MAJESTIC
MAIDSERVANTS: PARSHAT VAYETZEH
Shira
Smiles shiur –
November 3, 2013/Marcheshvan 30, 5774
Summary
by Channie Koplowitz Stein
Parshat Vayetzeh records the birth of eleven of the twelve tribes that
are the
ancestors of all of Bnei Yisroel. First Leah gives birth to four sons.
Then
Bilhah, Rachel’s
maidservant, gives birth to two sons, followed by Zilpah, Leah’s
maidservant,
giving birth to two more sons. Leah then bears to two more sons, and
finally
Rachel giving birth to her first son, Yoseph. Although it is obvious
that the
tribes were born from four wives of Yaakov, only Rachel and Leah are
listed
among the four matriarchs of Bnei Yisroel, along with Sarah and Rivka.
The
obvious question is why Bilhah and Zilpah are not included in the
traditional
count of our Matriarchs raising the count to six?
The simplest answer is that Bilhah and Zilpah married Yaakov and became
mothers
through the intercession of their mistresses, Rachel and Leah, who were
each
eager to have as great a share as possible in creating the nation that
would
become God’s
Chosen People. But there is much more that can be learned about both
Rachel and
Leah and about the Maidservants that shows the worthiness of all to be
instrumental in this great endeavor.
Perhaps the best place to start our discussion is with the dialogue
between
Rachel and Yaakov. Leah had already borne Yaakov four sons, and Rachel
cannot
understand why she has remained barren. Heartbroken, she approaches
Yaakov and
demands, “Give
me children. Otherwise I am dead.”
Yaakov, already the father of four, replies, “Am
I instead of God Who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”
At that point,
Rachel gives Bilhah to Yaakov as a wife, and Hashem blesses them with
two sons.
When Leah saw that she herself had stopped conceiving, she, too, gave
her
maidservant to Yaakov as a wife, and Zilpah, too, bore Yaakov two sons.
Leah
then bears two more sons and Rachel bears one at this point.
The Medrash and our commentators fill in many of the gaps in the
dialogue as
well as in the sequence of events in this narrative. After all, what in
Yaakov’s
response was the
catalyst for Rachel giving her maidservant to Yaakov? Our first clue
comes as
Rachel echoes the words of Yaakov’s
grandmother, Sarah, who gave her maidservant Hagar to Avraham as a
wife. Sarah
said, “Perhaps
I will be built up through her,”
and Rachel says,“Perhaps
I too will be built up through her.”
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in discussing Sarah’s
words notes that building can refer to a physical edifice or to
building in
time when one action forms the basis for another. A son (ben) is
a brick
(lev[b]en) in the structure of generations. Rachel learned from
Sarah’s
action that one
can put a brick, a child, in place of the time edifice upon which
future
generations can be built. Sarah served as an example to Rachel, who now
hoped
to be “built
up”
by raising
her maidservant’s
son as her own. Rachel hoped that in this merit, she would bear her own
biological
son, as Sarah had done two generations earlier. She also understood, as
Chana
would understand generations later, that she could not rely on the
merit of her
husband, writes Rav Dovid Hofstedter in Derash Dovid, but would
have to
put in her own hishtadlus, effort, and her own prayer.
We now have a partial understanding of the dynamics within the Yaakov
household. But we can shed further light by examining Rachel’s
response to the
birth of Bilhah’s
son. Not only does she name him Dan, for God has judged her, but she
also adds,
“He
has also
heard my voice and has given me a son.”
So Dan was the result not only of nature taking its course after the
marriage
of Yaakov and Bilhah, but also of the prayers of Rachel on Bilhah’s
behalf, points
out Rabbi Schrage Grossbard in Daas Schrage. Now, both Rachel
and Leah
prayed for their maidservants to have children. Subsequently, not only
did
their maidservants have children, but they had children of their own as
well.
The Sifsei Chaim points out that one must pray, but one
must also
put in his own effort to achieve results. When Yaakov told Rachel, Am I
instead
of God Who has withheld from thee the fruit of the womb,”
he was urging her to do something
just as his grandmother had done. So Rachel took action and emulated
Sarah’s
action; Rachel
gave her maidservant to Yaakov as a wife. What the Sifsei Chaim is
saying is that Hashem constructed the world so that we put in our own
effort to
get results. That doesn’t
mean we stop praying, for while we must put in our own effort, the
ultimate
result is in the hands of Hakodosh Boruch Hu. When Rachel was to
conceive,
Hashem both remembered her actions and efforts, and heard her prayers.
