Weekend Torah Teaching: Issac and Rebekah (Genesis 23:1-24:67)
Dennis Prager analyzes Genesis 23 and 24, interpreting Sarah's age of 127 as symbolic and detailing Abraham's public purchase of the Cave of Machpelah for 400 shekels to secure land claims. He examines the servant's prayer for a sign involving kindness, leading to Rebekah's selection after she waters ten camels, highlighting her merit over lineage. Prager further explores a rabbi's view that Rebekah inferred the servant's inability to water alone and notes the servant's strategic deception regarding Laban to ensure divine approval. Ultimately, the episode concludes that character is best judged by how one treats strangers, with Rebekah serving as a maternal comfort for Isaac following Sarah's death. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Sarah's Intense 127 Years00:11:10
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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Hear thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs.
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Verse by verse.
That's the way I promise it.
And I figured, well, look, I'll come in and I'll apologize to the clerks.
I'll say, look, it is my obligation to read to you all the stories.
There's not much to be learned, and we'll move on.
And the more I studied, the more I fell in love with chapter 24, which is the longest chapter, I believe, in the Torah, and certainly in Genesis.
23 has its own interesting parts, but it is more narrative.
We're up to 23, and you'll see what I mean when we get to 24.
Okay, I'll read with some speed, but you don't have to look in.
Just listening, I hope, is enough.
Since I'm not delineating every sentence in this case so carefully, I'm not going to do Fraser's translation like I often do to give you the literal, but rather read from one so as to make up for time.
All right, verse 123, chapter 23, Genesis.
Sarah's lifetime, the span of Sarah's life, came to 127 years.
Already, there's something interesting to note here.
Number one, that 127 means something.
All the years in Genesis mean something.
What they generally don't mean is precision.
127 is not how long she lived.
We don't know how long she lived.
Maybe she did live that long, but that's not the point being conveyed here.
The point being conveyed here is the number 127.
In the Torah, 120 is the ideal lifespan.
That's Moses' lifespan.
And seven is a sacred number from the seven days of creation through many uses of seven in the Torah.
So she is so special that she lived the ideal lifetime plus the sacred number seven.
That's what people understood when they read this a long time ago.
Remember, we have our mindset, but a reader 2,500 years ago, or more likely a listener, would have said, Wow, 127, this is a great person.
They immediately would have said that where it was, but we.
In the science and mathematical age of thinking, well, she lived 127.
Had she died a year earlier, she would have lived 126.
That's how we think.
That's not how they thought hearing this number.
It had real significance at the number 40, as I pointed out with the 40 days of the flood.
40 in the Torah means one thing: a lot.
That's all it means.
It never means 40.
40 years in the desert, 40, again, the nights on Sinai, 40.
Of the flood, it means a lot.
127 is a great number.
Listen to this interesting point, which I read in one place, and unless you know it to be false, I assume it's true.
She's the only woman in the Torah whose age is given.
That's how special she is.
And by the way, I keep bringing this out as a subtext as I teach you Genesis.
And I need to do it again.
You know, I do not read anything with any special eye that I'm aware of to look for something.
For example, I don't read the Bible with feminist eyes.
I try to read them with my eyes, period.
And what I read, I read.
So it's not coming from someone looking for affirmative action for the women of the Bible.
When I tell you that you cannot read Genesis honestly and hold that the matriarchs were less significant than the patriarchs.
It's, in fact, I'm touched as I tell this to you, I'm overcome by the power of this because it's so not the way in which I recall learning it at first, where they were accessories to the men.
They're not.
Whoever wrote this from God to people was not a sexist.
Was absolute, was emphatic about the importance.
Abraham has a lot of kids.
None of them matter except Sarah's.
Sarah is the conduit.
It is more precise to say that Sarah is our matriarch almost than Abraham is our patriarch if you're Jewish.
Because there are theoretically many people who are not Jewish who can say, I mean, I don't mean not only not Jewish, just People of all different nations that came from the children of the concubines of Abraham, because it was not only Hagar, you'll see this Keturah also, who could say, Oh, we come from Abraham, we come from Abraham, we come from Abraham, we come from Abraham.
But from a Jewish standpoint, only Sarah matters.
And it's very important.
And the text tells you, I mean, she's up there with those who get their ages recounted, as it were.
So she's profoundly significant.
And when it comes to Isaac and Rebecca, you learn far more about Rebecca than you ever learn about Isaac.
She's so much more impressive.
It's actually sad for Isaac how much more impressive Rebecca is.
And God, I'm not only not leading into it, there's no other way to read the text, as you will see later when you see Rebecca and Isaac.
So it begins with the life of Sarah.
By the way, there's a very interesting redundancy, and I won't be taking all the sentences quite as long, and we'll never get to 24, which has 62 sentences in it.
But a very interesting thing the literal Hebrew, which I'm only going to do sporadically here, is, and the lives of Sarah, or the life of Sarah, Was or were 127 years.
These were the years of the life of Sarah.
That's the way the Hebrew is.
Honorably redundant.
Why have at the end, these were the years of the life of Sarah?
It is a way of saying her years were really intense years.
This is a woman who lived 127 years, and it should only of all of us be said that you have led such intense and such fulfilling years.
This woman mattered.
Her years mattered.
23.2.
Sarah died in Kiryat Arba, which is now Hebron in the land of Canaan, which is important to later history from a Jewish standpoint because Canaan becomes Israel.
And Abraham proceeded to mourn for Sarah and to bewail her.
Okay, the Hebrew, the English translation is awful here because it doesn't tell you how important this sentence is.
This is where we know.
That Abraham and Sarah split up after the binding of Isaac.
It tells you where she died, and if you please look, or just take my word for it if you don't want to look, in.
In chapter 22, verse 19, in other words, verse 19 of the previous chapter, you will find very important words after the binding of Isaac.
Abraham settled in Beersheba.
Settled.
That's where he lived.
It could have said, and he went to Beersheba, and then he would know nothing.
It's very clear what happened.
He settled in Beersheba, and she died in Kiryat Arba, in Hebron.
They were apart.
And the Hebrew is not proceeded.
I'm so unhappy that that's the way they translate it.
It's he came.
Vayavo, very basic Hebrew word.
He came.
In other words, he wasn't there when she died.
He came to mourn her.
He traveled from where he was living.
Their marriage ceased to be after the would be sacrifice.
Now, why doesn't, you might ask, why doesn't the Torah say that?
And they split up.
That's not the way it would have said it.
It's too painful.
It tells it to you with no ambiguity whatsoever.
It just doesn't spell it out because it's too painful.
It's something for you to pick up from the text, that this is what happened, and it makes perfect sense, and it was a terrible price.
But he loved her, and he came not only to mourn her, it says, it's very touching, but to cry for her.
He could have said he went to mourn for her, and he would have never thought another word, but he went to cry for her.
The power of the text here about humans is so overwhelming.
