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| Sculpture of Leah by Michelangelo |
Before Generation Z, before the Millennials, before Generation X, there were the Baby Boomers. My generation and the generation of many of you… The “Baby Boomers” were also dubbed “The Me Generation” because of our perceived unhealthy focus on fulfilling our own needs. The American historian and social critic Christopher Lasch called the youth movement of my day “The Culture of Narcissism”. It was characterized, he wrote, by a fear of commitment to both relationships and religious institutions, a celebration of youth, a dread of ageing, and a worship of fame and celebrity. The “Me Generation”, according to Lasch and other commentators, had turned away from the social reform movements of the 1960s to focus inward, on the gratification of the self, the self-fulfillment of the individual. Yet, the self-improvement movements of the 1970’s like EST, Bioenergetics, Gestalt therapy and others , left people feeling as empty and dissatisfied as ever. Perhaps Mick Jagger best summed up the frustration of the youth movement of the sixties and seventies when he wrote in 1979, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”.
That would be a fitting epitaph to the life of Leah, about whom we read in this week’s parasha. You know the story. Jacob flees to Haran where he resides in the home of his uncle, Lavan. Lavan has two daughters. Rachel, the younger daughter is described as “beautiful” and “comely”. Leah the older daughter is described as having “weak eyes”. We don’t know exactly what that phrase means. I believe it is a euphemism for some kind of unbecoming feature. Jacob falls in love with Rachel and works seven years for her father Lavan in order to marry her. On the wedding night, Lavan substitutes Leah for Rachel. In the morning, when Jacob discovers the ruse, he confronts Lavan. Lavan explains that it is the custom of the place to marry off the older daughter before the younger. The following week Jacob marries his beloved Rachel.
Now Jacob has two wives – Rachel, who he always wanted to marry, and Leah, who he was tricked into marrying. The Torah tells us that Jacob loved Rachel but “despised” Leah. That doesn’t seem quite fair. Leah had no role in deceiving Jacob into the betrothal. She was as much a victim of her father, Lavan, as Jacob. Nevertheless, it appears that Jacob held this against her and hated her for it. Yet, the one thing Leah wanted from the time of the marriage was for Jacob to love her. One way of cementing a relationship is to have children together. Leah conceived and gave birth to Jacob’s first son. In Biblical times, every man hoped his wife give him a son, and Leah desired more than anything in the world that the birth of this son would change Jacob’s feelings about her. She expressed this desire by naming the son Reuven, which means, “Now my husband will love me.” But Jacob did not love Leah any more after she gave birth to a son than he had before. Leah had a second son, and named him Shimon, which means, “G-d heard that I am despised so G-d gave me another son.” The second son did not get Jacob to love Leah any more than the first! They say that “three’s a charm” and Leah gave Jacob yet another son. She called him “Levi” saying, “Surely my husband will become attached to me now.”
It didn’t happen.
The names that Leah gives her three sons reflect the anguish she felt over not getting what she wanted – the love and affection of her husband. The names of her sons up to that time reveal Leah’s ongoing concern on what she lacks in her life. In naming her fourth son “Yehudah”, we see a change in Leah’s outlook. For “Yehudah” means, “This time I will praise G-d”.
No, you can’t always get what you want: But, as Mick Jagger concludes, “If you try sometimes/ you just might find/ you get what you need”. For the first time we see Leah focusing on the blessings that she herself has in life. Leah has grown from being obsessed with what she lacks to being genuinely grateful for what she has. Leah searches and searches, and ultimately finds what she needs.
And so may we all.
Shabbat Shalom
