Rabbi Sarah Wolf

December 5, 2008

A Team of Rivals- Vayetze 2008

“Two nations are in your womb… and the older shall serve the younger.”  Music to every younger sibling’s ears.  In last week’s parashah, we met Esau, the wild, red-haired older brother, and Jacob, the younger, mild homebody.  I’ve always felt a special kinship with Jacob, since I too am the younger of twins.  My sister also happens to be a redhead and could easily be described as wild.  She, of course, doesn’t appreciate the comparison to our biblical ancestors nearly as much as I do.  It is definitely better to be a younger sibling in the Bible: over and over again, the traditional hierarchy of the eldest son having the greatest status is turned upside down.  God decrees that Isaac, not Ishmael, is to inherit the land promised to Abraham.  In the next generation, Jacob usurps his brother Esau’s birthright and blessing, just as it was prophesied to their mother Rebekah before they were even born.  It is merit, not birth order, that determines who will be the one to carry on the covenant. 

This week in Parashat Vayetze, we read about the next phase of Jacob’s life after he has fled from his angry brother and come to find a wife from his mother’s family.  True to our pattern, Jacob falls in love with Rachel, the younger, prettier sister of Leah.  But in an ironic inversion of last week’s portion, when Jacob pretends to be Esau to gain his father’s blessing, Jacob is tricked into marrying Leah instead.  As their devious father Laban explains to Jacob, “It is not the practice in our place to marry off the younger before the older.”  In other words, you may have subverted the normal order of things by taking your brother’s birthright, Jacob, but that’s not how it’s done here.   

We might expect that God would intervene in this situation, singling out Rachel the way God chose Isaac over Ishmael and Jacob over Esau.  But instead, both Leah and Rachel, along with their maidservants, give birth to the sons who will become the twelve tribes of Israel .  Even more curious is that it is Leah, not Rachel, who is the mother of two of the most important sons, Judah, the ancestor of King David, and Levi, the ancestor of the priestly tribe.  The rabbis notice this unexpected honor, describing Leah in one midrash as “great in her gifts, receiving the priesthood for all time and royalty for all time.”  We no longer have the simple archetype of the spurned elder sibling and the favored younger sibling.  As each sister tries to outdo the other by bearing more and more sons, the total result is greater than the sum of its parts.  Together they produce the people Israel .  Future generations will invoke these women, as we read in the book of Ruth, “May [you] be like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built up the House of Israel!”

This new, more complicated genealogy teaches us an important lesson about who we are.  There is no longer a clear binary of winner and loser.  We are the children of the younger and the older, the favored and the fertile.  This time, the sibling rivalry has been creative rather than destructive.  Our black and white story has just been infused with shades of gray. 

There has been much talk in recent days about President-elect Obama’s new “team of rivals,” modeled after Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet of political opponents.  On Monday, Obama explained his choices for the national security team by saying, “I assembled this team because I’m a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions. I think that’s how the best decisions are made…  I’m going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House.”  Obama recognizes that he may not have all the answers, but by hearing a plurality of perspectives, he can get the most complete picture of reality and decide on the best possible course of action.  Like Leah and Rachel, rivals who nevertheless shared the same ultimate goal of perpetuating the line of Jacob, Obama’s team is made up of people whose very disagreements, we hope, will have the creative power to solve the problems this country faces. 

We can follow the lead that both President-elect Obama and our tradition give us in a variety of spheres.  During these past months of impassioned political debate, we discovered that here at Beth Am, some opinions were not welcomed by all and some members did not feel comfortable voicing their points of view.  This is unfortunate, not only because we want everyone in the congregation to feel welcome and valued.  It’s also a shame because even though disagreements can sometimes be unpleasant, they can be beneficial, resulting in a synergy that enriches our whole community. 

Likewise, in our families and our workplaces, having a diversity of opinion raises the quality of the decisions we make and the work that we do.  Many of us have experienced how a team can produce wonderfully creative ideas that no single person could come up with alone.  By encountering others who have different perspectives and opinions, our horizons can be broadened and our minds can be opened to new possibilities. 

Abraham Lincoln taught us that a house divided against itself cannot stand.  That holds as true for the House of Israel as it does for America .  Without the contributions of both Leah and Rachel, we wouldn’t be here today.  There will always be rivalries, always be disagreements, but Leah and Rachel teach us that Beit Am, the house of our people, is a big tent, and it requires all of us to fill it.