This picture of Rachel's Tomb compliments
of Avrohom Dovid
http://www.ThirdTemple.com
RACHEL: THE HOLINESS OF THIS WORLD (Part One)
NOTE: This article was adapted from a taped lecture by Rebbetzin Heller. It is geared towards the intermediate reader.
Each of us has more ancestors than any of us can count, but we know almost nothing about most of them, and have no real relationship with them. On the other hand, each and every one of us has an eternal, unconditional relationship with the Patriarchs and Matriarchs of the Jewish People, even though they lived some 3500 years ago.
The Patriarchs and Matriarchs are the spiritual gene pool from which everything we are is taken. Therefore, their qualities are always going to be part of us. Indeed this is the source of our redeem-ability. Regardless of who we are and the choices we make, we each have a spark of something that responds to life the way that the Patriarchs and Matriarchs did. That spark, whether or not we are conscious of it, gives us the potential to be redeemed.
In this essay, we are going to deal with the third of the Matriarchs, Rachel. To understand Rachel, however, we have to briefly encounter all the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, and see how she fits into the total configuration.
We begin with Avraham and Sarah. Avraham brought into the world an awareness of Hashem's unity. He came to this through becoming aware of the constancy of Hashem's giving. Avraham focused on Hashem's continual giving, and he responded by being emulative of Hashem by becoming a consummate giver. According to Kabbalah, Avraham's essential quality was hesed, which means giving forth to another.
Avraham was complimented by Sarah, whose ability to refine and to reject everything that was wrong or external prevented her husband's need to see goodness from becoming superficial. Thus, we usually see Sarah in contrast to Avraham. And in fact, the Torah almost never mentions Sarah's name except when she disagrees with Avraham, which might give us the erroneous impression of marital disharmony. In truth, the Torah assumes that each couple of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs was one soul and acted in unison except when the Torah shows them diverging. Sarah's words and actions continually expressed tzniut, which means internality. Her position was: "Don't be fooled by the externalities," whether it was in terms of Hagar's and Ishmael's behavior or her proclivity to remain inside the tent when visitors came.
Yitzhak began where Avraham left off. Yitzhak was able to say "no" just as firmly as Avraham was able to say "yes." Yitzhak's quality, which Kabbalistically is called gevura, means he was powerful enough to overcome anything that would act as an obstacle between himself and Hashem, even his own sense of self, even his own life.
Yitzhak's mate was Rivka, who, like her predecessor Sarah, also complimented and refined her husband's quality. The most observable quality in Rivka was her kindness and compassion, as exemplified by her readiness to give water to Eliazer and his ten thirsty camels. Rivka's hesed led her to being able to find what was redeemable, what was positive, in events and life situations in which Yitzhak by his nature would not have been able to see the good.
YAAKOV AND RACHEL
Yitzhak was succeeded by Yaakov, who began his life where Yitzhak left off. Yaakov was able to say both "yes" and "no" simultaneously. Kabbalistically, this quality is called emmet, truth. Emmet is the ability to see the whole picture. When a person looks at the world honestly, he or she is not going to see a place that's exclusively good or exclusively bad. If people look at the world and say cheerfully, "I believe that for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows," they're in fantasyland. And if they see the world as entirely black, they're also seeing only part of the picture. What Yaakov saw was that the world has concealment within it for us to overcome, and goodness in it for us to bring forth. Yaakov was able to see both parts simultaneously.
Yaakov had two wives. This is not coincidental. Yaakov's ability to develop truth within himself also had two aspects. That's why he was initially called Yaakov, while later his name was changed to Yisrael, which reflected a different aspect of his identity.
The first place that Yaakov sought to see Hashem was in the world itself. Only when the immanent aspect was clear to him was he able and willing to see Hashem's transcendent aspect. His first love, Rachel, was very much a person of this world, as we shall see. Her beauty, her presence, her actions, were of this world. Leah, his other wife, whom the Torah describes as gazing beyond, was very much a person of the hidden world.
