure that that well is flowing with the living water from the divine source. However, that well is apt to become blocked, and it is so difficult to break through that blockage. Leah, unloved, unappreciated, seems very adrift, desperately looking for some way to fill that well to overflowing, and despite her efforts, nothing seems to change.
We first encounter Leah’s deep emotional distress when our Torah tells us that God knows that Leah is hated, and thus opens her womb, in contrast to her sister, Rachel who is of yet unable to conceive. In a certain sense, we could think of this as Leah having access to a powerful status marker; though she lacks the physical beauty that is so prized, she does have the ability to bare children, which will enable her to have greater social status perhaps.
She names her firstborn Reuven, from the root to see, for the Lord has surely seen my affliction (Gen. 29:32). “Now that I, his unloved first wife have borne him his first child and a son at that, surely, Jacob will love me!”
We know that Leah’s cry, Leah’s yearning, is for naught. After all, our Torah indicates to us immediately following this that Leah gives birth to a second son, whom she names Simeon—for God knows that I am hated, and so he gave me this one, too (Gen.29:33). Leah knows that God knows her heart. Indeed, Leah is going through the classic stages of grief that we are all familiar with, though we also know that those stages of grief are never linear and rarely as clear cut as they are made out to be.
Though Leah appears to be cognizant of God’s presence in her life and God’s care and concern as is aptly demonstrated with each successive naming, there is also a relentless seeking, a deep, primal yearning for closeness that is never fulfilled. Though with each additional son, Leah assures herself that this is the thing that will make Jacob love me, we know, or at least it is strongly implied that this is not to be. Indeed, after naming Levi out of a belief that now Jacob will be attached to her having borne him three sons, when she names Judah, Leah says only, now I will thank God. Notably, Jacob is absent.
The Noam Elimelech, in his commentary to Parshat Noach teaches the importance of elevating all of one’s daily physical actions in the service of God. Gashmiut is not ancillary to divine service—rather, what we are tasked with doing is revealing the hidden divine sparks in the mundane. Leah is in a situation that is at once both troubling and tragic, profoundly unjust and, also, in its own strange way, perhaps redemptive, at least in her social context in which a woman’s ability to conceive was one of her most important assets. Deprived of what she yearns for, Leah strives to overcome the obstacles not of her own making the only way she is able to, giving each of her children a name that is both emblematic of her feelings towards God and her hopes for her relationship with her husband.
In his commentary on Parshat Lech Lecha, referring to Avraham’s journey, the Degel Machaneh Efrayim talks about prayer—particularly, yehud kriat Shma as an act of mesirut nefesh—a complete nullification of the self as the ultimate act of devotion, stemming out of a primal desire for divine closeness and unity. Though mesirut nefesh is a state that the Degel teaches is something we should be striving towards, if we think about the notion as applied in our very messy and human world, it can be incredibly damaging. Leah is striving with everything she has—literally—to secure Jacob’s affections. Though he makes it abundantly clear that his love is for Rachel and Rachel only, Leah finds herself married to this man not by her own choice, and, unable to extricate herself from such a deeply unfair situation, does what she can to find some sense of rootedness or grounding. She knows full well that, through no fault of her own, she is at a profound physical disadvantage. God gives her access to the sort of capital, to put it perhaps too bluntly, that will allow her status to increase. But even that capital is not enough to make Jacob change.
As the Ohev Yisrael teaches us, though we each have that divine wellspring within, and though it is important to keep the mayyim chayyim within it flowing so we can experience a state of spiritual wellness, because we are humans living in all too human and broken world, that well within gets blocked. Perhaps those obstacles are temporal, financial, social, spiritual, structural, emotional. But rarely are they obstacles we can somehow overcome alone.
When the world feels destabilized, adrift, when the future feels deeply uncertain and profoundly scary, it is easy for us to feel like our foundation has been ripped out from underneath us. It can often feel like we are wandering through that metaphorical desert for longer than forty years, looking for some way forward. When we don’t have that sense of being grounded and rooted, we may use whatever we have access to find that safety and stability that I believe we humans all deeply crave. Making order out of the chaos all around us is something we achieve through whatever means or structures we have available. For Leah, perhaps her children served that function somehow. Setting aside the problematics of that possibility, Leah, I believe, was doing the best she could in less than satisfactory circumstances, and was doing so alone. Though Zilpa is given a cursory mention, we read nothing about anyone coming to Leah’s aid. Her inner well is blocked with no one but herself to get through that blockage.
Though our Chasidic masters teach us much about the spiritual seeking of the individual, ours is a tradition that invests a great deal in building community, be that through our rituals and religious practices or through coming together for simchas and times of deep sorrow alike. Interdependence, I believe, is something I believe we should be striving towards. Had Leah had a community around her, perhaps it would have been easier for her to manage her deep loneliness, and perhaps even depression. Rooted in community, Leah would have, perhaps, been able to channel her completely valid anger in a healthier direction for herself and her family.