The Sara Litton z”l Monthly Emunah Essay for Cheshvan
Prayer of the Heart
Sometimes the heart speaks louder than the spoken words of prayer. Rachel Imenu, our beloved matriarch who passed away on the 11th of Cheshvan, taught us the power of silence.
Rachel provided her older sister Leah with the secret signs that Yaakov had given her, allowing her to marry Yaakov in her stead, undetected. Lavan’s ploy would likely not have succeeded without Rachel’s act of selfless compassion. The midrash commends her specifically for her silence (Bereishit Rabbah 71:5, 73:4) and this quiet fortitude was passed down to her descendants Binyamin, Shaul, and Esther (Talmud Megillah 13b).
Yet we also learn so much from what she does say. All her spoken words are related to her being a woman who wanted to become a mother. In fact, the very first words that we hear from Rachel are (Bereishit 30:1) “give me children or I shall die!” For Rachel, childlessness was akin to death. When leaving her father’s home to finally make the trip to Eretz Canaan, she hid his teraphim (idols) on the camel she sat upon. It is not surprising that the first plausible excuse as to why she couldn’t get up was related to her fertility as well, a topic that was constantly on her mind. She told her father “I am in a womanly way כִּי דֶרֶךְ נָשִׁים לִי,” (Bereishit 31:35)- now, as then it was a surety to keep men away.
A mother’s prayer is often silent. We don’t hear the words of Rachel’s prayer to become a mother - much like Hannah prays in the mishkan many generations later - with her lips moving and no words being heard (Shmuel I, 1:13). After she suggests (Bereishit 30:3-6) to have children vicariously through her maidservant Bilhah, Rachel names the child, acknowledging that Hashem had “heard her voice” (Bereishit 30:6). Even though we are left without the text, we have a definite sense of Rachel’s heart.
When God finally opened Rachel’s womb- the verse (Bereishit 30:22) refers to Him “hearing” her - but we are not told the details. The silent pleas, the unshed tears…The deepest prayer is the personal prayer of the inner heart. Rachel wanted more than anything to be a mother; it was the relationship which she sought with a passion, hoping for fertility treatments to assist her (Bereishit 30:14-16). She was so focused on motherhood that when she gave birth to her first son, Yosef, she was already longing for more children יֹסֵף ה’ לִי בֵּן אַחֵר (Bereishit 30:24).Yet, in the tragic story of her passing, she died in childbirth and never got to mother her second biological son, Binyamin.
The Rambam speaks of עבודה שבלב, worship of the heart (Sefer HaMitzvot, mitzvah 5). In a book of essays bearing the same title, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (page 20) presents the notion to discriminate between two aspects of prayer: the external, physical formal act of prayer, a reciting of a fixed text which serves as a medium to the dimension of the inner experience, namely, the worship of the heart, the genuine act of praying and the very essence of the mitzvah. He refers to this inner dimension of the heart as “a great passionate yearning” and one which is found “in a movement of the soul rather than performance of the lips…in an inner longing rather than a tangible performance, in silence rather than in loud speech (ibid page 21).”
Mothers are always praying for their children, even when they aren’t aware of doing it. So much of mothering is holding quiet space for the child, being a safe harbor to allow them to share their emotions, to help them feel seen, heard and soothed (see The Power of Showing Up, Siegel and Bryson). Sometimes the best way to do that is to be still. Fully present, without words. This quiet connecting of two hearts occurs well before the child is born. The mother’s silent prayers protect and build her home (see Mishna Avot 3:13, Mishlei 14:1). The emotional intelligence and sensitivity of a mother can and should certainly include conversation, but it is the cocoon of quiet which safeguards it. The deep yearning of a mother-to-be, is often in the silent tears, the longing to become a home, physically and emotionally, for another’s heart.
Rachel’s relentless crying after her death (Yirmiyahu 31) is more pronounced than it was when she was alive, but we are not surprised that she is crying as our mother. A mother of Israel. In her lifetime she said, “bring me children or I will die”. In her death she says, “bring back my children.”
Many of our children have been brought back from enemy hands.
But Rachel is still weeping, waiting for them all to come home.