You know, if you think of the Bible and you think perhaps of great principles and great religiosity and about God and big themes, but the touching human elements, and especially so in Genesis, I don't think are duplicated often in literature that's only about individuals and their suffering.
So that's how we know that they split up and she died there.
All right, number three, that Abraham rose from beside his dead and spoke to the Hittites, people who apparently were living there.
And now we have, till the end of chapter 23, the entire chapter is now devoted to Abraham's buying the cave of Machpelah to bury his wife and to have him buried.
And it's a very important thing to the text.
They wouldn't spend so much time on where he and she and his followers, and by the way, the three patriarchs, and three of the matriarchs except Rachel are buried there.
Abraham Buys the Cave00:12:41
So it's considered of great importance because it's in Canaan.
It's in what will be Israel.
That is why this is of such great importance to him, and it's of great importance to the Torah to show you this.
That's why the whole deal is actually enunciated, how he went about getting it, because it's not easy to have done it, as you'll see.
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Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
Okay, 23, verse 3.
All right, so Abraham rose from beside the dead and spoke to the Hittite, saying, I'm a resident alien among you.
Sell me a burial site among you that I may remove my dead for burial.
Okay, that's what this is about.
He already acknowledges at the outset, look, I'm a resident alien.
In other words, I'm not fully an alien, where I would have no claims, but I'm not one of you either.
I'm a resident alien.
He had, as it were, a green card.
Okay?
And the Hittites replied to Abraham saying to him, Hear us, my Lord.
It's very interesting.
You will find a fascinating thing.
They treat him with incredible respect, and he constantly humbles himself.
Which the rabbis had a great deal to say about, and I will read you about it after you see what happens.
Hear us, my Lord, you are the elect of God among us.
Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places.
Again, by the way, it's important to note, and this is a constant throughout the Torah non Jews are never depicted as bad unless they're bad.
I mean, when the Egyptians enslaved Jews, they're pictured as bad.
The Canaanites, with their awful practices, are pictured as bad.
But non Jews are often.
Shown as more beautiful, as more ethical than the Jews are.
It's this very objectivity that I told you time and again, which is one of the reasons to get to your original question, that I believe there is such veracity in the text.
If it was just people, the odds are it would have been to glorify themselves.
Bury your dead in the choicest of our burial places.
None of us would withhold this burial place from you for burying your dead.
Thereupon Abraham bowed low.
Again, notice the humbling of himself.
First, he says, I'm just a resident alien.
Secondly, he says, it says he bowed low to the people of the land.
People of the land in Hebrew, am Haaretz, usually means to the simple folk.
So it goes even further.
He bowed low to the simple folk of the land, ame Haaretz, the Hittites, and he said to them, If it is your wish that I remove my dead for burial, you must agree to intercede for me with Ephraim, the son of Zohar.
Let him sell me.
Notice it's sell me.
There is one of the reasons for the detail of this chapter is to establish the legitimacy of Jewish claims in Canaan.
That whatever they have there was bought.
And that's the reason there was no gift asked for or anything else.
I will pay full price.
And it goes on to tell you how much.
It's a very important thing.
You have to remember who is reading this and under what conditions.
Jews settling in the land of Israel.
Let him sell me the cave of Machpelah, which he owns, which is at the edge of his land.
Let him sell to me at the full price.
You see?
No chicanery.
I paid every penny for it, whatever he can do.
All I asked you was to intercede and go to Ephraim for a burial site in your midst.
Ephraim was present among the Hittites.
So Ephraim the Hittite answered Abraham in the hearing of the Hittites.
And again, to show you, it was not done privately, it was done publicly.
You see, this is one of the reasons for the detail.
It was done publicly.
There was no Ephraim and Abraham doing it privately.
And then you could say later, oh, he probably tricked Ephraim.
In the presence of the hearing of Hittites, he did it.
All who went through the gate of his house saying, No, my Lord, hear me.
I give you the field, he wants to give it to him.
You see?
He wants to give it as a gift.
And I give you the cave that is in it.
I give it to you in the presence of my people.
Bury your dead.
Then Abraham bowed low.
You see the themes here when I pointed out to you?
He bowed low before the people of the land and spoke to Ephraim in the hearing of the people.
You see?
Why the repetition?
It's to make the point.
He won't do it.
He won't take a gift.
He won't do it privately.
He'll pay the full price.
He humbled himself.
Everything to show how it was done.
In other words, so you can never say, well, he lorded over them.
He came in and he showed how wealthy he was.
Where he dominated them, where he said, Oh, in the name of God, you have to because God speaks to me.
Nothing like that.
A business deal, utterly openly.
If only you would hear me out, let me pay the price of the land.
He's begging to pay, and Ephraim wants to give it to him for free.
Accept it from me that I may bury my dead there.
And Ephraim replied to Abraham, saying to him, My Lord, do hear me, a piece of land worth 400 shekels of silver.
What is that between you and me?
Go and bury your dead.
Obviously, a wealthy guy.
Abraham accepted Ephraim's terms and he took it.
He paid out.
So, in other words, he said, Okay, I will pay that.
Abraham paid out to Ephraim the money that he had named in the hearing of the Hittites.
Once again, in the hearing of the Hittites.
You see?
It's.
Really hits you over the head.
400 shekels of silver at the going merchant's rate.
See that?
Plus, you think that he gave them a cheap price.
You get what's happening here, which if you didn't realize what was going on, you'd think these were all superfluous details.
It was at the price, it was done publicly.
He had asked them, he had never taken the gift.
It was no intimidation.
So, Ephraim's land in Mat Pela near Mamre, the field with its cave and all the trees anywhere within the confines of that field, also to tell you.
This is exactly what he got, not just the cave, but the area around it with the trees.
Passed to Abraham as his possession in the presence of the Hittites.
It's almost funny, isn't it?
How many times it's in the presence of the Hittites.
He could imagine Abraham saying, Don't go away, don't go, don't go.
Stay here, I want you to hear the rest of his deal.
Of all who went to the gate of his town, and then Abraham buried his wife Sarah in the cave of the field of Mount Belah, facing Mamre, now Ebron, telling you where it is, in the land of Canaan.
Thus, in case you missed it, thus the field with its cave passed from the Hittites to Abraham as a burial site.
So that was very clear what was intended here.
Let me read to you a midrash about Abraham on this.
The rabbis considered Abraham's conduct very praiseworthy.
Here is one from the midrash.
Come and see the humility of Abraham our father.
The Holy One, blessed be he, that's God, promised to give him and his seed the land forever.
Yet now he could only find a burial ground by paying a high price, and yet he did not question the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, and he did not complain.
After all, you'd think Abraham is about to die and needs a burial place.
You would think, you'd say, God, I don't have a centimeter of land here.
What's going on here?
But no, you see, and there's a great lesson here, not just the one that this Midrash, this rabbinic legend or philosophical tale of the Jewish one, wants to teach.
It's this even if God makes promises to you, you have to act.
