Rabbi Freedman’s Shabbat Message

 Love and marriage, love and marriage

Go together like a horse and carriage

This I tell ya, brother

Ya can’t have one without the other.

 These are the opening words of the song, Love and Marriage, made popular by Frank Sinatra in the 1950’s; but while it was sung by an Italian-American, it should come as no surprise that the lyrics of the song, extolling married life, were written by one of the great Jewish songwriters of the 20^th century – Sammy Cahn.  Cahn was born Samuel Cohen on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1913 and was one of five children born to Abraham and Elka Reiss Cohen, who had left Galicia some years earlier due to prejudice and persecution.  Along with millions of other Jews from Central and Eastern Europe during this time, they journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean to the גאָלדענע מדינה Goldene Medina, in the hope of finding a safer home for their family and a happier and more affluent life.

Cahn’s lyrics reflected Biblical, Talmudic and Rabbinic attitudes towards marriage.  The book of Genesis, on introducing the concept of marriage, reminds us that “it is not good for man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18), and one should also note that the Hebrew word ‘to love’ (אהב) entered into the lexicon of the Jewish people only when the Torah mentions the love between a husband and wife, as in the case of Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 24:67) and later Jacob and Rachel (Genesis 29:18), or the exceptional love that a parent feels for their offspring – the product of their marriage – as in the love Abraham felt towards Isaac (Genesis 22:2) or that of Rebekah for Jacob (Genesis 25:28).

The Talmud and the later rabbinic literature also bring a range of positive quotes concerning marriage:

• Marriages are made in heaven (Midrash Bereishit Rabbah 68)
• Who is wealthy? He who has a wife beautiful in good deeds. (TB Shabbat 25b)
• A person must always be careful about sustaining the honour of his wife, as blessing is found in a person’s house only because of his wife. (TB Bava Metziah 59a) 
• A man must love his wife as himself, but honour her more than himself. (TB Yevamot 62b)
• He should speak with her gently, be neither angry nor sad in her presence, and treat her with respect and affection. (Maimonides, Hilkhot Ishut 15:19-20)

Little wonder, therefore that Sammy Cahn penned the words – “Love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage” and that you “can’t have one without the other”.

It is therefore both surprising and somewhat disappointing to read of Leah’s marriage to Jacob in which she appears to have been denied the kind of marital bliss mentioned in the song or described by our sages in much of their literature.  Instead Leah endured a loveless marriage, whose only compensation, says the Torah, was the large number of children to whom she gave birth.

The Torah is explicit:

וַיָּבֹא גַּם אֶל-רָחֵל, וַיֶּאֱהַב גַּם-אֶת-רָחֵל מִלֵּאָה

And he consummated his marriage to Rachel and loved her so much more than Leah.  (Genesis 29:30)

These words are so harsh, unkind and unfeeling, that the Torah is forced into providing an immediate moral judgement on Jacob’s behaviour; so it is in the very next verse we read:

וַיַרְא ה’ כִי שְׂנוּאָה לֵאָה וַיִפְתַח אֶת-רַחְמָהּ וְרָחֵל עֲקָרָה

And the Lord saw that Leah was unloved (literally, hated).  And so God opened her womb, even as Rachel was unable to bear children.  (Genesis 29:31)

This verse, which in the light of our expectations on entering marriage, could be described as highly distressing, is somehow made to appear even worse when compared to an earlier verse in the same chapter:

וַיַּעֲבֹד יַעֲקֹב בְּרָחֵל שֶׁבַע שָׁנִים; וַיִּהְיוּ בְעֵינָיו כְּיָמִים אֲחָדִים, בְּאַהֲבָתוֹ אֹתָהּ

And Jacob worked for seven years to be able to marry Rachel, though because of his love for her, these seven years seemed to him but a few days!  (Genesis 29:20)

The heartache for Leah however continues and the Torah does not conceal her misery from us – for on giving birth to Jacob’s first child, a moment that should have been filled with joy and happiness, hope and anticipation, Leah’s words sound almost pathetic as she reflects on life in a loveless marriage:

וַתַהַר לֵאָה וַתֵלֶד בֵּן, וַתִקְרָא שְמוֹ רְאוּבֵן

  כִי אָמְרָה, כִי-רָאָה ה’ בְעָנְיִי כִי עַתָּה יֶאֱהָבַנִי אִישִי

And Leah conceived and bore a son and named him Reuben for she said, “It is because the Lord has seen my wretched state.  Surely my husband will love me now.”

