Dennis Prager analyzes Genesis 30-31, arguing that Rachel's envy over children reveals a dangerous reduction of women to their reproductive utility. He contrasts Jacob's unfair wage theft by Laban with God's sovereign intervention in breeding livestock, noting how Rachel stole household idols using menstruation as a ruse to hide them. The narrative culminates in a boundary pillar named Gal-ed, establishing peace after decades of deception. Ultimately, the episode illustrates that while human schemes drive conflict, divine sovereignty ensures justice and family preservation beyond biological desperation or cultural superstition. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Joy Beyond Having Children00:08:45
On today's episode of Timeless Wisdom, a lot of people believe that the purpose of life is having children, and in Jewish life, there's a particular sense of nachos from children.
Many of you have heard the term nachos.
It's both Yiddish and Hebrew.
It means joy and pride in some combination thereof.
And that the purpose of life is to have nachos from your children.
And that's not true.
And woe unto the child whose parents feel that way.
That's coming up on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager, and it starts right now.
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All right, Genesis 30.
Timeless wisdom with Dennis Prager.
Genesis 30 offers thousands of hours of various lectures, courses, and classmates.
To take radio programs and to purchase Dennis Prager's rational Bibles, go to Dennis Prager.com.
But that's the way it goes.
And so sometimes I'll be reading somewhat rapidly so as to continue the notice of verse by verse.
It's partially because you have to know what happened, and partially also because it's my hope.
That people who will have the tape of this in their car or at home will literally be able to study the Bible this way without even having an open text, just hearing every verse.
Chapter 30.
When Rachel saw that she had borne Jacob no children, she became envious of her sister.
Her sister is Leah, of course, who had borne children.
And Rachel said to Jacob, Give me children.
Or I will die.
The fascinating thing comes up with Jacob's reaction.
Jacob was incensed at Rachel.
That is an accurate translation of the Hebrew.
He was very angry at her and said, Can I take the place of God who has denied you fruit of the womb?
I want to analyze this for a moment.
What do you think of Jacob's reaction?
Here is his wife, who loves him, we presume, and whom he loves, we know.
After all, she was his choice, as you recall.
And she is terribly hurt over not having children, especially given the fact that her sister has borne him children.
There are two, at least two ways of reacting to Jacob's anger.
One, he was wrong.
One, he was right.
Those are your two ways, at least two ways you can react.
You will find of interest, I think, that the rabbis, the traditional rabbinic interpretation, is anger at Jacob.
Isn't that interesting?
Because they said what a woman in that circumstance needed first was not an answer, but understanding.
My wife loved that one.
It was a real cheer in the back.
That is a fascinating subject unto itself.
That is, what do you, in fact, how do you respond to your wife?
and I specifically say you're a wife rather than your husband, when there is pain.
It is one of the things I have talked about in male-female differences.
Men want solutions.
Women want understanding.
The first thing you say to your wife when she has a headache is not, the aspirin can be found in the following cupboard.
That is a mistake, which all of us men make until we learn differently, until we're taught and we learn.
You can teach, but you also have to learn.
The first thing you say is, How bad is it, honey?
That's really sad.
Can I do something for you?
And I understand the pain you're in.
This is not patronizing, by the way.
I don't want it to come out sounding that way.
It is not.
Men have their idiosyncrasies where we want understanding as well.
Like when we want to get new compact discs.
The wife's reaction should be, good, we need a ninth version of Beethoven's third.
And that would be the appropriate female reaction in that instance.
So each sex has to learn the appropriate reactions to the other.
Or it is wonderful that you're watching your third baseball game today.
I'm joking about that one.
Now, the rabbinic understanding is he's wrong.
She understandably is terribly upset, and she blurts out in anger what is not anger at him really, but is upsettedness.
All right?
That's the rabbinic understanding.
He should have simply said, I know how you feel.
There's nothing I can do.
I feel as miserable as you do.
Instead, he gets all angry and he says, What do you mean?
Can I take the place of God who's denied you children?
Now, on the other hand, let's look at what she said and then try to analyze his anger.
And this is truly the major theme of tonight's session.
I always try to find if there's some major theme that has hit.
You may recall once it was afterlife, and others, there were just every time there seems to be at least one or two, sometimes more.
This is the major of the themes that I could find in these two chapters.
The question of what is a person's worth without children.
And particularly a woman's worth who does not have children of her own.
That, according to others, is what incensed Jacob.
Not that she was angry at him about not having children.
If she had merely said that, then the rabbinic tradition would have a great deal to say for it.
That, A, this man was not understanding of his wife who was so depressed over not having kids with him.
She went further.
She said, I'd rather die.
Death is better than having no children.
There is another understanding of Jacob's anger, therefore, that holds that his anger is at that claim.
If your husband or your wife says, I'd rather be dead than not have children, what is the person saying?