Even when God makes promises, and in most of our lives, God doesn't make promises.
But even if God directly promises you something, you cannot sit back and let God do it.
How much more so the rest of us for whom we don't have direct promises?
You cannot say God will do it.
You must do everything.
And that's the lesson that at least has been inferred from this particular chapter.
Moreover, Abraham addressed the inhabitants of the land with humility.
As it is said, I am a stranger and a sojourner with you.
Okay, that's not what God actually said.
It's what they said God said in this midrash.
Now I'll read you what Cloud says on this particular thing.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
People are searching for truth in a culture that feels disconnected from it.
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Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
Why is the Bible so concerned with the acquisition of a gravesite?
A close reading of the text reveals a profound anxiety behind Abraham's measured phrases.
After all, he has no assurance that the Hittites will agree to his request.
He might have to bury his wife somewhere by the roadside in no man's land, just as Jacob was later forced to do.
At this moment of his life, after the fearful trial at Moriah, you know, the binding of Isaac, and bereaved of his beloved wife, Abraham seeks desperately for something physical, some place, even a gravesite to call his own.
Yet again his hope is tried, and he must ask others, strangers, to do what he cannot do for himself and what God can only promise, to obtain a mere piece of earth.
The few moments of bargaining represent, therefore, another trial for the patriarch.
In the glimpse of this man bowing low before the Hittites, we see the friend of God torn once more between agony and hope.
Further, the burial place is a token.
God promised Abraham and his descendants the land.
Machpelah then is a visible sign of the future, a burial place for the dead.
Is the only piece of land that Abraham, a non resident, can hope to acquire.
It represents a token title to the promised land and a symbol of possession when the people are far from the land, whether in Egyptian slavery or European exiles.
All right, that's chapter 23.
Now, chapter 24.
Abraham was now old, advanced in years, and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things.
In other words, this is really, in effect, the deathbed request of Abraham that we're about to encounter.
And Abraham said to the senior servant of his household, this senior servant is never named, by the way, and has to be accounted one of the minor heroes of the Bible.
The Deathbed Oath00:02:27
When you see what a job this Head servant did, you will really say, boy, the help they had in those days.
And Abraham said to the senior servant of his household who had charge of all that he owned, Put your hand under my thigh, and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, but will go to the land of my birth and get a wife for my son Isaac.
First of all, put your hand under my thigh.
How do you make a deal with someone today?
You shake the person's hand.
So before you regard this as bizarre, remember that we also consummate deals with the touching of an organ of the other person.
In our case, it's the hand.
All right, let's shake on that.
Correct?
Then, in those days, you would take an oath, putting your hand under the other, presumably man-man, under the other man's thigh.
Which probably meant either hold his testicles or hold his penis.
It meant one of them, and by the way, we actually have a proof of this, which I picked up once and I haven't seen mentioned again, but I am convinced that it was accurate.
We get the word testimony from testicle.
That's how old it is.
Put your hands on my testes, on my organ.
I mean, that really makes it serious.
That's definitely more than a handshake.
And that really is what puts your hand under my thigh.
And we notice it's also other Middle Eastern texts that we have that actually use similar terminology.
At any rate, that's what was going on here.
So this is a big oath put your hand under my thigh.
And why does he make this sermon swear?
And this is again like a deathbed swear.
It's really as solemn as you can get with a hand under the thigh and a deathbed.
This is major stuff from Abraham.
Finding a Wife in Canaan00:10:05
That you won't let my son marry a girl from the Canaanites.
Now, why not?
You might say, well, he wants him to marry a Jew.
But there were no Jews.
So that question is totally gone.
Well, you might say he wanted him to marry a monotheist.
Well, who were monotheists in those days?
The issue has nothing to do with race and ethnicity or even have to do with monotheism.
It has to do, I believe, because I went through a lot of sources on this.
Overwhelmingly, with one simple fact, the Torah has deep contempt for the Canaanites.
It considers them to be the lowest of the low with their child sacrifice, with their horrible rituals, with their sacred prostitution, and so on.
It considers them the lowest of the low.
And if you look in Leviticus 18 3, you will see that the Jews are ordered.
You may not act the way the Egyptians act.
And you may not act in the way the Canaanites act.
All the nations are not mentioned.
It doesn't say don't act like the Philistines, don't act like the Gilgamesh or the Babylonians.
It says don't act like the Egyptians, who enslaved you so they'll really get home, or the Canaanites.
They are a miserable group.
And that is the reason that I am convinced that Abraham says this, because it doesn't say he ends up, Isaac, this is where you could get shripped.
Isaac does end up marrying a relative.
But that is not what Abraham had asked his servant to do.
Remember that.
You can get tripped up by the tradition on this.
Yes, it is true, Isaac ends up marrying Abraham's brother's grandchild, granddaughter.
But that is not whom the servant was told to have marry Isaac.
He was told simply go back to my homeland, find somebody, get out of Canaan.
Go back there, have him then take her back to here.
That's what you must do, as you will see.
So that's why this is a little involved.
Okay, that is the oath that he takes.
By the way, remember the way it is, because he will repeat the whole story later, the servant, and drop some terms.
So remember, if you can, what he is taking an oath to do.
Go to the land of my birth, get a wife for my son, Isaac.
By the way, you might notice, I might just mention it already, Isaac doesn't play a single role in the choosing of his wife.
Even this, and he's already, we know because it's after Sarah's death, he's already in his 40s.
And yet he doesn't do anything about it.
Even this is done solely by his father.
Just as he was taken for the sacrifice by his father, no parallel intended, he is taken to the altar by his father.
I consider marriage much, much better than sacrifice.
I just want to make that clear.
For some people, they are equivalent, unfortunately.
But that's not the parallel I intended.
Do me a favor, mark it down.
Please don't forget it.
I'm holding plenty of time, but I know I'll lose my track.
Thank you.
Verse 5.
And the servant said to him, What if the woman does not consent to follow me to this land?
All right, did you get it?
Remember, he has to go find a wife in the homeland, but bring her back to Canaan.
Right?
So the servant has a very good question.
What if the woman doesn't consent to follow me to this land?
Shall I then take your son back to the land from which he came?
In other words, in effect, leave him there?
Okay.
So notice, by the way, one interesting thing here, which again, a lot of readings made me aware of.
He didn't say, what if the woman doesn't consent to marry Isaac?
That much they didn't have freedom with men in those days.
But she could have the freedom not to move.
For a woman to choose her husband is unheard of in most of the world to this day, in some ways, and certainly throughout history.
But what she did have a right to say was, I don't want to leave my family.
So that's the question he asks.
Not what if she says no, but what if she doesn't want to move?
Okay.
So Abraham answers him, verse 6, on no account, I mean, this is really, the Hebrew is very direct, must you take my son back there?
The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father's house and from my native land, who promised me on oath, saying, I will give this land to your offspring.
He will send his angel before you, and you will get a wife for my son from there.