Similarly, our faith too must strike a balance between effort and
prayer. We
must not get so caught up in our own efforts, whether it’s
earning a living, struggling with
health issues, or any other part of life that we forget to pray and ask
Hashem
to make our efforts successful.
If everything depends on God, why did God add man’s
effort into the equation? Rabbi Mattisyahu Solomon discusses this
question at
some length in With Hearts Full of Faith. First, says Rabbi
Solomon, we
must understand that God chooses to work through nature and not through
miracles. Should man be relieved of all effort, everything accomplished
in this
world would seem miraculous. The purpose of our efforts is to make us
worthy to
receive God’s
blessings. Nevertheless, our faith must lie staunchly in Hakodosh
Boruch Hu and
not in our own efforts. Our “business
meeting”
with
Hakodosh Boruch Hu for morning prayers must remain more important than
our
business meeting with a potential client. Our efforts must be viewed as
our
obligation rather than as a condition for success.
This was the greatness of our matriarchs, writes Rabbi Reuven Fein in Bein
Hamishpatayim. They understood the power of prayer. Leah especially
understood the power of prayer from when she saw her destiny changed
through
her prayers, for she had prayed and cried not to marry the evil Esau,
and
through her prayers, she merited marrying the righteous Yaakov. Her
prayers
enabled her to be the mother of a full half of the tribes of Israel. So
while
each matriarch did her hishtadlus and gave her maidservants to
Yaakov,
their focus remained praying that both their maidservants and they
themselves
bear Yaakov’s
children.
Rav Eliyahu Yedid brings a completely different perspective to our
original
question. He sees each matriarch and her maidservants as two side of
one coin.
Rachel was the dominant side of the complete persona while Bilhah was
the
hidden side. Similarly, writes Rabbi Yedid, Leah was the dominant side
and
Zilpah was the hidden side. As such, when recalling Rachel and Leah, we
are in
effect also recalling their unnamed maidservants who represent the more
hidden
aspects of their personalities.
This idea is supported by the writings of Rabbi Yehudah Adari in Nashim
BeTanach Beaspaklariat Chazal. Rabbi Adari analyzes the names of
the
maidservants to highlight the connection between maidservant and
mistress.
Bilhah, he writes, is derived from behalah, alarm and panic
that she
felt at her mistress’s
childlessness. Zilpah, too, is derived from zolof, for her eyes
were wet
from tears she shed at the prospect that her mistress would be married
to the
evil Esau. In other words, when we talk of Rachel and Leah as our
Matriarchs,
Bilhah and Zilpah are automatically subsumed within those names.
Turning now from the power of prayer to the power of character
improvement, we
will again begin by analyzing the dialogue between Yaakov and Rachel.
First,
when Rachel demands that Yaakov give her children, Rachel seems to be
in a
jealous rage. First, let us understand as Rabbi Baiyfuswrites in Yalkut
Lekach Yosef that there are different kinds of jealousy. Citing
Rabbi
Mordechai Ezrachi, he notes that negative jealousy focuses on my being
entitled
to have what someone else has, while positive jealousy focuses on my
shortcomings and how I can make myself more worthy of receiving
blessings. This
latter jealousy acts as a catalyst toward self improvement, and this
was the
jealousy that Rachel felt.
If we now move back to the dialogue, we find even greater significance
between
the lines. Lev Tahor offers a fascinating yet logical
interpretation of
this dialogue. When Rachel approaches Yaakov demanding children, she is
approaching ( on her exalted level) with a touch of arrogance as akeret
habayit, as the mainstay of the household. Although her sister was
an equal
wife to Yaakov, Rachel still treated her with this touch of arrogance.
Yaakov’s
response, then,
was, “Look
within yourself, not to me, for the merit of having children.”