(Genesis 29:32)

One could argue that Jacob had Leah foisted upon him and that is the reason for his attitude towards her, or one could quote Rashi and many of the other commentators who suggest that שְׂנוּאָה in this context does not mean ‘hated’, just that he didn’t love her as much as he loved his other wife.

Along these lines, Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch argues that Jacob certainly loved Leah, or at the very least admired her and had great sympathy for her plight since she was as much a victim in this marriage as he was and he did not hold her responsible for the deception that had been carried out by her father Laban.  In this regard, writes Rabbi David Kimche in his commentary, the word שְׂנוּאָה hated is to be understood in a relative sense – it only seemed to be the case when compared to Jacob’s intense love for Rachel.

Nonetheless, when one reads Talmudic literature, especially TB Bava Metziah 59a one finds it very hard to defend Jacob’s behaviour.  The Talmud gives a number of examples of people who descend to Gehenna but lose the right subsequently to ascend from Gehenna, and one of those is someone who humiliates another in public.  One cannot imagine a more public form of humiliation than a woman like Leah who has to endure this kind of treatment.  Then there is the comment by Rav, otherwise known as Abba Arikha, who moved from Israel to Babylon in the 3^rd century CE and was one of the original Talmudic scholars.  He taught that every married man should be meticulous in regard to all forms of domestic abuse, since a wife’s tears “are easily elicited and punishment for her mistreatment is immediate.”  One final example: Said Rav Pappa to Abaye, quoting a well-known saying: ‘If your wife is short, stoop down low to speak to her softly and take counsel from her advice.’

It is a unique feature of Jewish learning that our greatest Biblical heroes continue to teach us how to live moral lives by what they do, and by what they fail to do.  In the case of Jacob, we see a man seriously conflicted.  He loved Rachel and only wished to live with her and yet he is held back from marrying the woman of his dreams.  As if this situation was not hard enough, we then witness his utter despair when she dies in childbirth.  Even as he shows us what marriage should be, he cannot help himself and he also shows us the other side of marriage in historical terms – where women are mere objects passed on from a controlling father to a dominating husband and most obviously not appreciated for who they are, just what they are.  Leah’s life, as described in Parashat Vayetze, was merely a reflection of her husband’s attitude towards her – we are not told whether she loved him, nor whether she would have preferred to end the marriage and live with someone else who cared for her.

In her book, On Women and Judaism, Blu Greenberg wrote about the positive changes for women in the last sixty years:

The aims, achievements, and to some extent the processes of feminism have been revolutionary. 

She suggests that the women’s movement has profoundly altered social attitudes toward women and the way women think about themselves.  Writing back in 1981, her words stand the test of time:

Increasingly, public philosophy and policy assume that women are full human beings with a capacity for achievement in all spheres in which men function.  Women are no longer adjuncts of the men in their lives.  Our secular, legal, social and educational systems are under constant pressure to include women as equals.  

There is no doubt that we live in a better world, a fairer world and hopefully a safer world now than 60 years ago as we assess the changes that have been made by and on behalf of women.  These changes have created a society in which women have greater freedom of choice, more opportunities for self-expression, improved prospects for equality in marriage as well as in the workplace, and above all less likelihood of being objectified with all the associated risks to their person.

But that is only true in the West.  Other parts of the world need to catch up.  It was deeply distressing to read Nikki Gemmell’s article in the Australian recently on what life is like for women in Afghanistan.  Entitled, I’m haunted by the women of Afghanistan, Gemmell wrote that there seems to be fresh outrage every month as the noose on female freedom is pulled ever tighter.  One of the latest outrages, she wrote, is the banning of books by female authors in the university teaching system.  Women have also been banned from reciting poetry; traditionally a deeply emotional means of communication.  Female voices are deemed instruments of vice and mustn’t be overheard singing or reading aloud in public.  According to UNESCO, Afghanistan is the only country in which secondary and higher education is strictly forbidden for females; they’re banned from learning beyond 12.  One of their last routes to further training was quietly cut off late last year when midwifery courses were halted.  Beauty salons have been shut down.  Gathering places for women are clouded with suspicion.