And if the woman doesn't consent to follow you, you shall then be clear of this oath to me, but do not take my son back there.
In other words, don't come back for Isaac and move him there.
In other words, Canaan has to be where he stays.
Because Israel is what promised to us, this is where we stay.
If you don't get a wife for him, you don't get a wife for him.
You did what you could do, it didn't work.
Fine, but Isaac doesn't move.
Clear?
Okay.
That is what he demands of him.
By the way, I have not seen commentaries on this, but no angel showed up.
It's funny that Abraham says to the servant, an angel will help you do this whole task.
But no angel actually does show up later.
I've not seen commentary on it, and I find that of interest.
I guess Abraham was so used to angels showing up and helping out in these difficult things.
I mean, that's probably what happens.
Listen, at first comes the worst, just like with me, we'll have an angel show up.
You know, when you get used to angels, that's the problem with expectations in life, you know?
A little trouble, get an angel.
But anyway, as I say, no angel does show up.
Now, okay, we continue.
Nine.
So the servant put his hand under the thigh of his master Abraham and swore to him as bidden.
Okay?
Then the servant, ten, then the servant took ten of his master's camels.
This will come in important in the story.
Ten camels and set out, taking with him all the bounty of his master.
I think that that did more than an angel.
If you want to get a wife, any camels is a better idea.
That's really what comes out here because this wealth definitely overwhelms Laban, who has the final say with regard to Rebekah later, as we'll see.
I mean, if he took all of Abraham's bounty, I mean, he gave 400 shekels of silver to the Hittite like nothing, like pocket chain.
He was clearly wealthy, Abraham, and that helps in getting a woman.
There's just no way around it.
He spent a whole weekend on relationships and pointed out that this is a fact of life and it is an unfortunate fact, but it is matched by other unfortunate facts in the other direction, which you will see as well.
But he goes, he wants to make a very good impression that if you want to get somebody, a daughter, to marry your son, it helps to bring 10 camels and all of your bounty.
So he takes all the bounty of his messenger to Aram Naharayan to the city of Nathor.
He made the camels kneel down by the well outside the city.
This servant is a genius.
This servant is so impressive because remember, everything that the servant does, he came up with.
None of this was told.
All Abraham told him was what to do.
And Abraham didn't even know what the work said.
If it fails, come back.
Just don't take Isaac back to my homeland.
Right?
He doesn't give him a word on how to go about getting a wife for Isaac.
The servant has to create the whole scenario on his own, and as you will see, it's brilliant, and I found to be one of the most touching chapters in the Bible on what he does to figure out who is the right person to be the daughter-in-law of Abraham, to be a matriarch of this succession of Abraham and his religion.
What does he do?
He made the camels, oh, verse 11, kneel down by the well outside the city.
At evening time, the time when women come out to draw water.
And he figures, he comes to a city, where is the best place to find single women?
By the well.
That's exactly what it says.
Where else am I going to find them?
When you have single bars and the odds aren't even going to show up there anyway, it's not the type of person he'd want for Isaac.
He went to the well where you feed the animals, where the women come and they feed their families.
Come out to draw water.
Waiting at the Well00:15:58
I tell you, if somebody would make a film of this, it would be so overwhelming and so beautiful because the details are so rich.
12.
And he said, O Lord, God of my master Abraham, grant me good fortune this day and deal graciously with my master Abraham.
Here I stand by the spring as the daughters of the townsmen come out to draw water.
Let the maiden to whom I say, Please lower your jar that I may drink, and who replies, Drink, and I will also water your cattle, let her be the one whom you have decreed for your servant Isaac.
Thereby shall I know that you have dealt graciously with my master.
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Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
This is his plan.
It's really, it is.
It's overwhelming in its beauty, and it's touching on many grounds.
First of all, you might find it of interest.
This is the first individual petitionary prayer in the Bible.
And I would like to note the following it is the petitionary prayer not of a patriarch, not of a matriarch.
It is not of a Hebrew, and it is not even of a person with a name.
I find that very moving that the first prayer to God in this way, of making a request, is nothing you would have expected.
It's an anonymous human being, race, origin, unknown.
And what does that say?
Anyone can talk to God, anyone can ask God to come into his or her life.
I find that very moving that that's the person to whom attributed the first prayer as such.
Others talk to God, but this is the first prayer.
Because we have no record of God appearing to this person.
It wasn't like God and this servant were on dialogical grounds, like with Noah or with Abraham.
Not at all.
Just a spontaneous prayer I ask you, God, for the following.
What is very powerful, though, that you might have missed is this.
And boy, does it resonate with me, he did not pray for himself.
The first petitionary prayer is for somebody else.
I have a sense that those are, that in a certain sense is almost the ideal.
That you are, you ask for God on another's behalf.
That's what he had asked.
This isn't, oh God, let me have the following so I can do my job right and I get rewarded, which is a very logical thing for an employee to say, hey, I do a great job, I'll be rich, I'll be whatever.
No, let me fulfill what is needed for Abraham, oh God.
That's his request.
Now, not only that, but it's very interesting, of course, he requests a very specific thing.
From God.
God, I'm going to do the following test, and I want the right girl for Isaac on the basis of fulfilling it with the following response.
I mean, he was asking for a great deal, but on the other hand, most of us are not on being sent by Abraham on a test.
So he had clout that some of us, in some sense, may not have had, but that, of course, would invalidate the idea that anybody could pray petitionarily, which is clearly an important idea.
Anyway, what is his faith?
What is the test?
This is critical that we follow this.
How will he know the right person for Isaac?
This is the part that overwhelmed me in reading it.
Purely based on goodness.
It's so touching.
That is the one grounds upon which I will know who is right for Isaac.
Is she kind and good?
None of the other stuff.
Not, not.
Her career, not her wealth, not her beauty, though that comes in later, as we'll see, but that's not what he asks for.
He says, I'll know who's right for Isaac based on the way she responds to my request for water.
And what does he say?
I want to review it.
It's not only enough that she will say, Please lower your jar that I may drink.
Excuse me, that she replied, Drink.
Yes, here is my jar.
But that she volunteers and I will also water your camels.
How many camels?
Ten camels!
Can you imagine going to somebody and saying, Can I have a drink?
Sure, let me do your ten camels while we're at it.
I actually did so much research on this, I found out how long it takes for a camel to fill up.
Okay?
I did.
It takes ten minutes.
That's a long time to drink.
Ten minutes a camel drinks to fill up.
Ten camels.
Is a hundred minutes.
That's one hour and 40 minutes of just camel drinking.
Okay?
That's a very, very big deal to a stranger.
I mean, we're talking, you have to understand it almost doesn't bore on the miraculous.
I mean, I think I'm a good guy.
I can imagine saying, okay, I'll help your camel too.
But if the guy comes with an army, I'd say, listen, let me show you where your water is and have a wonderful day.
Right?
I mean, I admit, I think I'm a good guy.
So he is asking, you have to remember, not just for kindness, but for someone of extraordinary, almost miraculous goodness.