The spiritual quality that defines Rachel is the term Shechina, which means "that which dwells." Hashem's presence in the world is referred to as the Shechina. Whenever we experience Hashem through the physical world, that experience is called "closeness to the Shechina." For example, we experienced the Shechina by lighting Shabbos candles, because we actually had to use candles and matches. We have to use the world to move us beyond the world.
The Jewish people embody this quality. We're in the world. The mitzvot that we do almost always engage our physical bodies and specific components of the physical world. In fact, the Vilna Gaon says that one of the primary differences between Judaism and gentile religions is our ability to integrate the physical world into religious practice. In virtually all gentile religions, the world and the body itself are viewed as the enemy; the more people vanquish the enemy, the more successful they are spiritually.
The goal of Judaism is to elevate the physical world at the same time that we elevate ourselves. That's why we have so many hands-on mitzvot: what we eat, what we use or don't use on Shabbat, how we conduct business, even marital relations.
The spiritual path of the gentile religions is much more ethereal. Even the seven mitzvot bnei Noah, the seven mitzvot that Hashem gave to all the children of Noah (i.e. all humankind) lack this positive engagement with the world. Six of the seven mitzvot are negative: Do not murder, do not steal, do not commit adultery, etc. They protect those who observe them from being destroyed by the world. Even their one positive mitzvah, establishing courts of law, is a means of fighting evil. Thus, gentiles are enjoined to refrain from what will corrupt them, while Jews are given mitzvot which will build them.
The power that we Jews have within us to use the world well comes from Rachel. This quality is Kabbalistically called malchut, which means kingship. Malchut doesn't mean, "I myself am sovereign." Rather, malchut means, "I will make Hashem sovereign wherever I am, in whatever situation I find myself."
WEEPING AT THE WELL
Yaakov meets Rachel when he's fleeing from the murderous rage of his brother Esau. He arrives in the area where his uncle Lavan lives, and, at the well, sees Lavan's daughter Rachel. As a prophet, he immediately knows that she is his mate, the woman who could take his sense of truth and give it application to the world. He kisses her, and weeps.
Why did Yaakov weep? Rashi brings the well-known Midrash which says that he wept because he knew that they would not be buried together.
Imagine this scene. You're on your first date with a certain man, let's say in the lobby of a five-star hotel. The waiter comes with herbal tea and some delicious petit-fours. Suddenly the guy bursts into tears. You say, "What's wrong?"
He replies, "I intuitively know that we won't be buried together."
Do you know what I would say at that moment? "You're right. We won't be buried together because this is the last time we're going to see each other."
So what was going on with Yaakov at the well? This is a profound idea: Yaakov, who could see the whole picture, understood that Rachel was part of his life, but not the whole of his life. And he mourned that.
Rachel died in childbirth near Beit Lehem, and Yaakov buried her "on the way," by the caravan route. Although Hebron, the site of the Cave of Machpelah, the burial place of the other Patriarchs and Matriarchs, was not so far from where Rachel died, Yaakov knew prophetically that he must not take her to Hebron, but must bury her where she died. This must have been devastating for him, even though he knew it must happen from the moment they met.
Why wasn't Rachel buried with Yaakov? I don't mean: Which circumstances brought about the historical fact that she wasn't buried with Yaakov? I mean: What is it about Rachel that made it spiritually impossible for her to be buried with Yaakov?
Rachel had to be buried in a place that was accessible, open, part of the world as it is. By her very nature, she couldn't be buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs, which is really a cave within a cave. Rachel could not be buried in the inner recesses of a cave. That would be contrary to her essence.
THE SUPER-RATIONAL
The Midrash tells us that Hashem, on His side, wanted Rachel to be buried "on the way," because in later generations when the Jews would be exiled from Israel and on their way to Babylonia, they would stop at this crossroads and weep. Why was it crucial that Rachel, rather than any of the other Matriarchs, be buried on the route of the exiles to Babylon?
