Shabbat Parashat Vayeitzei - 5785

Shabbat Parashat Vayeitzei - 5785

Rabbi Hal Miller

  God saw that Leah was hated, so He opened her womb, but Rachel

  remained barren. [Bereishit 29:31]

What does 'hated' mean here, how does opening her womb address it, and why does

Rachel get mentioned in the same verse? Could Yaakov our father actually have hated

or despised Leah?

Onkelos says that Yaakov loved Rachel more than Leah, but he loved Leah too, and most

of the other commentators say something similar. Sforno says that upon first meeting her,

Yaakov recognized that Leah was barren, so he was dissatisfied with his wife's inability to

produce children. Malbim explains that Yaakov prayed for Rachel but not for Leah, had he

loved Leah, God would not have "opened her womb" so as to inspire Yaakov to pray for her

as well.

Nachshoni brings proof of the relative levels of Yaakov's love for the two women, "One

cannot explain the word simply as hatred because the Torah said earlier, 'And he also loved

Rachel more than Leah.' Thus we see that he loved Leah but loved Rachel more."

But there are other factors involved in our verse. Bereishit Rabbah [71:2] notes that the verse

says that Rachel was barren, the word being akarah, but that R'Yitzchak reads it as ikar,

meaning the most important, thus the fact that Leah was now able to bear children did not

change her status of secondary wife.

Ramban discusses the deceit of Lavan where he brought Leah to Yaakov instead of Rachel,

and suggests that Leah was complicit in that she should have hinted to Rachel or Yaakov at

some point during the night. Her failure was cause for Yaakov's hatred. Once God opened her

womb, Yaakov realized that he could not send away the mother of his children and that she

was actually righteous.

Why was Leah complicit in that deceit? She knew that she had been destined to marry Eisav,

knew of his detestable deeds and did not want to fall into his hands. Bava Batra [123a] says

"God saw that the deeds of Eisav were detested by her and He therefore opened her womb."

In this interpretation, the word hatred in our verse refers to either Eisav's deeds or to Leah's

view of her life should she fall to him. Her righteousness, demonstrated by her willingness to

marry Yaakov in deceit to avoid Eisav, spurred God to open her womb in order to have

righteous children with Yaakov.