To have said that to a stranger like that is just extraordinary.
And by the way, you will recall, so I won't go over it again, how I kept emphasizing how treatment of the stranger is the greatest statement of ethics, of decency in the world.
And that this is a deeply, deeply Hebrew biblical notion that you must treat strangers well.
You'll also find, of course, the parallels here and why Moses was chosen by God.
Why Moses?
Why not somebody else?
How simple kindness is the issue.
And we're going to come to that when you see what happens.
Anyway, this is quite a request he's making of God.
You must understand that the person should be this remarkable.
However, I want to make one.
Yeah.
Where he has made this request is verse 18, right?
No, no, 14.
Sorry, 18 almost duplicates it.
I want to read 14 in Hebrew to make sure.
Yeah.
It doesn't say all the camels.
It says the camels in Hebrew.
Do you have that in English too?
Yeah, they're camels.
It doesn't say all the camels.
So, in a sense, she could have passed the test not doing all 10 camels.
Okay, no, I think that is important.
Because, as I said, the nature of the request is almost superhuman.
That somebody would volunteer that after being just asked for a drink.
Okay, so we go to verse 15.
He had scarcely finished speaking.
When Rebekah, who was born to Betuel, the son of Milcah, the wife of Abraham's brother Nathor, in other words, in case that confuses you, Rebekah is the daughter of Abraham's nephew, or, if you will, Abraham's brother's granddaughter.
Great niece.
Yeah, that never would have helped me.
I mean, I thank you, but I don't know what a great niece is.
It's too confusing.
His brother's granddaughter struck me as the easiest way to figure it out.
I am so bad at family connections, do you know that I actually drew out a chart for myself with all these names?
I couldn't figure it out through the text.
So, whichever one is easier for you, because it is obviously important, either you would hold it as the daughter of Abraham's nephew.
So, think of your nephew, and then think of your nephew having a daughter.
That would be it.
You're Abraham.
Or your brother's granddaughter.
If that's easy.
But anyway, that's who she is.
It tells you here.
Of course, he doesn't know that.
That's very important.
The servant doesn't know that at all.
He just sees women who are at the well.
She came out with her jar on her shoulder.
The maiden was very beautiful, a virgin who no man had known.
By the way, it's very interesting.
You would think that that's redundant.
That's exactly what virgins are women who no man has known.
And this was actually a revelation to me.
Bitulah in Hebrew is always translated as virgin, but it doesn't always mean technically virgin.
It could simply mean woman of marriageable age who is not technically a virgin.
That's the reason the words in Hebrew are read.
I didn't know that.
By the way, in this regard, Christians here will find this of particular interest because so often Isaiah, with a virgin shall conceive, decided with regard to the birth of Jesus.
The word there is not even Bitulah, it's Alma, which is even less a virgin.
Then, and my point is, God forbid not to undermine any faith.
It's only to be honest to the text.
It isn't even bitula, which is closer to virgin than alma, which is just young woman.
So it's very important to know what words we're using here, and that is why it says a virgin whom no man had known.
She went down to the spring, filled her jar, and came up.
Now, it is important here.
It says she was beautiful.
And it's important that it says it for a number of reasons, I am convinced.
One of the reasons is, after all, he has his choice, the servant, of whom to choose.
And he didn't know that she was decent any more than any of the other women there.
He obviously picked a beautiful or the most beautiful girl who was at the wedding.
All right?
I mean, that's just something that the text is telling you.
Figures, well, why not start with the most beautiful?
We can always go down from there.
But there was another element, I think, in this.
I think it's that the text is saying to you.
She was very beautiful, and yet despite that, look at how she acted.
I think that that, frankly, is as much part of what is being said about Rebecca.
It makes clear why he chose her, but I think it adds to her greatness.
Because it is very easy for a particularly beautiful woman or particularly handsome man to be particularly arrogant, to rely solely on that in life to get ahead.
And, well, why bother being kind?
Who needs it?
I'll get all the attention.
Okay, so this is the woman he's going to test.
That's all we know right now.
Okay, let's continue.
The servant ran toward her and said, Please let me sip a little water from your jar.
Just as he said in his prayer to God he would do, he says to her, If you have never read this story before, aren't you with your seat's edge?
I mean, isn't it fascinating?
What's going to happen?
What'll she do, this beautiful woman?
And 18.
Drink, my lord, she said, and she quickly lowered her jar upon her hand and let him drink.
So far, part one is passed, correct?
Okay, and I will show you how the text goes.
There's a word in this sentence which already tells you she's going to pass the test.
What's the word?
Oh, not many words like that.
Quickly, quickly.
That tells you it's the hint.
She not only did what he requested, she quickly did it.
And those adverbs are going to show up like crazy now to tell you what type of a person this Rebecca is.
She didn't merely give him to drink, she quickly gave him to drink.
Now you know she's going to pass the test.
That's the giveaway.
This is the kind of person he is.
By the way, I get the chills when I teach this.
Where do you see such a thing where character is everything?
In choosing a spouse and to show you how it's done.
And I will have a lot to say about that because this is what I always talk about, what singles don't think about when they often want to meet somebody.
They think about whether they like Italian food and what kind of movies they like, and the character never shows up.
And it's the only thing here.
Can you imagine if the guy is playing, I really hope she likes Mesopotamian food.
So, She says, drink my water.
She quickly lowered her jar upon her hand and let him drink quickly.
When she had let him drink his fill, she said, I will also draw for your camels until they finish drinking.
And adds again, I won't merely start it.
I will stay till the end.
Listen to this woman.
I will stay to the end to watch your ten for stumping the camels drink all of this water.
It's unbelievable what she does.
Ten of them.
What's the first word in the next one?
Quickly.
You see what I mean?
The text is telling you what kind of person this is.
It's like almost unreal.
Quickly emptying her jar into the trough, she ran back to the well to draw.
She ran back to the well.
She didn't merely go back.
She's rushing to do a stranger a favor.
And she drew for how many camels?
All of this capital.
Would you think the text is pretty clear on what kind of woman did she pass?
The guy must be standing there, absolute law.
That's right.
In absolute law, this is a giant.
He's probably also thinking, God is Isaac Lucky.
Why the hell did I get it?
I did.
Rushing to Help a Stranger00:14:57
For me, but he didn't.
And that is exactly what happens in the next verse.
The man, meanwhile, stood gazing at her.
He was awestruck.
Silently, the Hebrew is incredible.
I mean, it's mute.
He was deaf and mute.
He is totally speechless because he doesn't want to say anything here but wondering whether the Lord had made his errand successful or not.
He really watched.
He heard her say these things, but now he was going to watch that she really did it.
At this point, we have a suspicion, of course, that that's exactly what will happen.
Three times between verses 19 and 22, three times it notes that she let them drink until they were all filled.
Isn't that something?