Life with you is pointless.
You see, there's a very good, I don't blame him for getting angry when you understand that.
Hey, I'd rather be dead than be your wife without kids.
Well, I mean, that's beyond merely being upset.
If you really feel that way, I would get annoyed with you, and you'd get annoyed with me.
What if I were your husband and I said to you, hey, you don't give me kids, I want to die.
Life with you is just not worth it.
And that's the reason that he gets very angry.
In addition to blaming him, so there are a lot of like marital lessons to be learned here.
If you want to complain about a pain in your life, the best way to do it is to complain about the pain but not blame your spouse for it, which is a very tempting thing to do.
So here he gets a double whammy from her.
One, you're at fault, which of course he's not.
Second, I don't care about living except if I have children, which is an awful thing to say, totally dispiriting.
So he gets angry because she blamed him.
for not having children when it's not his fault, because she held that life wasn't worth living if one doesn't have a child, and because he had been praying to God and he couldn't do any more.
He's terribly frustrated too.
He's also wanted kids through his beloved Rachel.
Obviously he's wanted it.
Life Without Offspring00:15:36
Now I am going to read to you with regard to this idea a commentary from the 1400s.
It is so impressive to me that if I'd have told you it was written by a psychologist, Last year, from Yale, you would have said, yeah, that's how modern sophisticated people think.
This is a rabbi named Isaac Arama, Yitzchak Arama, who was a Spanish rabbi.
He lived from 1420 to 1494.
And his commentary is called the Akhedat Yitzchak.
He wrote a commentary on the Torah.
Listen to what he wrote on this.
The two names in Hebrew for woman.
Isha, which is the regular name for woman, and Chava, Eve, indicate two purposes.
The first teaches that woman was taken from man, stressing that like him, you may understand and advance in the intellectual and moral field, just as did the matriarchs and many righteous women and prophetesses, and as the literal meaning of Proverbs 31 about the woman of worth.
The second, Eve, Alludes to the power of childbearing and rearing children, as is indicated by the name Eve.
In Hebrew, chava means life.
Okay?
The mother of all living.
A woman deprived of the power of childbearing will be deprived of the secondary purpose and be left with the ability to do evil or good like the man who is barren.
Of both the barren man and woman, Isaiah 56.5, the prophet Isaiah says, quote, I have given them in my house and in my walls a name that is better than sons and daughters.
I'm going to talk to you about that.
You're going to get the chills about that statement from Isaiah.
But I want to continue.
Since the offspring of the righteous is certainly good deeds, not kids, but good deeds, Jacob was therefore angry with Rachel when she said, Give me children or else I die.
in order to reprimand her and make her understand this all-important principle that she was not dead as far as their joint purpose in life because she was childless, just the same as it would be in his case if he would have been childless.
In other words, woman, you cannot say you are here to make babies.
I mean, this is a 15th century rabbi in Spain writing.
This is not a modern feminist, if you will.
Male or female, writing that women have to understand that they're not just here to make children.
A 15th century rabbi, I was shaken by this.
The insight that this man had at that time, that this is just a woman cannot see her, that is a secondary purpose making kids.
But if that's the purpose, and as he writes, even more remarkable, after all, every man is barren.
So clearly a woman who is not Eve, the mother of all life, is then simply like a man who is certainly not the mother of all life in any event.
It's like an extra ability.
That's all it is.
But it doesn't take away at all your humanity, your ability to do what life's purpose is.
You are not on here to reproduce.
You're not on earth to reproduce.
It is one of the things if you can do, you should do.
But that is not why you are here.
This really can't be overstated because there are a lot of people, especially women who don't get married or get married after their biological clock has ticked, who feel that their purpose in life has been denied them.
And it's not true.
I'm not here to say that it is necessarily a blessing.
I mean, I love children, have children.
I deeply, deeply relate to the desire to have children.
But that isn't why we are here.
That's why animals are here.
Animals are here to reproduce.
The survival of the fittest and reproduce and that's it.
But we are here to do good deeds.
And we have missions in life.
That's what he is saying and that's what Jacob, in effect, is reacting against.
She had the old-fashioned view.
Even 3,000, 4,000 years ago, you could have an old-fashioned view.
Jacob had a more modern view, if you will, of what the purpose of man and what the purpose of woman is, and it isn't merely to have children.
Yes, he had all those children, but this is the woman he loved.
You're right.
Well, then you can say so he can say this because he had all those children.
All right, then you deny him the ability to react on this issue.
See, if we are all only reacting personally, then none of us can ever make a fair judgment.
if we're all reacting solely from within our circumstances.
I mean, there was a man who called my show who doesn't smoke, who doesn't like smoking, but who thinks it was wrong to ban smoking in all L.A. restaurants.
So that obviously gives him great credibility.
