GEN1302 Was Leah hated? No. The previous sentence has just told us that she was loved. What then does the Torah mean by “hated”? It means, that is how Leah felt. Yes she was loved, but less than her sister.  Leah knew, and had known for seven years, that Jacob was passionately in love with her younger sister Rachel. The Torah says that he worked for her for seven years “but they seemed to him like a few days because he was so in love with her” Genesis 29:20 Leah was not hated. She was less loved. But someone in that situation cannot but feel rejected. The Torah forces us to hear Leah’s pain in the names she gives her children. Her first she calls Reuben, saying “it is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.” The second she calls Simeon, “Because the Lord heard that I am not loved.” The third she calls Levi, saying, “Now at last my husband will become attached to me” Genesis 29:32 – 35. There is sustained anguish in these words. We hear the same time later when Reuben, Leah’s firstborn, finds mandrakes in the field. Mandrakes were thought to have aphrodisiac properties, so he gives them to his mother hoping that this will drive his father to her. Rachel, who has been experiencing a different kind of pain, childlessness, seize the mandrakes and asks Leah for them. Leah then says: “Wasn’t it enough that you took away my husband? Will you take my son’s mandrakes too?” Genesis 30:15 The misery is palpable. Note what is happened. It began with love. It was about love throughout. Jacob loved Rachel. He loved her at first sight. In fact, there is no other love story quite like it in the Torah: Abraham and Sarah are already married by the time we first meet them; Isaac has his wife chosen for him by his father’s servant. He is more emotional than the other patriarchs; that is the problem. Love unites but it also divides. It leaves the unloved, even the less-loved, feeling rejected, abandoned, forsaken, alone.  That is why you cannot build a society, a community, or even a family on love alone. There must be justice-as-fairness also. SACKS 43-4

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GEN1303 [lit., “See the son”] – What is signified by the name “Reuven”?   Leah said: “See the difference between my son and the son [Esau] of my father –in-law [Isaac.]   For the son of my father-in-law, though he sold his birthright willingly, it is written about him Genesis 27:41: ‘And Esau hated Jacob,’ whereas my son, though Joseph forcibly took the birthright from him, as it is written I Chronicles 5:1: ‘But since he defiled his father’s bed, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph’ – still, he was not envious of him, as it is written Genesis 37:21: ‘And Reuven heard, and he rescued him [Joseph] from their hands’ Berachot 7b TEMIMAH-GEN 132

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GEN1304 When Leah, wife of the patriarch Jacob, had her fourth child, she named him “Yehuda,” which means “I am grateful.”   The name Jew derives from “Yehudi,” the people of “Yehuda,” revealing that gratitude is intrinsic to being Jewish.   This idea is confirmed in the prayer book, where so many of the prayers express gratitude to God for all we have.   … In our lives, the Torah asks us to recite blessings for everything, from the most mundane activities, like eating, to the most extraordinary, like seeking a rainbow or the ocean, all of which help us focus on and appreciate that which we might otherwise take for granted. … we need to be ready to give thanks to a fellow human being, even if he or she has not done anything special for us.   Why? Because the soul-trait of gratitude holds the key to opening the heart.   It is an elevated soul-trait, and a fine orientation to the inanimate, human divine dimensions of the world. The refined soul is a grateful soul.   MORINIS 66

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GEN1305 R. Yochanan said in the name of R. Shimon b. Yochai: “From the day that the Holy One Blessed be He created the universe, no one had ever thanked Him, until Leah arrived upon the scene and thanked Him, as it is written: ‘This time, I will thank the Lord’” Berachot 7b TEMIMAH-GEN 132

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GEN1306 R. Yehoshua b. Levi said: “If one has no children, it is as if he is dead, as it is written: ‘And if not, I am dead’” Nedarim 64b TEMIMAH-GEN 132

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GEN1307 The enemy of a happy marriage is the childless one. This may not always be due to the selfish indulgence of parents. When Abraham cried: “O Lord God, what wilt Thou give me, seeing I go hence childless?” Genesis 15:2 he echoed the yearning of every Jewish parent. Similarly, when Rachel pleased with Jacob [this verse], hers was the cri de coeur of every mother pining for the “fruit of her womb”. Father and other are the most tender words in the language; because of this, they describe God’s relationship to us. “As a father hath mercy on his children, so will I have mercy on you”, says God. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you” Isaiah 66:13 are the words used in a house of mourning.   It is the bearing of children that makes the home like a Temple of God and the table its altar. A family is the natural fulfillment of marriage. However devoted to each other husband and wife may be, there is a place in their natures which only children can fill. Children cement the structure of family life more solidly together.  LEHRMAN 248