And sure enough, again in verse 22, when the camels had finished drinking, the man took a gold nose ring weighing a half shekel and two gold bands for her arms, 10 shekels in weight.
Now, a few things for a moment.
One of the things that all the commentators know.
Is that her tenderness to the animals is also a big factor, as you may recall with Moses as well later.
In the Hebrew Bible, treatment of animals decently is an actually very important theme.
Remember, it is one of the seven laws of the whole world that Judaism holds the whole world is bound to.
And that one is that you can't cut the limb off a living animal, which is what people did prior to refrigeration to keep animals fresh.
Oh, I'll take a chicken leg, and they pulled the leg off.
And this was one of the seven things the world is commanded not to do.
Tenderness to animals is a very important factor, and certainly a large basis of the laws of Kashmir as well.
Anyway, let me just see.
Oh, I missed one little point here.
There were so many points in this thing.
In verse 17, he said, Please let me sip a little water.
He said, A little water.
He purposely understated his request to make the test that more difficult.
She could have easily said, Here's a little water, and felt that she was doing fine.
Okay, I just wanted to remark on that.
So, all the quicklys, all the running to do things, all the filling up of all the camels, which took one hour and 40 minutes without any time between camels.
And her concern for animals.
Is it just a number or a question?
Yes.
And camels.
That's right, that's very possible.
She wasn't that impressive.
Just what I know about cattle feeding.
But I would think, though, that she'd keep coming back and forth pouring it in.
So it probably took somewhere between 10 minutes and an hour and 40 minutes.
Fair enough.
But it's still a lot of water.
All right, that means maybe not as much time, but a lot of water.
What were her parents thinking during that time?
Oh, Rebecca's probably helping strangers again.
Okay.
20.
Let's see, hold on.
Yeah, right.
On my notes, I just want to make sure.
She runs back quickly and empties all his camels.
Oh, let me read to you what a Russian rabbi of the 19th century, the Malbim, said about her here.
Okay.
He points out her kindness and greatness this way.
The ordinary reaction of the girl would be to the servant who was there, you're standing by the well, help yourself to the water.
Number two, there were plenty of girls going out to fetch water.
She could say, why pick on me when I've already replaced the jug on my shoulder?
Pick on another girl who's still holding the water jug on her head, in her hand, excuse me.
Thinking of some of the sites I saw in the Middle East.
Third, I shall ask her to fill up the jug herself to enable me to drink.
This means a special effort for her to let down the brimful water jug in order to give me a drink.
She would be justified in being annoyed and saying, fill the jar yourself from my shoulder and drink, but don't bother me to do it myself.
In other words, he's pointing out even more goodnesses here than I had noted.
And four, her offer to give my camels a drink too would indicate her thoughtfulness and understanding.
Showing that she had said to herself, this man is obviously handicapped and cannot draw the water himself from the well and lower the jug.
If he can't give himself a drink, then he most certainly isn't up for watering the camels too.
Isn't that interesting?
This would indicate her kindness to animals, not forgetting the thirst of the camels.
So what this rabbi in 19th century Russia was saying is, she really thought, if this guy can't even pour his own water, he's obviously not physically capable of doing this.
Now I feel sorry for his camels.
I mean, now, how many people give the benefit of the doubt to a stranger like that and wouldn't just say he's lazy?
Right?
That's a very interesting twist on this that this 19th century Russian rabbi knows.
Yeah?
Yeah!
So you think that she had ulterior motives because she liked the guy?
Yeah.
Well, sort of modern reading that this gentleman has of it, that it was really a good pickup line of the ancient Near East.
Who knows?
Who knows?
I understand what you're saying.
I don't fully see it that way, but I appreciate it.
Let me just continue here, because this is a very long chapter, and I want to finish it.
We are up to what verse, my friends?
23?
Yeah, okay, now, when the camels finished drinking, on only then, the man put the gold nose ring.
Which, by the way, gives you an idea of the antiquity of this story.
It's obviously not the sort of thing we would relate to, though it seems to be making a comeback in some parts of Melrose.
The man took a gold nose ring weighing a half shekel and two gold bands for her arms, ten shekels in weight.
In other words, obviously very, very wealthy stuff, very rich looking things.
Pray tell me, he said, whose daughter are you?
This is very important.
He did not know who she was.
The only reason he picked her was because of her acts.
I can't tell you how important that is because some traditions try to hold, well, he really knew that this was a relative of Abraham.
Nonsense.
The text tells you.
He doesn't know who she is till the acts.
It's the acts that make her deserving to be the matriarch, not her birth.
Okay?
Merit by action, not by birth.
Whose daughter are you?
Is there room in your father's house for us to spend the night?
She replied, I am the daughter of Betuel, the son of Milcah, whom she bore to Nathor.
And she went on, there's plenty of strong feet at home and also room to spend the night.
Again, you remember the story with Moses later and Sephora, where he goes to her home.
The man bowed low in homage to the Lord, that's to God, and said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not withheld his steadfast kindness from my master, for I have been guided on my errand by the Lord to the house of my master's kinsman.
Now he knows that they are related.
I'd also like to point out here a lot of people make petitionary prayers to God.
And a lot of people get their prayers answered.
Let's be honest.
There are a lot of you who have prayed that somebody be well, a person is well.
How often have you then said a prayer thanking God for having happened?
I would say that requests are far more common than gratitude.
This is very impressive on the part of the servant.
He didn't forget to say a thank you, which was just as long as the request was.
I was moved by that.
28.
The maiden ran and told all this to her mother's household.
Now, apparently, her father is either dead or comatose.
He has a very non existent role.
It's the mother's household.
It's her brother Laban who plays the major role and so on.
Now, Rebecca had a brother whose name was Laban, or Laban.
Laban ran out to the man at the spring when he saw the nose ring and the bands on his sister's arms.
And when he heard his sister Rebecca say, Thus the man spoke to me, he went up to the man who was still standing beside the camels of the spring.
Now, you can read this either as this is normal human conduct or an implication by the Torah that Laban is very touched by money.
Okay?
What does Laban see?
A nose ring.
Okay?
It's just, you know, it's who knows.
We don't know yet, but when you know Laban later, that's the assumption.
To know Laban is not to love Laban.
That is clear from the text.
Anyway, he went up to the man who was still standing beside the camels at the spring.
Come in, O blessed of the Lord, he said.
Why do you remain outside when I have made ready the house and a place for the camels?
So the man entered the house and the camels were unloaded.
The camels were given straw and feed, and water was brought to bathe his feet and the feet of the men with him.
But when food was set before him, that is the servant, he said, I will not eat until I told my tale.
This is some worker, huh?
I mean, he is really extraordinary in every way.
First of all, he's the one who thought up this whole thing, not Abraham.
You've just got to remember that, that he's the one who has this character orientation, ethics, decency, goodness orientation.
And he's not going to take food till he finishes his task.
I am Abraham's servant, he began, verse 34.
The Lord has greatly blessed my master, and he has become rich.
He is very true.
