(Summary by Channie Koplowitz SteinP
The Torah is not a novel. Dialogue is included not to move the story along but to teach us major lessons.
Such is the case with the dialogue between Rochel and Yaakov concerning Rochel’s childlessness. “Give me children,” she seems to demand, “For if not, I will surely die.” Yaakov’s response appears harsh as he angrily replies, “Am I instead of God Who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?” At this response, Rochel gives her maidservant Bilhah to Yaakov as a wife.
While our commentators understand Rochel’s deep anguish and interpret her words in various ways, all take issue with Yaakov’s response. How could he reply so callously to a woman in clear distress? They all fault Yaakov for various elements of his response. But the agreement between the commentators ends there, for each interprets the dialogue in a way that sheds light on how we should respond to our own challenges and on how we should respond to the distress of others.
Rabbi Belsky in Einei Yisroel interprets this dialogue in keeping with the great devout character of both Rochel and Yaakov. Certainly Rochel understood that Yaakov did not have the power to give her children. Certainly she must also have known that with the deep love Yaakov had for her he was already praying for her, as she must have been praying for herself. Rochel was telling Yaakov to add urgency to his prayer because she was so distraught that she felt her life was meaningless and ended without children.
Yaakov understood Rochel’s request not as an ultimatum to him but as an ultimatum to God. By his response he was teaching her that one does not give God an ultimatum. Yes, prayer is powerful, but we do not see the big picture and cannot understand why we are suffering. Even though prayer and good deeds are efficacious, we may still not get Hashem to accede to our wishes, for we cannot know how this suffering fits as a piece of the great puzzle. Ultimately, we must accept the will of God without presenting ultimatums and without wanting to die as a result.
Rabbi Belsky concedes that the lesson Yaakov was trying to teach was correct. However, the problem was in the harsh tone and in the timing of the lesson. When witnessing an outburst from the depths of a grieving soul, one offers empathy, not lessons. The lesson can wait for a calmer time. Our Sages say that Yaakov was punished for this insensitivity: Because of this, says God, your sons will bow down to her son, Joseph.
Daas Schrage asks what should be an obvious question. How does the punishment fit the “crime”? And he answers that with his response to Rochel, Yaakov planted a tiny seed of divisiveness that would later grow to separate those children God had not denied him from the son she was yet to bear.
Yaakov’s words to Rochel were completely justified albeit they were insensitive. In a similar way, explains Vayovinu Bamikrah, when the brothers sold Joseph, they were also justified. In fact, they had convened a trial court to adjudicate in the matter of Joseph. They also did nothing wrong. What they regretted and repented later was their insensitivity to the cries of their brother as he pleaded before them, just as now Yaakov did not realize how insensitive he was being to Rochel.
When Joseph reveals himself to them without rancor, he uses the same phrase his father had used – “Am I instead of God?” With this response, Joseph repairs his father’s lapse.
Further, Rochel may have felt an additional pain at the thought that perhaps her not bearing children to Yaakov was her own fault, that perhaps she had erred when she gave her sister the secret signs that she and Yaakov had developed to ensure that it was Rochel under the chupah. The Alshich presents this perception as the possible reason Rochel asked Yaakov to pray for her. If she had sinned against Yaakov by allowing him to be deceived, his prayers would prove that he had forgiven her, and then perhaps Hashem would grant her children from Yaakov. But Yaakov tells her this is an erroneous assumption.
Again, we must emphasize that Yaakov did not mean to be insensitive. His response that he had children while she did not was meant to urge her to further prayer. As Rav Yonah of Gerondi explains, Yaakov was urging Rochel to greater prayer, for the challenges Hashem set for her were meant to raise her neshama to achieve its potential. As a sail has no value on its own until it is attached to a boat and pushed by the wind, so does a neshama achieve its potential only by being attached to a body and meeting its challenges. Rochel needed to begin crying for children so that she could become the Rochel Imenu who would be sensitive to the cries of all the children of Bnei Yisroel.
Rochel needed to begin crying for children so that she could become the Rochel Imenu who would be sensitive to the cries of all the children of Bnei Yisroel.
Within this framework, Yaakov was also urging Rochel to action, that prayer alone is insufficient, for a miracle needs a merit to activate it. Rochel took her cue from the actions of Yaakov’s grandmother, Sarah. She too had been childless, but she did more than pray. Sarah became proactive and gave her maidservant Hagar to Avraham as a wife, hoping first to raise that child as her own but also perhaps to achieve the merit of bearing her own biological child to Avraham. Although the circumstances were different, as Avraham himself was also childless whereas Yaakov was not, Rochel hoped that by giving her maidservant to Yaakov, she too would merit bearing a child.
Rabbi Parness in Lev Tahor asks a logical follow up question. Hadn’t Rochel already given Yaakov another wife when she gave Leah to Yaakov by teaching her the signs? Yet, according to Rabbi Parness, Rochel still retained some haughtiness toward her sister and did not accord her the full respect Yaakov’s wife deserved. Rochel may not have realized it, but Leah nevertheless felt ”hated”, less loved, as she articulates when Rochel asks for the dudaim, the mandrake roots Reuven picked.
When Rochel now gave her maidservant Bilhah to Yaakov, she gave her to him without reservation, and she learned how to treat her sister as well as a full wife of Yaakov. By changing her own natural character, explains Rabbi Gamliel Rabinowitz in Tiv HaTorah, Rochel was now able to achieve a change in Nature itself, and she, the woman who was born without a womb, would now miraculously be able to bear a child.
Prayer is important, but we must also do our own hishtadlut, be proactive. This was also part of Yaakov’s message. According to the Sforno, Rochel did her hishtadlut in two ways. First she gave Yaakov her maidservant and then she acquired the dudaim which were supposed to possess fertility qualities. As the Sifsei Chaim cites the Ramchal, hishradlut does not contradict prayer. Rather, they go hand in hand.
Of course one continues with prayer, but one wants to create an ever closer bond with Hakodosh Boruch Hu by doing chessed and emulating Him with our actions, thereby elevating our souls. Nevertheless, we must still remember that the decision to grant our request or not is only Hashem’s, and we must ultimately accept whatever happens.
But we can also learn from this dialogue how we should interact with others who are suffering. The Shaarei Derech tells us to cry along with them, for our thunderous cries will release the soothing rains from Heaven. Rav Dessler writes that we are unaware of how powerful our tears are. Even our irrelevant tears can be elevated to the level of prayer. If you tend to cry when peeling onions, dedicate those tears to your ill or suffering friend. Our challenge, says the Rav Wolbe, is not to sympathize but to empathize, to carry the burden of pain together with our friend.
Yaakov was indeed praying for Rochel. His words were correct. Her prayers as the actual one in need of yeshuah would be more powerful than his. However, because his message lacked the tears, the timing of his words was wrong. He recognized her suffering, but he was not fully feeling her suffering.
If Yaakov Avinu could be somewhat remiss in sensitivity, how much more aware must we train ourselves to feel the pain of others and to join in their tears and in their prayers. May Hashem grant yeshuos to klal Yisroel.