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GEN1308 R. El’azar  haKappar said: Envy, inordinate desire, and [the search for] glory remove a man from the world.   Pirkei Avot IV:28   R. El’azar haKappar uses one short word: קנאה But what depths of irrational emotion and depraved thinking can lie behind it.  The commentary MaGenesis Avoth quotes from Mivhar P’ninim “a fine parable about envy and craving: Satan once met two humans, one an envious person, the other a man of strong desires.  Said he, ‘Let one of you ask for something, and it will be granted him; but the other will be given twice as much.’ The envious one would not take the initiative and ask for anything, for he begrudged his companion the double portion that other would receive. But the greedy man yearned for the double gift, and so he pressed the envious one to speak his request first.   At last this bitter man asked that one eye of his be gouged out—so that the greedy one would lose two!”   Out of this parable has come the Yiddish proverb, “Better for me [to lose] one eye, as long as the other [loses] two.”   True, such a gruesome thing may never occur literally; but are not many ready to act in analogous ways for the sake of spite born of envy? But this mishnah leads to another thought.   Our Sage clearly condemns these three qualities or attributes: envy, inordinate craving, and the quest for glory (or its possession).   And yet these are, apparently, aspects of human nature, that can rise to the surface in anyone and everyone. Then they must be considered part of the human being, and hence part of the Almighty’s own creation “in His image.” If the human being is a miniature replica of Divinity, how can we utterly condemn any part of his nature as absolute evil? … these three “vices” are not evil in themselves.   As they generally “operate” in people they are destructive forces. But they can also be used, channeled, to serve good purposes. … to be envious of another’s joy and serenity that he derives from sacred study, acts of faith in communion with the Divine, and simple good deeds, can only move you to emulate him. Such a powerful motivating emotion is good indeed.   In Scripture we read, “Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, and Rachel envied her sister.” [this verse] To the Sages it was inconceivable that this Matriarch of our people literally gave way to base emotion; and they rather interpreted: “she envied [Leah] her good deeds; said she, If my sister were not a virtuous person, she would not be bearing children.” Genesis Rabbah, lxxi 6; Aggadath B’reshith (li) lii; Midrash haGadol This was envy fit for a Matriarch of historical Israel.   SINAI2 190-1

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GEN1309 [T]he sages tell us that sometimes jealousy can be something very positive and useful.  If an individual recognizes jealous feelings and uses them to build himself up rather than direct the feeling towards the other person, this emotion can indeed be very positive. Pele Yo’etz on “Jealousy.”   Thus, if a person seeks the achievements of a friend and analyzes why that person achieved what he or she did, and then uses that achievement as motivation to better himself or herself, this jealousy is turned outward and becomes a motivator to help a person succeed more.   Therefore, intellectual jealousy among Rabbis is permitted in order to increase Jewish wisdom.   Baba Batra 21a.  The Midrash [Midrash Psalms 37a] explains that if not for this kind of jealousy – i.e. using others’ achievements to motivate to accomplish more – the world as we know it would fall apart. Fewer people would be motivated to build homes, marry, and achieve more in life.   Proverbs tells us not to envy sinners, but rather to be jealous of those that fear the Lord. Proverbs 23:17.   The commentaries explain that a person should not be jealous of any success of evildoers.   Rather, they should envy the accomplishments of the righteous and then try to emulate them.   When Rachel saw that her sister had given birth to many children while she remained barren, the Torah says that Rachel was jealous of her sister [this verse]. But she used that jealousy to improve her own deeds and eventually merit to having children.   Genesis Rabbah 71:6.   AMJV 167

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GEN1312 See [[GEN1222]] Genesis 26:14 envied BLOCH 111

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GEN1310 As many biblical stores make clear, envy often leads to family feuds, slander, cruelty, and even murder…. In the worst instance, Joseph’s brothers envy his status as their father Jacob’s favorite son.   In their resentment, they first decide to murder him Genesis 37:20, then relent and make do with selling him into slavery Genesis 37:27-28.  TELVOL1:300

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