Chasidut su Genesi 30:44

And Yaakov sent messengers ahead of him (Gen. 32:4) - this is explained in the way of hint [remez]. Behold the work of the tzadik is to be clinging to the Blessed and Elevated One, to cling his soul under the Throne of Glory, the place of his root, and the tzadik purifies and cleanses himself from all external desires - and then his cleansed body too clings to the Blessed One. And this is the expression "tefilah" [prayer], that is, clinging, like "the wrestlings [naftulei] of Elokim etc" (Gen. 30:8) [meaning] that the tzadik clings to the Blessed One through the clear and lucid prayers from/in pure thoughts. And this is "and he sent", an expression of accompanying [levayah] as in "Pharaoh commanded men and they accompanied him" (Gen. 12:20), and the Targum: "they led him" [v'a'l'viy'u] (Targum Jonathan on Genesis 12:20), meaning that the tzadik accompanies the messengers that go before him, that is, the words that come out of the mouth of the tzadik create angels from themselves, and the same happens with his clean body which helps his angels to go upward, "ahead of him to Esav his brother"- meaning, through this he causes Esac to become his brother. "Towards the land of Seir" - meaning, that he becomes his brother on below, this is the hint of "field of Edom", the angel-deputy of Edom also becomes his brother.

According to Jewish mystics, Joseph was the paradigm of virtue and righteousness, the personification of tzaddik yesod olam, a man of such holiness that his merit sustains the entire world. Joseph was also Jacob’s favorite son, and they shared a special relationship.³²See Gen. 30:25 and Rashi’s comment on that verse; Gen. 37:2 and the respective Rashi; also Gen. 37:11, 37:35, 45:27-28. When Jacob lay dying he called Joseph and requested burial in the Land of Israel. Although Joseph promised that he would ensure his father’s interment in Israel (Gen. 47:30), Jacob was not satisfied and demanded that an oath be sworn in God’s name: “And he [Jacob] said ‘Swear to me’ and he [Joseph] swore to him, and Israel [another name for Jacob] bowed back toward the head of the bed” (Gen. 47:31).

‎Genesis 23,1. “The years of Sarah’s life were one hundred years, ‎etc.;” I believe, G’d willing, that I have understood the reason ‎why Sarah is the only woman in the Bible of whose age at the ‎time of her death we have been told. The Talmud Nedarim ‎‎64, in referring to Rachel’s outburst (Genesis 30,1) that unless her ‎husband Yaakov would give her children she considered herself as ‎‎“dead,” is quoted by Rashi on that verse saying that seeing ‎that a woman’s primary task in life is to mother children, any ‎woman who has not given birth to a live child is considered as ‎dead. We also know from Shabbat 156, that when G’d took ‎Avraham outside (Genesis 15,5) that He showed him that ‎according to the constellation of the stars, Sarai was not slated to ‎give birth to children. This ‎מזל‎, astrological prognosis of her life, ‎could be changed only due to merits she would acquire during the ‎years to come. She did indeed acquire such merits, as our sages ‎conclude from a comment they made in Shir Hashirim ‎Rabbah, 2,32 where the phenomenon of all the matriarchs ‎originally being barren is discussed. Among a variety of answers ‎offered there, one is that G’d was desirous of listening to their ‎praying to Him to be granted children, just as He is desirous of ‎listening to the prayers of the righteous, generally. In other ‎words, Sarah, (after a name change) both due to her merits and ‎her supplications, was “lifted” out of the limitations predicted for ‎her by a zodiac sign she had been born under, so that she could ‎conceive. When the Torah refers to her “life” as being 127 years ‎long, this means nothing less than that she had spent all these ‎years accumulating merits for the good deeds she performed. ‎Expressed somewhat differently, the Torah states that it was ‎Sarah, who with her good deeds gave “life” to her years.‎

as ‎alluded to by the word ‎בתוכם‎, “in their midst.” Pinchas had been ‎instrumental in drawing down blessings from G’d for his people. ‎His act had been one that deserved to have far reaching effects, so ‎that his descents too qualified for the priesthood for all times. If ‎the prophet Elijah had described himself as being descended from ‎Rachel, what he meant was that in addition to being a descendant ‎of Leah, seeing that she was the mother of Levi the founding ‎father of the tribe to which all priests belonged, the soul of Rachel ‎joined that of Pinchas seeing that it is written of Rachel (Genesis ‎‎30,1) that she was jealous, (zealous in a positive sense), of her ‎sister, i.e. this zealousness was one of the major attributes of ‎Rachel, such as when she stole her father’s idols to prevent him ‎from worshipping them.
According to our author, in the kabbalistic scheme of the ten ‎‎sefirot, Rachel represents the dimension of malchut, ‎the dimension closest to the material world we live; this ‎emanation is also associated (among other things) with ‎‎vengeance.

