Genesis 38:10-32:3 – Hosea 12:13-14:10 (Ashkenazim), 11:7-12:12 (Sephardim) – John 2:1-12

This week's edition of The Set Table contains:

Questions and Commentary on Vayyetze
Chayyei Yeshua - A Devotional Commentary on the Besora Reading
In Summary
Looking Ahead

Questions & Commentary on Parashat Vayyetze

1. As a result of Laban's trickery with Jacob in this week's parasha (see Genesis 29:18-29), Jacob receives Leah as a wife instead of the promised Rachel. A most curious thing proceeds: Jabob marries them both. What is the significance that the Patriarch Jacob married two wives? How is it that God's plan of creating the nation of Israel can be carried out from these actions?

Nick Amic

Even a cursory glance at the parasha portrays a heavy emphasis on the subject of names. Just as the names of Jacob sons depict an aspect of spiritual reality, so too our matriarchs' names. Rachel means "female sheep." If we analyze the letters making up Rachel's name - resh, chet, lamed - from the meaning of each individual letter we can construct the sentence "in the beginning sin taught." Leah's name is composed of three letters - lamed, aleph, hey. Taken in reverse order, we construct the sentence: "behold the Master taught." Rachel and Leah both teach using different methods: Rachel through the world's system and Leah through godliness.

Likewise, Jacob is broken in two halves: Jacob is the trickster who teaches us the lesson: "with the pure be pure, and with the crooked be crafty" (2 Samuel 22:27; see also Psalm 18:27(26); Matthew 10:16); while Israel is the one who wrestles to transform one's ways from trickery and deceit - the norm of the world ruled by sin - to having power with the Divine, and prevailing over the ways of men (see Genesis 32:29(28). The meaning of both names reflects also the spiritual characteristic of each of Jacob's wives. The Michtav Eliyahu (contemporary collections of the late R. Eliezer Dressler) explains:

Rachel was Ya'kov's intended mate for this world; Leah was his intended mate for the higher world of the spirit. Rachel was the wife of Ya'kov and Leah was the wife of Yisra'el . . . It's illustrative of this concept that Rachel produced Yosef, who would save his family from famine, but Leah produced Levi and Yehudah, the tribes of priesthood and the Messianic monarchy.

God's plans for the creation, exile and redemption of the world are signified in the midrashic story by what the name of each "character" discloses. Laban, meaning "white," signifies purity and the clarity of logic. However clever and right Laban's logic might be, we still see that it's ultimately deceptive and cannot lead us to the Divine. Jacob is the one that "holds on to the heel." According to the ancient prophecy: "He will crush your head, and you will bite his heel" (Genesis 3:15), the midrash tells us the heel will be bitten by the satan, and this same heel will be used by the Messiah to crush the satan (see Genesis Rabba 1:23). Israel represents the whole nation: the yod equals Isaac and Jacob, the shin equals Sara, the resh equals Rebekka and Rachel, the aleph equals Abraham, and the lamed equals Leah.

This compares to Yeshua who represents all humanity and destroys him who has power over death (Hebrews 2:9-15). Leah means "weariness," and reminds us of the call Yeshua makes to those in need of rest to take up the yoke of his teachings (Matthew 11:28-30). Lastly, Rachel, meaning "sheep," reminds us: "all we like sheep have turned away [but the Messiah Yeshua] was oppressed and afflicted, yet he didn't open his mouth. Like a lamb that's led to slaughter, and a sheep that's silent before its shearers, he didn't open his mouth . . . he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; and by his scourging we're healed." (Isaiah 53:6-7).

2. When Jacob and his family depart from his father-in-law, Laban's house in haste, the next verse tells us that Rachel stole her father's household idols. Why did Rachel violate one of the Ten Commandments? What spiritual lessons can we learn from her actions? 

Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan

Rachel's "theft" of Laban's household gods in Genesis 31:19 causes us to ask why she would violate a commandment of Torah (Exodus 20:13)? Saadiah Gaon sees no problem in her actions and defines the Hebrew tignov as the more general tiqqach (she took). Rachel did not steal them at all but merely took them! Even if one agrees with Saadiah's definition of tignov, it still raises the question of why she took them in the first place?

Rashi understands her actions as motivated by a desire to improve her father's spiritual situation:

"Rachel took the household idols (of Laban)" in order to separate her father from idol worship.

For Rashi, Rachel's motivations were altruistic. She sought to remove from her father the items that kept him from true to devotion to God. Rabbenu Hananel sees similar motivations in Rachel's actions and compares her to Gideon in Judges 6 who also does the same thing when he destroys his father's altar to Baal.

Rashbam (Rashi's grandson) departs from the spiritualizing interpretations of his predecessors and sees a more practical motivation in Rachel's actions.

"Rachel took the household idols (of Laban)" in order that they would not tell and disclose to Laban that Jacob had fled. Similarly, it is said, "[For the Israelites shall go a long time without a king and without officials, without sacrifice and without cult pillars,] and without Ephod and Terephin (the same word translated as ‘household idols' in our verse)" (Hosea 3:4). "For the Terephin speak delusion" (Zecharia 10:2). They were accustomed to deceiving them.

Rashbam understands the household idols as having the capacity to speak based on two verses from Hosea and Zecharia.  Though their general practice is to speak deceptively, Rachel fears that they might just tell the truth and disclose that they have left her father's house "stealing away" (Genesis 31:20 uses the same verb - vayyignov - to describe Jacob's departure). Ibn Ezra adds (as interpreted by R. David Qimchi) that the household gods also had the capacity to see the future.

Rachel took them in order that they would disclose to her father which road they were taking.

Rachel thus fears that the household gods would not only disclose to Laban that they had left but also where they were going. Which interpretation(s) do you like? Do they adequately explain her motivations as well as her act of "theft?" Do they adequately justify her actions? Is she guilty of violating a commandment found in Torah?