The Emergence of Praise
Our parashah begins with Jacob profound, life-changing encounter with divinity: his dream of the ladder; his vision of God promising that his descendants will multiply and be blessed; and his vow that 渋f God remains with mehe Lord shall be my God� (Gen. 28:20-21). But our parashah includes another profound, life-changing moment of connecting to God攁 less famous one攅xperienced by Leah. After giving birth to three sons and naming each of them in accordance with aspects of her life experience, Leah gives birth again and says hapa檃m odeh et Adonai (Gen. 29:35)攖his time I will praise/thank/acknowledge the Lord攁nd names her son Judah (Yehudah, from odeh).
To guess at what Leah might mean, we must examine the larger context of her life. We encounter Leah as the older, unwanted sister with 渨eak eyes,� contrasted with Rachel beauty (Gen. 29:16-18). Jacob loves Rachel and serves her father Laban to earn her hand, only to be deceived at his wedding: Laban brings him Leah instead. They consummate the marriage and Jacob realizes only the next morning whom he has married. His displeasure is clear: 淲hat is this you have done to me?!� he says to Laban (Gen. 29:25). Jacob marries Rachel a week later and serves another seven years in exchange.
So Jacob gets what he wanted攂ut let us consider how this event must have affected Leah. Her new husband response to her would have been horrifying to any bride. 淲hat is this you have done to me?!� Mah zot asita li? As if marrying her is some kind of terrible punishment. These words harken back to two similarly distressing episodes in the book of Genesis. When Abram passes off his wife Sarai as his sister, Pharaoh takes her into his palace but then discovers the truth, saying to Abram, Mah zot asita li? (12:18) When Isaac does the same with Rebecca in Gerar, she escapes molestation only because the Philistine king Avimelekh realizes who she is攕aying to Isaac, Mah zot asita lanu, What have you done to us? (26:10) In all three stories, the women are silent, passed between men as objects, without a shred of agency. The narratives focus on the men攚hom they own, what they do with them, whom they think they are entitled to, whom they do and don檛 desire攚hile the wishes of the women they handle are deemed irrelevant.
With her lot in life defined by men攆irst her father, then her husband攊t seems that Leah comes to measure her self-worth in terms of what benefit Jacob is able to derive from her. This is evident in the few lines that the Torah records of her speech (11 total)攎ost of which are said to no one in particular, emphasizing her isolation. Many of her statements involve naming her children based on etymologies of pitiful desperation: 淣ow my husband will love me� (Gen. 29:32); 淭he Lord heard that I was unloved� (29:33); 淭his time my husband will become attached to me� (29:34); 淭his time my husband will exalt me� (30:20). Two other lines involve competition with Rachel for an evening of conjugal rights with Jacob (30:15-16). Almost everything we know of Leah involves her trying to gain her husband favor by bearing children. After he dismisses her so callously the morning after their wedding, she becomes single-mindedly focused on this futile goal. Finding a loving husband, or living happily on her own, are not options in her world. Her value and her choices are determined by the men who lay claim to her.
(An additional layer of female subjugation is on display with Leah and Rachel handmaidens, Zilpah and Bilhah攁 further indication of the inability of women to determine their own fates in this social context. Laban gives Zilpah and Bilhah to his daughters as property, and their new owners decide when to hand them over to act as surrogates with their husband. They have no voice, literally攏either of them utters one word that is recorded by the Torah. Leah and Rachel name the children that Zilpah and Bilhah bear. Although they are the mothers of four of the tribes, their names do not appear in the list of matriarchs.)
Even after the humiliation of her childbearing years is over, Leah is permanently consigned to second-class status in Jacob eyes. When he faces his brother Esau and fears retribution for having deceitfully stolen their father blessing, Jacob prepares his company for a possible attack攑utting Zilpah and Bilhah and their children first, then Leah and her children, then Rachel and her children last (Gen. 33:2). Each group will serve as a human shield for the group behind them if necessary. Leah lower status is clear. Not even her death is recorded by the Torah; we learn only after the fact that she was buried in the Cave of Makhpelah, in the family plot next Jacob (Gen. 49:29-31). One wonders if she even would have been accorded this honor had Rachel not died on the journey and been buried by the side of the road.
Leah serves as an archetype of the compromised status of women in biblical times. She is an object, unloved, de-prioritized, with a highly circumscribed role攂earing children, irrespective of whether her husband cares about her physical or emotional wellbeing攁nd even when she fulfills that role, she remains unvalued by those most important to her. Her lack of agency seems to pervade all aspects of her life. When her daughter Dinah becomes sexually involved with Shekhem (either through rape or consent, depending on the interpretation) and Leah three oldest sons brutally slaughter the men of Shekhem in revenge, the Torah records no reaction on Leah part, either to the alleged assault or to the murders (Gen. 34). It is as if she knows that there is no point to her saying anything, because it won檛 make a difference攐r, worse, that her subjugation runs so deep that her own feelings about these events don檛 even register in her own mind and heart.