But even somebody who smokes can take that position not just because they smoke.
Just because he had children doesn't mean that his position with regard to that not being the purpose of life is an illegitimate position.
You may be right if you take the negative view of Jacob, but I think, I know you would react that way with or without children.
If your husband would say, I'd rather be dead than not have a kid.
And so I don't agree with the rabbinic tradition, ironically, that sided with her and not him in this particular instance.
I think his anger was correct and appropriate given the circumstances.
And so that is this remarkably important issue.
I want to say another thing in this regard.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
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Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
A lot of people believe that the purpose of life is having children, and in Jewish life, there's a particular sense of naches from children.
Many of you have heard the term naches.
It's both Yiddish and Hebrew.
It means joy and pride in some combination thereof.
And that the purpose of life is to have naches from your children, and that's not true.
And woe unto the child!
Whose parents feel that way you don't want to be on this earth in order to bring your parents joy What kind what that's why you're here then you're an appendage you are just a Nachos machine Which is the way a lot of kids in Jewish life have felt that they were put on earth in order to bring their parents Nachos.
That's not true That is not why you are here if your parents derive Nachos from your life.
That's fine for them, but that's not why you're around And that's not why I have a child or you should have a child to bring me pleasure What kind of nonsense is that?
It also denigrates my own life.
I have an independent, autonomous life.
I am not merely the father of my children or the mother of my children.
I have a life.
I have a relationship with other people, with my spouse if I have one, with friends, with God.
I am not only a parent.
And woe unto one who is only a parent.
You have cut off a great part of what life has to offer.
So, what is your child supposed to be?
Also, only a parent?
That's what we're all here to do, is have kids to have joy from?
It's backwards.
It's not a healthy way to see life.
And while Jews often, and many all traditional cultures felt this, but Jews in particular, not Jews in particular, Jews in particular in America, because America founded a more new type of thinking, a more individual-oriented one, Jews were still part of the old world thinking in this regard.
And it's, although it is, A Jewish notion, it is not a Jewish notion in the sense of what Judaism wants.
The word Jewish is a problem.
Jewish means what Jews think or do and what Judaism thinks.
And very often the first Jewish and the second Jewish are not related at all.
Judaism does not say the purpose of your life is to have children.
Although there were traditions like that.
There was a rabbinic tradition that if you didn't have children, you were considered to be dead.
There was.
But that is not the way in which the Torah looks at it.
And that is why this is of such importance.
I told you that you're going to get the chills from Isaiah 56, 5.
Remember he cites that here?
There is a statement by Isaiah in the book of Isaiah, the great Jewish prophet.
Prophet I only use because it's the public word.
It is not a good translation.
Navi in Hebrew means spokesman.
He's a spokesman of God.
And he says, I will do it again.
I have given them, who is the them?
Those who have no children.
In my house and in my walls, a name that is better than sons and daughters.
Isaiah is saying to those of you who cannot have children, I, God, will ensure your permanence even more so in a better way.
Even than those who have sons and daughters.
That don't think that if you don't have a child, you don't live on.
You do live on.
And he is saying this, Isaiah, in God's name.
Don't think you die if not having children.
Now, where does the chills come in?
Even though I think that in and of itself is deeply moving.
How many of you have heard of the internationally known Israeli memorial to the Holocaust, Yad Vashem?
Okay, virtually all of you.
It's in Jerusalem.
Yad Vashem.
It means hand and name.
And where is it from?
Isaiah 56 5.
Where Isaiah says, I have given them in my house and in my walls a hand and a name, Yad Vashem, that is better than sons and daughters.
Why did they name it Yad Vashem?
Because all the Jews whose children were murdered.
And who, if you have the old way of thinking, that's it.
That's the end.
But Judaism says no, having children is not the issue of your perpetuity.
You are created in God's image and whether you have children or not, that is irrelevant.
It's not irrelevant whether you have children or not to humanity.
It's important that you have children or it ends Judaism in the Jewish case, it ends humanity in the larger instance.
But vis-a-vis you, if you can't have, that has no effect on your own, as it were, permanence.
And that is why they named it Yad Vashem.
Because of Isaiah's promise that those who have no children will live on even in a more special place than those who do have children.
Isn't that touching?
And that's what this Spanish rabbi in the 15th century cited for why Jacob got angry.
See?
The stuff that is here that you may not pick up in the first or even 25th reading sometimes.
Okay.
56.5.
Sure.
You have Isaiah there?
Yes.
Even unto them will I give in my house and in the Lord.
That's it.
Read the sentence before.
It's about eunuchs.
About what?
Eunuchs.
It starts off, I will give them.
Right.
Well, or start 56-4, where the context will be made even more clear.
Okay.
So, this is Jacob's reaction.
Can I take the place of God?
There's one more thing about his reaction that needs to be said.