Another way of understanding the verse of ‎וירא אלוקים את בני ‏ישראל וידע אלוקים‎, helps us explain a verse in Chabakuk 3,2 ‎ה' פעלך ‏קרב שנים חייהו בקרב שנם תודיע ברוגז רחם תזכור‎, “Oh Lord I have ‎learned of Your renown; I am awed O Lord by Your deeds. Renew ‎them in these years. O make them known in these years! Though ‎angry, may You remember compassion.” The verse may be best ‎understood by means of a parable. A poor man requests that a ‎wealthy man grant his request as he knows that it is within the ‎rich man’s power to grant same, and that once the rich man ‎seriously considers the sorry state the poor man is in he will not ‎be able to deny his cry for assistance. The Jewish people when in ‎pain and in need, turn to G’d, as they are well aware that He has ‎the power to help them. Because they are aware of this, it is their ‎duty to keep this factor in mind and to turn to G’d in prayer. ‎Moreover, the very word ‎תפלה‎, “usually translated as “prayer,” is ‎a word which expresses ‎התחברות‎, a close association, joining ‎together. We know this from Genesis 3,8 when Rachel called her ‎second son by proxy (Bilhah) ‎נפתלי‎, indicating that she felt that ‎G’d had come closer to her, and that she was comparable to her ‎sister now. Following the Jewish people’s first recorded prayer to ‎G’d during over 80 years of enslavement, G’d immediately ‎responded by coming closer to His chosen people and going about ‎appointing their redeemer, Moses. The word ‎וידע אלוקים‎ was ‎chosen therefore to remind us of this term used by the Torah ‎when Adam for the first time had marital relations with Chavah, ‎or as the Torah says elsewhere, “man and wife are to become one ‎flesh.” (Genesis 3,24) [The author quotes Genesis 4,25, but ‎my quote, I think is even more appropriate. Ed.] The ‎words ‎בקרב שנים‎ in the verse from Chabakuk above, mean that ‎‎“pain” is something that exists only in our world, a world that is ‎limited in space and time. In regions that are not influenced by ‎time, i.e. celestial regions, there is no such thing as pain, ‎suffering, etc.; G’d now being in a relationship of ‎וידע‎, i.e. ‎establishing close contact with His people, their pain and ‎suffering will come to an end as a result of their coming closer to ‎these regions of the universe.‎

Genesis 34,1. “Dinah, Leah’s daughter left her house ‎unaccompanied;” Bereshit Rabbah 79,1comments on ‎this: “like mother like daughter;” this is a reference to the ‎forwardness of Leah when she informed her husband Yaakov that ‎it was her turn to host him, on account of the mandrakes of her ‎son Reuven, etc. (Genesis 30,16). According to Rashi ‎quoting B’rachot 60, the fetus from which Dinah was born ‎was originally meant to produce a male child. Leah’s prayer was ‎intended to prevent her sister from being put to shame, as if the ‎fetus in Leah’s womb would be born as a male, Rachel would wind ‎up with fewer sons than even Yaakov’s hand maids. As a result of ‎her prayer Dinah, i.e. a female, was born‎ ‎ ‎בת לאה‎, these words, that on the face of it do not tell us ‎anything we did not know, allude to this hidden aspect of Leah’s ‎pregnancy on this occasion. It was her prayer that resulted in ‎Dinah being born as a female. When the Torah continues with: ‎וירא אותה שכם וגו'‏‎, ”Shechem ,son of Chamor saw her, etc;” ‎this is an allusion to the fact that if Leah had not prayed for this ‎child to be a daughter, the whole incident of the rape would have ‎been prevented as Shechem would not have had an opportunity ‎to set eyes on a daughter of Yaakov.‎