He knows what moves Laban.
Okay, telling him, Laban, I want you to know this man is an ethical monotheist.
Eh, that would not go over.
What does he do?
He has given him sheep and cattle.
It's not even enough to tell him he's rich.
I want you to know how rich sheep and cattle, silver and gold, male and female servants, camels and asses.
Oh, that's who you're representing?
Keep talking.
That's, in effect, what is being said here.
Now, notice, oh, hopefully you'll see in a few minutes.
Now, and Sarah, my master's wife, bore my master a son in her old age, and he has given him everything he owns.
Again, Harry, the rich son-in-law, or actually, in your case, brother-in-law, Laban, that I'm talking about.
See, he, the beauty of this servant is, He is smart enough to know what you have to do when.
He cares about goodness and ethics when it comes to choosing a spouse for Isaac.
But he totally talks money when it comes to getting her to marry Isaac for talking to Laban.
You get it?
This is a smart man.
You have to know what to say to whom to do what you need.
If he had said, oh, he's very fine, and your daughter has such wonderful ethics, the guy would have been shown the tent door.
That's what's obvious.
Now, and you'll see the proof here.
Now, my master made me swear saying, You shall not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites in whose land I dwell.
Now, what was the actual swear that Abraham made him?
You will notice, you will ask the question I asked when I studied this.
Why does he have to recount the whole story in the servant's words?
Why don't you just say, and the servant told Laban the story and ended?
To show you the brilliance of the servant and what a field for Laban.
What did he drop?
Notice he said, Now my master made me swear, saying, Right?
Go back, please, to verse 3.
What was the actual swear?
Verse 3.
I make you swear, this is Abraham talking to the servant, I make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth.
Now, what does it say here in 37 when he recounts it?
God is invention.
And in one of the great lines, Machala Leibovitz, who is one of the great scholars in the world, she has written commentaries on all the books, compilations, and they're just wonderful.
She has one line.
She's not known for a sense of humor, but I found a very wry line.
She writes The sermon doesn't mention the oath in full from verse 3 about Jehovah, God of heaven and God of earth.
Quote, This would not be appreciated in Laban's sermons.
I love the understatement of the faith.
Swearing Without God's Name00:15:32
So you notice how he drops what he has to and adds what he has to?
That's why it's recounted.
He doesn't mention any God.
I didn't take an oath in God's name, I just swore.
Because laymen's crowd, God, God of heaven, God of earth, who is this guy?
They would have been suspicious.
They could swear everybody had those, all cultures, but not in the name of God, because this is not, as she writes, going to be appreciated by laymen's circles.
All right, let's continue on 37.
Yeah, you make me swear, not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites in whose land I dwell, but you shall go to my father's house, my kindred, and get a wife for my son.
That's not true.
He never said that, Abraham.
He made his whole thing up.
He just said, Go to my homeland.
He makes up, Go to my family and my kindred.
He thinks, Oh, I got to the family.
Why not throw it in?
This is exactly what.
So now, not only is he unbelievably rich, your future brother in law, but there are fates involved here because he sent me to find a local life out.
And the guy is a real, he is sharp.
He is truly sharp.
And I said to my master, What if the woman does not follow me?
He replied to me, The Lord, whose ways I have followed, will send his angel with you and make your errands successful.
I still don't know where the angel showed up, but he figured, ah, why not?
It shows that angels were involved.
So the faiths, angels, money, this is, he's doing everything possible to get Rebecca.
So, angels, what verse?
What verse?
40.
And will send an angel with you and make your errand successful.
You will get a wife from my son, from my kindred, from my father's house.
He keeps repeating it, even though it's pure belonging.
41.
Thus only shall you be freed from my adjuration, from my errand, if, when you come from my kindred, they refuse you.
Only then shall you be freed from my errand, from my oath.
I came today to the spring, and I said, O Lord, God of my master Abraham.
Now he throws it in his fingers.
Maybe at this point he could actually invoke God, but who, which God?
God of my master Abraham, not God of the heavens and God of the earth, in whose name he took the swear.
Remember that?
God of my master Abraham.
Okay, Abraham has a God.
Okay.
If you would indeed grant success to the errand on which I am engaged, as I stand by the spring of water, let the young woman who comes out to draw, and to whom I say, please let me drink a little water, he repeated exactly, a little water from your jar, and who answers, you may drink, and I will also draw for your camels, hold it exactly right here, let her be the life whom the Lord has decreed.
For my master's son.
This is pretty intimidating for Laban, you have to admit, right?
I mean, all the things involved here, and it works.
I mean, it's intimidating and it does work.
I had scarcely finished praying in my heart when Rebecca came out with her jar on her shoulder.
By the way, how does he know her name?
We don't know exactly.
The assumption is he heard it in the conversation there.
Went down to the spring and drew, because remember, he didn't ask her her name, he asked her where her father was.
And I said to her, please give me a drink.
She quickly, see that?
He got it right.
She quickly lowered her jar and said, Drink, and I will also water your camels.
So I drank, and she also watered the camels.
I inquired of her, Whose daughter are you?
And she said, Daughter of the two of the son of Nathor, whom Milcah bore to him.
And I put the ring on her nose and the bands on her arms.
That is not true.
Did you catch that?
What's not true in that verse?
Huh?
No, no, he put it on a nose.
That's not the problem.
He got the order totally reversed, purposely.
He didn't know who she was when he gave her the nose ring.
He says, I asked, oh, you are in that family?
Here's the nose ring.
He lied through his teeth.
Because to tell Laban and his crowd, when I saw what a beautiful human being she is, that's when I gave her the nose ring.
But again, give me a break.
But no, he tells me, when I knew she's in your family, I gave her the nose ring.
The guy is winking the whole story here.
That is why I say this thing would make such a great film.
He'd keep looking at the camera going, and then talk back to Laban and tell him, you know.
And Laban is sucking it up and loving it all by family, of course.
Like he gave a boot.
He didn't care who it was.
It wasn't supposed to be family.
It didn't matter to Abraham.
It didn't matter to the servant.
Then I bowed low in homage to the Lord and blessed the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who led me on the right way to get the daughter of my master's brother for his son.
Ruffy.
Is that a riot?
Biggest wine, huh?
Great wine, I'll use it.
And now, if you mean to treat my master with true kindness, tell me.
And if not, tell me also that I may turn my arm.
Okay, it's decision time.
He's not even eating yet.
He's also smart on this issue.
He doesn't want him to dally.
He doesn't even want a meal.
He wants, while bombarding him with God, angels, fate, diamonds, and camels, to get the answer.
And sure enough, He was right to demand it soon.
Verse 50, then Laban and the Thuell answered, the Thuell, finally, the Thuell, the Father shows up, like he had an answer to give.
I think he's just thrown in there for good measure.
The matter was decreed by the Lord.
We cannot speak to you bad or good.
In other words, we can't tell you.
We have no answer to give you.
Here is Rebecca.