The Gemara says that when the Jews of Judea were led off into exile, each one of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs wept and came before Hashem, pleading their case. Hashem answered them all rationally: The Jews deserve exile, and they need it. Basically, there was nothing more to say.
The last one to speak was Rachel. Hashem also answered her rationally: They deserve exile. What did Rachel respond? "You're right, but deal with them not according to justice, but according to compassion." She brought the level of her plea beyond rationality, to super-rationality.
People often confuse the super-rational with the irrational. People revert to irrationality when they have an emotional agenda and therefore do not want to know the facts which might interfere with their emotional agenda. An example of that would be the parents who find drug-related equipment in their child's room and say, "Chemistry . . . He's always loved chemistry."
Rachel was super-rational. On the night which was supposed to be her wedding night, she and Yaakov had anticipated that her father Lavan would try to trick Yaakov and substitute her sister Leah for Rachel, so they devised certain hand signs as a precaution. If the heavily-veiled bride did not make the designated signs, Yaakov would know she was Leah, not Rachel, and refuse to proceed with the wedding.
At the last minute, Lavan indeed replaced Rachel with Leah. Rachel was so moved with compassion for the humiliation it would cause her sister if Yaakov refused to go ahead with the wedding that she disclosed the signs to Leah. By so doing, she virtually gave away the love of her life to her sister (for Rachel had no way of knowing that her father would allow Yaakov to take Rachel as a second wife later). This was neither rational nor fair. Because Rachel had attained this state of super-rational compassion, she, alone among all the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, could evoke from Hashem that same super-rational compassion. Hashem therefore promised Rachel that in her merit "the children will return to their borders."
This whole episode begs the question: If Rachel didn't want to use signs to distinguish between her and Leah because she felt that the humiliation to Leah would be too great, why did she agree to use the signs in the first place?
When Rachel made the signs, she was confined to the world of the rational: "Lavan will try to deceive you. Secret signs could prevent this from happening." It was very sensible. When she was actually in the midst of the experience, however, she realized that Leah would never recover from this public humiliation. So she said to her "rational self" what she would later say to Hashem: "You are right. I should keep the signs secret. So what? There's something beyond rationality."
THE SHEEP
The name "Rachel" means "sheep." Now, among the Jews, certain animal names have always been popular. Aryeh means lion. Zev means wolf. But to name a child "sheep" seems impalatable because, especially in our day, passivity has such terrible press.
There are two kinds of passivity: passivity of cowardice and passivity of choice. What's passivity of cowardice? "I won't act because I'm afraid to act." Historically that attitude has always been disastrous. Passivity of choice means: "I won't act because I've decided that in this situation the best thing to do is refrain from action."
Let's delve deeper into the concept of a sheep. In many of the sacrificial offerings, a sheep was used. In fact, in the very first collective sacrificial offering that we made as a people, the korban pesach, the animal Hashem instructed us to use was a sheep. Hashem was teaching us to idealize the passivity of choice: "I have no ego. I'll go where you want me to go, Hashem. I have no separate will. My will is your will." That passivity of choice is holy, courageous, and extremely difficult.
The Gemara tells us she was called Rachel because a sheep can be silent when it's sheared. What does this mean? Historically, we've often had to be silent in the face of persecution. Sometimes this was the passivity of cowardice, but most often it was the passivity of choice. For example, during the Crusades, the Jews of many of the communities in the Rhineland were forced to assemble in their synagogue and given the choice to accept the Cross or die. Rare accounts of the few who escaped tell of the thunderous silence while the priests waited in vain for any Jews to accept their offer.
These two aspects of Rachel - her ability to sanctify this world and her ability to "be silent when sheared" - may seem to contradict each other. The lesson our mother Rachel teaches us is that the first requires as much humility as the second, and the second requires as much courage as the first.
END OF PART ONE
Click here for Part Two