An alternate interpretation of this somewhat obscurely ‎worded verse above. When concentrating on the section ‎ויאהב גם ‏את רחל מלאה‎, “he also loved Rachel better than Leah;” we must ‎examine the meaning of the word: ‎גם‎ in this verse. We are used to ‎find this word when comparisons are being made to something ‎that preceded it; here, however, there is no question that ‎Yaakov’s love for Rachel had preceded his love for Leah as we ‎know already from Genesis 29,18.
‎The wording of our verse throws light on Rashi’s ‎explanation on Genesis 30,22 “G’d remembered Rachel;” ‎according to Rashi, G’d remembered not only that Rachel had ‎given her sister Leah the secret code that was designed to alert ‎Yaakov in the event Lavan were to trick him, but also that Rachel ‎was most unhappy at the prospect that once her sister had ‎become the wife of Yaakov it would now be her lot to become the ‎wife of Esau, a terrible prospect, especially as she feared that ‎Yaakov would divorce her seeing that she had not born any ‎children for him. Looking at this commentary, it appears that ‎according to Rashi, G’d had two separate reasons for ‎‎“remembering” Rachel at that time. Actually, this is not so; how ‎can one imagine that Yaakov would divorce Rachel because she ‎had no children, when he himself had already been blessed with ‎numerous children both from Leah and from the servant maids?‎
According to Bereshit Rabbah 70,16 the reason why the ‎Torah in 29,17 reveals that Leah had “weak” eyes, is to alert us to ‎her having wept excessively at the prospect of her having to ‎become the wife of a wicked person, her cousin Esau. At least, this ‎is what she had heard about her father’s plans for her, something ‎that was common gossip in Charan. At the time when Rachel had ‎handed Leah the secret code between Yaakov and her, it was not ‎clear yet that Yaakov would also marry Rachel so that she need ‎not have worried. It was therefore an even greater act of self ‎sacrifice on the part of Rachel to have revealed the secret code to ‎her sister at the time, as not only would she most likely lose the ‎chance to become Yaakov’s wife, but would wind up with a ‎husband who was a wicked person. Rashi meant that G’d ‎now remembered not only that Rachel had acted altruistically at ‎the time when she revealed the code to her sister, but she had in ‎addition had reason to believe that she had thereby condemned ‎herself to becoming the wife of Esau. When Yaakov, after also ‎marrying Rachel, instead of harbouring anger at her for revealing ‎their secret, became aware of her true motives, he also loved her ‎for her piety. In other words, his original love for Rachel is ‎considered by the Torah as a given; Yaakov in the meantime had ‎found out to what length of self-sacrifice Rachel had gone in ‎order to save her sister Leah embarrassment. He therefore loved ‎her doubly. If we translate the word ‎מלאה‎, “on account of Leah,” ‎instead of as “more than Leah,” the verse does not present any ‎problems at all. ‎

Genesis 30,14. “Reuven went and found mandrakes in ‎the field, etc.;” ‎ותאמר אלי תבא כי שכר שכרתיך בדודאי בני‎, ‎‎“Leah said to her husband come to me for I have hired you in ‎exchange for my son’s mandrakes.” After reporting this ‎strange sounding incident, the Torah continues with: ‎וישמע ‏אלוקים אל לאה‎, “G’d listened to Leah’s prayer” (and gave her ‎another son) as a result of which Leah exclaimed: ‎נתן אלוקים ‏שכרי אשר נתתי שפחתי לאישי ותקרא שמו יששכר‎, “G’d has given ‎me a reward for having given my maid-servant to my ‎husband; she called her son Issachar.”‎
It is somewhat puzzling why Leah called this son of hers ‎Issachar, if she saw it as a reward not for having slept with ‎Yaakov as a reward for allowing Reuven to give Rachel the ‎mandrakes, but for having given her maid-servant to Yaakov ‎‎(previously).‎
When we look at Rashi’s comment on this verse, (17) he ‎attributes G’d’s listening to Leah’s prayer as reward for her having ‎demonstrated by giving her maid-servant to Yaakov that she ‎wanted him to father more founding fathers of the Jewish people, ‎even if she was not going to be the mother of them. She had ‎proven thereby that when she “hired” Yaakov in exchange for ‎the mandrakes, she had not been motivated by the desire to ‎satisfy her libido.‎
Our author wonders how we can be sure of this as even ‎assuming that Leah, who at any rate had to share her husband ‎with other women, something that no doubt caused her much ‎heartache, would have been fully justified in wanting more of her ‎husband’s company than she appeared to enjoy. Our author ‎answers that while it is true that ordinary women whose ‎husbands also have another wife do suffer such heartache and ‎jealousy, so that the name for such a wife who has to share her ‎husband is always called ‎צרה‎, “rival wife,” if Leah had entertained ‎the type of motivation common to other “rival wives,” she most ‎certainly would not have seen in her bearing Issachar a “reward” ‎from G’d, but as fulfillment of her personal desire. This is why ‎Rashi draws our attention to this psychological insight which ‎many a reader might have overlooked otherwise.