In other words, it is true, but, oh, actually, excuse me, where is the corporate sent to 10 days?
I want them to get to that.
It'll come up.
I'm sorry?
Oh, it comes a little later, so I have this mixed up.
Anyway, he says, look, it was decreed by the Lord.
In other words, the arguments work of the messenger.
Here is Rebecca before you take her and go.
Ah, I'll tell you, that's right.
I'm right that he wants a decision now that they will dally, not on the wife part, but on the moving part.
Remember, he has two major requests here.
Wife is one, but that's not the whole thing at all.
She has to be able to move and leave her family.
So here is Rebecca before you take her and go and let her be a wife to your master's son as the Lord has spoken.
In other words, I live and see the hand of God in here.
There's no question.
I mean, how can this be anything but that?
Okay.
Also, I like your money.
When Abraham's servant heard their words, he bowed low to the ground before the Lord.
The servant brought out objects of silver and gold.
Why?
Why, if he's already said yes, is he going to still bring out more money?
Because he has the big request to make now.
The life part is the easy part.
This is the tough part.
He brings out more silver and gold than garments and gave them to Rebecca and gave presents to her brother and her mother.
Nice mark.
Then he and the men with him ate and drank and then spent the night.
When they arose next morning, he said, Give me leave to go to my master.
But her brother and her mother said, Let the maiden remain with us some ten days.
See, that it's one thing to give her away and get all this money, that's great, and we'd get rich because we'd stay here with all our money.
But now he's saying, I want to take her to my master.
I want to take her away.
No, say 10 days, then you may go.
Now, what's going to happen in 10 days?
Probably dally again, because we all know about dallying later, as you recall, with working for just work a little time, no, another seven years.
By the way, you'll see how that happens here anyway.
He said to them, Do not delay me.
Now that the Lord has made my errand successful, he's invoking God now.
Hey, listen, you start with me, you're starting with God, which is a great line to have if you can do it successfully.
Do not delay me.
Now that the Lord has made my errand successful, give me leave that I can go to my master.
And then they said, this is very touching.
Let us call the girl and ask for her reply.
Remember what I said to you from the very beginning?
She doesn't have any say on who she marries, but she does have a say on whether she leaves her family.
So they say, okay, let's ask Rebecca.
They called Rebecca and said to her, Will you go with this man?
And she said, With a brother like you, I leave in a second.
That is a varying reading that not many of your texts have.
She said, I will.
So they sent off their sister Rebecca and her nurse along with Abraham's servant and his man, and they blessed Rebecca and said to her, Oh, sister, may you grow into thousands of myriads.
May your offspring seize the gates of their foes.
The typical thing you say to your sister once you leave.
Then Rebecca and her maids arose, mounted the camels, and followed the man.
So the servant took Rebecca and went his way.
What do you think of that, folks?
Does that guy deserve an ovation?
I tell you, he really does.
Would you please give him a serving of ovation?
He deserves it.
He doesn't even have a name, and look at how terrific it might carry on.
Let's just finish this chapter.
Isaac had just come back from the vicinity of Baer la Hireli, for he was settled in the region of the Negev.
You know, it's so sad.
Now Isaac shows up.
Everything's done for him.
Again, it's really, God knows, I don't wish to mock him in any way.
It's just, there's a sense of sadness here, as you'll see the way the thing ends, particularly true about Isaac.
And Isaac went out walking in the field for an evening, and looking up, he saw camels approaching.
Raising her eyes, Rebecca saw Isaac.
She suspected that this is the man.
She alighted from the camel and said to the serpent, who's that man walking in the field toward us?
And the serpent said, that's my master.
So she took her veil and covered herself, from which we get the veiling and unveiling to this day in Jewish marital ceremonies.
And the serpent told Isaac all the things that he had done.
Isaac then brought her into the tent of his mother, Sarah, and he took Rebekah as his wife.
Isaac loved her and thus found comfort after his mother's death.
This is a very powerful ending.
Now, it's the tent of his mother, Sarah, and the odds are she is dead.
But it also implies that that's who he went to live with after the binding, that he went to his mother, which is understandable.
This is thinking maybe my father will get this like me another time.
I didn't like that.
It's clear he went to live with Sarah, but what is also clear is that his attachment was beyond the norm.
There are profound psychological insights in Genesis, and certainly one is here.
This man is deeply attached to his mother.
It's his mother's tent.
He took Rebecca for a wife, loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother's death.
And I am very unhappy that that's the translation.
That's not what the Hebrew says.
The Hebrew has no word death.
The Hebrew just says, and thus found comfort after his mother.
Period, end of chapter.
They add, but what?
Hertz just says after his mother?
The Hebrew is after his mother.
And it has to be after his mother.
The point here is also, his loss with his mother's death is overwhelming.
This woman whom he loves, he loves as a replacement for his mother.
That's the statement that's being made.
It's terrible that they added an English step because that's not the point.
It's after his mother.
He found comfort after his mother.
This is my substitute mother.
And that, by the way, is what happens later, in fact.
She mothers him in the sense that she runs the household.
That is what Isaac's fate in life is.
And I'm not saying good or bad, I'm just explaining it.
And the Torah is clear about that.
One final little interesting point in this statement.
You see the view of the tradition rather than modernity about love and marriage.
We love first and then marry.
They marry first and then love.
And that's the order given here, if you see it in the sentence.
And he took Rebekah as his wife, Isaac loved her.
And that is the best of the traditional world.
It doesn't work often, obviously, and ours doesn't work often either.
But the best in that world, as one very traditional Hasidic rabbi once told me, he said, Dennis, I just do, I believe in, we believe the opposite of modernity.
We believe that you marry and then you gradually get to love.
And what most people today do is they love and then gradually, they marry and then gradually fall out of love.
So that is the way we do it.
But that is the way it was done, and it worked.
But how he loved her are what those very powerful little words that end this unbelievable chapter of men and women, of dignity, of character, and so on ends.
And this is, you know, when I had begun studying it, the commentators, modern commentators, said this is one of the most beautiful chapters in all of literature.
And I had read it, and who hasn't read this?
But they're right.
When you really look at it and the subtleties involved, it's just, it is.
It's overwhelming.
And God knows the message on how to choose a spouse.
It's so interesting because many of you may know what I always say to singles and have for so many years.
I say, of course, you should find out the character.
And I even say there's a test.
I have prayed and lit this test on how to check on a person's character quickly.
What is it?
Watch how they treat a stranger from whom they don't need anything.
And the example I always give is a waiter or waitress.
And sure enough, what's his test?
Watch how she treats a stranger from whom she doesn't need anything.
And he was right.
And it's a great lesson in our age of not taking this stuff seriously and then wondering why we get hurt by friends or by spouses.
I'll have to take questions next week.
I thank you very, very much.
This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Visit DennisPrager.com for thousands of hours of Dennis' lectures, courses, and classic radio programs, and to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles.
Kindness Tests Character00:00:29
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