Rachel sought to
follow Sarah’s
lead to merit children, but, unlike Sarah, Rachel already had a co-wife
in the
household. It was then that Rachel realized that while Sarah treated
Hagar with
the full respect her husband’s
wife was entitled to, she had been treating Leah somewhat haughtily,
and she
vowed to change her attitude. To reinforce this resolve, she put an
additional
wife into the household and determined to treat both Leah and Bilhah
with the
utmost respect. This change in behavior, of working to correct her
touch of
arrogance, adds the Yalkut Lekach Tov, together with
her having
given Leah the signs to marry Yaakov, would then give wings to her
prayers and
allow them to enter heaven, for, writes Rabbi Wolbe, building oneself
up,
building one’s
character, involves first breaking down the negative.
Leah, too, had the twofold goal, to be an essential building block in
the House
of Yisroel and to perfect her own character. Therefore, she too brought
her
maidservant into the house. Then, when she gave birth to Issachar, she
thanked
Hashem for this reward He gave her for her selflessness in also giving
her
maidservant as a wife to Yaakov. Both she and Rachel raised the
children of the
maidservants as their own, reminds us Rabbi Gamliel Horowitz in Tiv
Hatorah.
This brings us to another understanding of the greatness of our
founding
Mothers. Just as the world was built on chessed, loving
kindness, so too
was the House of Israel. In other words, both prayer and character
development
are integral components of Judaism. We’ve
already discussed the power of prayer of our Matriarchs and how they
worked on
creating a humble nature. Now let us focus on their acts of loving
kindness
beyond raising the children of the maidservants as their own.
Rabbi Dov Yaffe, in Leovdecha B’Emet
reminds us of the Medrash that when Leah conceived her seventh child,
she
prayed that it be a girl, resulting in the birth of Dinah. Why did Leah
suddenly want a girl? Our Patriarchs and Matriarchs knew by Divine
Inspiration
(as did the entire line of generations going back to Shem) that God’s
chosen nation
would consist of twelve tribes. She herself had already given birth to
six of
those tribes, and each of the maidservants had given birth to two sons.
If she
would now bear a seventh son to Yaakov, Rachel would bear only one of
the sons
who would be counted among the Tribes of Israel. Rachel would then have
fewer
tribes to her name than the maidservants. That Leah could not do to her
sister;
she could not leave Rachel with a touch of humiliation, just as Rachel
herself
could not leave Leah humiliated under the bridal canopy, and so
divulged the
secret signs to Leah so Yaakov would marry her. Both Rachel and Leah
understood
that the bar for the nation they were founding with their husband was
set very
high, and it could only be attained through mutual respect, sensitivity
to
others, and loving kindness.
But good character was also a hallmark of the maidservants. They
exemplified
humility. Even after they married Yaakov, they remained in their own
eyes shefachot
(maidservants) –
from mishpacha (family), writes Ktav
Hakabalah. These
were not your typical maids, but were a significant part of the fabric
of the
family, adds Rav Gilead Messing in Veat Alit al Kulanah. Their
main
responsibility was not keeping the household running physically, but
rather to
be equal partners in the spiritual development of this special family.
Their
will was to nullify themselves to their mistresses and thereby become
instrumental
in building this family, and so they welcomed being given to Yaakov as
wives.
They did not want personal recognition; they were content to be the
reflected
glory of their mistresses. Their contribution to our nation, continues
Rabbi
Messing, is to be models of self nullification, they to the will of
their
mistresses and all of Bnei Yisroel to the will of Hakodosh Boruch Hu.
As proof of the importance and greatness of the maidservants, Rabbi
Messing
cites the Zohar in which it is written that after the death of
Rachel
and Leah, the cloud representing God’s
Presence moved and hovered over the tent of Bilhah. Certainly she and
her
cohort Zilpah were great women to merit such an honor.
The gifts of the maidservants remain with us even if we do not identify
Bilhah
and Zilpah by name as our additional two mothers. That is as they would
have
wanted it, for our nation was founded on faith and prayer to our God in
heaven,
and on self nullification to His will. We built and continue to build
our
individual and national character in our ability to be sensitive to
others
rather than on personal self interest. All of our Matriarchs were
worthy models
for us to emulate, the four that we name regularly and the two that
bask in
their reflected glory.