At the end of his seven year period of
servitude, Yaakov said to Lavan, "My time is up. Now hand over my
bride and let me live with her (Bereishis 29:21).” The commentators
draw our attention to the crass language Yaakov employed in making
this demand. (The Hebrew expression reflects a level of
communication that is very coarse.) His choice of words leads us to
wonder whether this is the same innocent, pure Yaakov who left Eretz
Yisroel. We are led to conclude that some of Lavan's bad habits
rubbed off on Yaakov.
The commentators, however, explain that
Yaakov simply put on a convincing act. Seven years of dealing with
Lavan made him a street-smart righteous man – he had mastered the
art of manipulating to his favor the illusions of this physical
dimension without compromising his own spiritual attainments,
Yaakov's behavior was in keeping with the injunction, "With the
loyal, deal loyally; with the crafty man, craftily; with the pure,
in purity; and with the crooked, act with guile (Shmuel II
22:26-27). He realized that the only way to wrest Rachel from
Lavan's grip would be through speaking in his lingo. It took him
seven years to hone this skill to the point that Lavan could relate
to his words and be won over to his side.
Yaakov's cool vernacular may have
impressed Lavan and earned his respect, but not enough to compel
Lavan to deal honestly with him: "[Lavan] invited all the local
people and made a wedding feast. In the evening, he took his
daughter Leah and brought her to Yaakov, who consummated the
marriage with her" (Breishis 29:22-23). Lavan substituted his older
daughter Leah for Rachel.
Yaakov had become so familiar with the
wicked undulations of Lavan's warped mind that he actually took into
account the possibility of just such a scenario. As a precautionary
measure, he and Rachel devised a secret password with which to
identify one another and prevent Lavan from substituting Rachel with
a different woman. Nevertheless, Yaakov's contingency plan did not
make allowance for one important variable-Yaakov had not considered
Rachel's reaction to Lavan's plan. When she discovered that Leah
would stand in her place under the marriage canopy, Rachel felt
compelled to spare Leah the shame of being exposed as an impostor.
Not only did she not object, she even revealed to Leah the secret
password. Yaakov fell into the trap: "In the morning [Yaakov
discovered that] it was Leah. He said to Lavan, 'What have you done
to me? Didn't I work for you in exchange for Rachel? Why did you
cheat me?'"(ibid., 25).
At this point in the narrative, an
elemental question arises: Why was Yaakov's marriage to Leah
considered legally binding? Even a person who is not well versed in
legalese would intuitively grasp the concept of mekach ta'us (a
purchase based on misinformation). What would the law say about a
case in which a person enters a bookstore, asks to purchase an
encyclopedia, and is sold a cookbook instead? Would the sale be
legally binding? Obviously such a transaction would be invalid.
What if a man would marry woman A
thinking that she is woman B? Such an eventuality may be
far-fetched, but it is within the realm of possibility, especially
among those who follow the custom of covering the bride's face with
a heavy veil throughout the matrimonial ceremony. Would a marriage
that took place under such circumstances be valid? Clearly it would
not; according to Torah law, a couple married under such
circumstances may part without a divorce. (The Sages have ruled that
the couple should undergo a divorce in order to prevent people from
drawing the wrong conclusions from their parting. At the same time,
they acknowledge that such a marriage has no validity whatsoever.)
Why, then, was Yaakov's marriage to Leah binding? According to the
laws outlined above, he could simply have walked away from Leah and
married Rachel!
The issue is not as simple as that,
however, for our analogy is flawed. Yaakov's marriage to Leah cannot
be compared to the cut-and-dried case of a person who asked for an
encyclopedia and received a cookbook. What would the law demand if
our book lover had asked for an encyclopedia with a red binding and
received one with a blue binding? Would this qualify as a mekach
ta'us? This case is not as obvious as the previous one. The
bookseller will say in his own defense, "He asked for an
encyclopedia, and that's exactly what I gave him. What difference
does it make if the binding is red or blue?" The dissatisfied
customer, on the other hand, may retort, "Ridiculous! You know that
I specifically requested a red encyclopedia!"
The pivotal question here is whether the
color of the encyclopedia played a significant role in the
customer's purchase of it. If the customer can prove that the color
is very important to him—perhaps his entire book collection is bound
in red bindings—then the sale becomes null and void. If, however, he
cannot prove that the color is important, then it is assumed that
the customer mentioned the color of the binding for no other reason
than to indicate the type of encyclopedia he desired to purchase,
and the sale will be deemed legally valid. The fact that a given
transaction does not meet all the expectations of the parties
involved does not automatically render it invalid. The dissatisfied
party must demonstrate that the cause of his discontent was integral
to the exchange.
If we apply this principle to Yaakov's
marriage, the elements become a good deal less clear than we might
have thought originally. Yitzchak had hoped that Yaakov and Esav
would work in unison to disseminate the word of G-d throughout the
world. However, this plan did not work out, and Rivkah instructed
Yaakov to impersonate Esav and receive the blessings Yitzchak
intended to bestow on him.
An amazing thing happened when Yaakov
obeyed his mother and received Yiztchak's blessings of the
firstborn— he took possession of the essential component of Esav's
spirituality as well. Yaakov thus came to possess two distinctly
different personalities: his own and Esav's. Originally, Esav was "a
skilled hunter, a man of the field," while Yaakov was "a scholarly
man who remained within the tents (Bereishis 25:27).” However, by
the end of Yaakov's seven year period of servitude under Lavan, he
had emerged from his tents and was "in the field," taking care of
the flock and outmaneuvering his wily father-in-law. No longer was
his identity limited to that of "a scholarly man who remained within
the tents," for he was now also "a skilled hunter, a man of the
field." His new ability to grapple with scoundrels such as Lavan,
and to deal with the material world in general, is a reflection of
the "Esav" within him.
This understanding helps to explain the
surprisingly coarse language Yaakov employed when he demanded that
Rachel be given to him. His ability to affect this manner of speech
also emanated from the "Esav" within him.
As has been mentioned, Leah was
originally destined to form a union with Esav, while Rachel was to
be Yaakov's only soul mate. However, when Yaakov took possession of
the finer aspects of Esav's personality, these distinctions were
blurred. Rachel remained Yaakov's primary soul mate, but Leah now
belonged to that "stolen" aspect of Esav's personality that had been
integrated into Yaakov's soul. Through her own prophetic intuition,
Rachel discerned that Leah was now to play a seminal role in
Yaakov's life. For this reason she accepted the role of accomplice
in deceiving Yaakov, so that he would marry her sister. Leah, too,
sensed that she had somehow become Yaakov's soul mate; if this were
not the case, she would not have agreed to participate in her
father's wicked scheme. The Jewish matriarchs were consummately
righteous—they took part in deceiving Yaakov only for the sake of
fulfilling G-d's ultimate will.
When Yaakov discovered that he had
married Leah, initially he was outraged at being deceived. However,
somewhere deep inside himself, he sensed that Leah really did belong
with him. True, he had married her without deliberate intent, but he
saw the wisdom of Rachel's apparent treachery. His marriage to Leah
had not been a tragic mistake after all. She was not exactly what he
had hoped for, yet his intention had been to unite with his soul
mate, and that is exactly what he had achieved.
Shabbat Shalom!
[Adapted from Ner Uziel (Feldheim)