In crucial ways, women have come a very long way since then. As we saw when a lewd recorded exchange surfaced during the recent presidential campaign, making light of the objectification of women cost a successful television personality his high-profile new job as co-host of NBC Today Show. And yet, bragging about sexual assault did not stop his interlocutor攖he one boasting in such aggressive yet cavalier terms攆rom winning the election a mere month later. After the recording came to light, writer Kelly Oxford invited women to share via Twitter their stories of sexual assault; more than a million women responded, and over 27 million people engaged in the social media movement spawned by the hashtag #notokay. For the many women who came out of the woodwork to share their stories, and for the countless others who chose to keep their stories secret, it felt like a critical consciousness-raising moment across the country攁 long-awaited recognition of what they had suffered. The election result, then, was experienced by many victims of sexual assault and sexual harassment as a distressing national stamp of approval on攐r at least an indifference to攚hat happened to them.
Queen Vashti of the Purim story is brought to mind: a woman who dares to take a stand against her husband demands on her body cannot be tolerated, cannot be allowed to serve as a role model for other women. The fact of male dominance and female subservience must be re-asserted. Vashti is replaced by Esther攚ho must pray, fast, and strategize just to get an audience with her husband on a life or death matter攁nd it is affirmed from the highest levels of government that the rights to women bodies belong to men.
Our foremother Leah reminds us, in our current historical moment, of how far we have yet to go. But in spite of everything, there is a redemptive moment in her story攁n indication that, even just briefly, something emerges as being more important to her than the Sisyphean project of trying to gain Jacob affection. This is the moment when she gives birth to her fourth child and names him Judah攁 name that has nothing to do with her husband but that is inspired, rather, by Leah own relationship to God. Hapa檃m odeh et Adonai攖his time I will thank the Lord. It is a name of gratitude, of spirituality攁 name that asserts the value of her son life as something more than a marital pawn; that declares the import of her own feelings in her life story; that acknowledges the presence of divine blessing.
We can檛 know why her fourth child evokes this unexpected psychological breakthrough for Leah. Rashi and others understand it as an acknowledgement that she has borne more than her 渟hare� of children (i.e. three), and so any child beyond that is a cause for gratitude. But the conception and birth of a child are never guaranteed, and every child is a cause for gratitude, so this explanation is unconvincing to many. Perhaps, after trying and failing three times to win Jacob love through procreation, she is suddenly able to realize that the birth of a child may have another, higher meaning. She is able to see Judah not for his potential utility vis-脿-vis her husband, but as a gift from God in and of himself攁nd as a cause for joy in her own life, independent of Jacob.
Admittedly, this transcendence is short-lived. After Judah birth, Bilhah begins to bear children as Rachel surrogate, and Leah descends quickly back into the fray of the childbearing competition, with Zilpah as her surrogate. Yet this moment of connecting to the deeper meaning of having a child, free from the weight of her husband indifference to her, seems to have a lasting effect攅ven beyond the span of Leah own life. When Jacob blesses his sons from his deathbed at the end of the book of Genesis, Judah blessing begins Yehudah, atah yodukha ahekha擩udah, your brothers will praise you (Gen. 49:8). The word yodukha is derived from the same root as odeh, the key word in Leah powerful statement, as is Judah name.
Moses, when blessing the tribe of Judah at the end of the Torah, says 淗ear, O Lord, the voice of Judah� (Deut. 33:7). A special relationship with God seems to have come into being with Leah utterance upon Judah birth: a place of blessing, value, and praise. King David攖raditionally considered to be the author of the Psalms, the Bible greatest collection of praises of God攚as of the tribe of Judah. And, according to the tradition, the Messiah will ultimately be as well.
The sense of transcendent blessing that accompanies Judah birth remains with him into adulthood and continues on with his descendants. The moment in which Leah emerges from her subjugation to acknowledge the presence of God in her life, even temporarily, changes the course of Jewish history.
In a time of fear for women and other disadvantaged populations globally, we pray for moments of spirituality to occur even in the midst of darkness and oppression. Just as God saw that Leah was unloved and came to her aid (Gen. 29:31), may God remember all those who are abandoned or oppressed by the social structures around them, and may they and their children ultimately find a life of agency and blessing.
The publication and distribution of the 果冻传媒 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (锄漧) and Harold Hassenfeld (锄漧).