The lives of these women are controlled exclusively by men – mainly to their detriment.  Perhaps this is why Nachmanides in his commentary on this week’s sidra offers an additional, important insight.  Acknowledging that שנואה – unloved was the way Jacob felt towards her – he added that it may also reflect Leah’s own perception of herself being unwanted.  This is the reason, according to the Ramban, that God, on seeing Leah’s pain and humiliation, rewarded her with children to give her consolation and a sense of self-esteem.

The Ramban understood that her feelings were as important as Jacob’s.  Her right to self-determination, to a place of honour and respect in our society is equally significant.  To take all this away from a woman, where every decision is made for her by a man, would be to destroy her sense of self-worth – which was why, according to the Ramban, God blessed her with children to emphasise divine empathy for marginalized women.

The Baal HaTurim, ever attentive to textual nuance, noted that the word שנואה appears also in Deuteronomy 21:15, in the laws of a man with two wives—one loved and one hated. In that case, the Torah provided legal protection for the “unloved” wife’s children, forbidding the father from privileging the loved wife’s offspring.  The echo between Leah and that later law, establishes a moral precedent: God stands with the שנואה, ensuring her dignity and her children’s rights.

In our modern world, quite correctly, enormous efforts are made to support women in abusive relationships.  Weekly, if not daily, the media conveys to us dreadful stories of domestic violence, not to mention ‘honour killings’ which have risen steeply throughout the West within communities that do not share the Judeo-Christian code.  We should also compare our Biblical story with a particular type of arranged marriage, where the woman has no say whatsoever in whom she will marry.

So should we ask if Leah in an abusive marriage?  Classical sources do not frame Jacob’s behaviour in such terms.  There is no indication of physical or verbal abuse, nor neglect of material needs.  However, emotional deprivation – feeling unloved, unwanted, or compared unfavourably – is real and is painful.  The Torah’s acknowledgment of Leah’s sorrow, and God’s response to it, demonstrates that emotional pain within marriage is morally significant.  All of us bear some responsibility in these matters and when called upon should be ready to shoulder some responsibility.  Some can help marginalised women directly, others financially, and all of us to some extent can help influence and educate friends, family or work colleagues – but in whatever role we find ourselves, we should never forget how this one biblical story, by including one word שנואה chose not to ignore the emotional plight of one woman.

In an article on this very topic, Rabbi Sacks explored an additional, unusual phrase with regards to Leah.  He asks, what is the significance of the Torah’s first mention of Leah?

וְעֵינֵי לֵאָה רַכּוֹת וְרָחֵל הָיְתָה יְפַת-תֹּאַר וִיפַת מַרְאֶה

The eyes of Leah were weak (rakot), but Rachel was lovely in form, and beautiful.  (Genesis 29:17)

The word rakot could mean many things: beautiful (Targum, Rashbam), weak (Ibn Ezra), or sensitive (Netziv suggests that Leah was unable to go out with the flocks because the bright sunlight hurt her eyes).

But according to Rashi it implied Leah’s eyes were easily moved to tears.  According to Sacks, she was emotionally vulnerable; she had none of the resilience that might have carried her through her husband’s attachment to her younger sister; she was thin-skinned, sensitive, attuned to nuance and easily hurt.  She knew she was Jacob’s lesser love, and it caused her pain.

She was emotionally damaged and like so many others at different times of their lives, she felt utterly bereft, completely helpless, totally defenceless, and entirely exposed.  Few are invincible and therefore we should not be impervious to other people’s frailties and sensitivities, their sense of helplessness and their powerlessness.

In the midst of a sidra is a story and in the midst of the story is a moral teaching.  In the simplest of terms – do we see another’s plight, do we hear their cry for help and do we ever step forward to offer assistance.  Are we part of the problem, or part of the solution?

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi David Freedman