And that is that he acknowledges it's in God's hands whether we have children.
What do you want me to do?
We have a fertility kit.
We measure your temperature.
We do everything possible.
I'm joking, but I'm just saying.
I mean, that's what people have to understand at a given point, too, that there are just certain things that are in God's hands, which is what this whole chapter and the whole Genesis is about from one perspective.
Things are in God's hands.
Number three, verse three.
So she said, this is Rachel speaking, here is my maid Bilhah.
Remember this with Sarah?
A certain deja vu here.
Here's my maid, Bilhah.
Consort with her.
Actually, in Hebrew, it's come to her, that she may bear on my knees and that through her I too may have children.
So she gave him her maid, Bilhah's concubine, and Jacob cohabited with her.
And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.
Okay, now it's interesting here, too, another important thing to be understood that biology doesn't make that much of a difference.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
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Go to angel.comslash Prager, join the Angel Guild, and watch these films today.
Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
Listen to this.
Ancient Adoption Narratives00:06:35
Do you realize, you know, there are the 12 tribes?
That's what the Jewish people were composed of, right?
The 12 tribes.
Well, listen to this.
Dan comes from Bilhah.
Naphtali comes from Bilhah.
God comes from Zilpah.
These were charming names.
That's Leah's made.
Asher comes from Zilpah.
Four of the tribes come from non-Jews, come from concubines.
What matters are values, not bloodline.
That's why she's perfectly satisfied that I've had a child through the concubine with you.
Okay, so it didn't come out of my womb.
Big deal, which is what those of us who have adopted always say.
Big deal.
Womb and sperm is not what constitutes love, bonding, and values, which are what make parents and children, not sperm and womb.
Rachel said, God has vindicated me.
Indeed, he has heeded my plea and given me a son, which is true.
God gave her a son, just didn't use her body as the vehicle for giving her a son.
People in the adoption movement should really use this as ancient texts to support their own beliefs.
And therefore, oh yeah, therefore she named him Dunn.
Remember, we had already why the others got names.
Don means judged.
Okay, God judged this way, judged me, and he listened to me, and I named him Don.
Rachel's maid Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.
And by the way, you will note it's interesting.
Again, as with Abraham, it was the woman, it was the wife who pushed the husband to sleep with the concubine.
You do not get the sense that this guy was raring to have an extramarital relationship, as it were.
And it is an important point because I know as a kid I used to think, what a great thing to have been a patriarch.
But it's not what the text says.
I'm sorry?
Is there a reason because maybe his wife was pregnant?
Is the reason because his wife may have been pregnant?
Because Leah was pregnant, you mean?
That he therefore what?
Didn't need to.
He did have a relationship with my handmaid.
That Rachel did?
Leah.
Well, we're talking now, but it's Rachel who said have relations with my handmaid.
Leah, yeah, we're not up to that yet.
But yes, it's because she wants to keep having children.
That is what gave you status, especially sons.
Yeah, that's right.
Actually, that's right.
Through Leah, well, Leah had, Leah herself had seven children.
Her concubine had two.
Okay.
Rachel's maid Bilah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.
And Rachel said, a fateful contest I waged with my sister.
Yes, and I have prevailed.
Which is interesting.
You don't get about Rachel a secure sense of a person, do you, from these statements?
That she wants a kid, and why is the kid?
Only then will I feel like living.
And secondly, this is really a contest with my sister Leah, who's had all these kids already.
It is not, from my perspective, Rebecca, who stands out among all the patriarchs and matriarchs in my mind for reasons that I have developed at length.
Anyway, the word that I waged this battle is Naphtali, and his name is Naphtali as a result.
Now, when Leah saw that she had stopped bearing, she took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as concubine.
And when Leah's maid Zilpah bore Jacob a son, Leah said, What luck?
So she named him God, which I'm sure in English makes perfect sense to you.
Oh, that's why, of course, it makes perfect sense.
Luck, apparently, God.
was this ancient Near Eastern term for luck.
Ba-God.
Luck came, so he was named God.
Luck.
When Leah's maid Zilpah bore Jacob a second son, Leah declared, What fortune?
Women will deem me fortunate.
So she named him Asher.
Asher in Hebrew to this day, with an aleph, means fortunate.
Or happy even.
So he was called Asher.
Now, to break up the monotony of births with concubines, we get into a story, and we'll come back to that later.
Once at the time, this is 14, at the time of the wheat harvest, Reuven, Reuben, that's the first son of Leah, came upon some mandrakes in the field and brought them to his mother Leah.
Rachel said to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes.
But she said to her, Was it not enough?
This is Leah saying to Rachel, was it not enough?
By the way, one thing you have to admit, it's not only brothers who don't get along well, sisters don't either.
Genesis is pretty fair along.
And I just have to repeat a theme that I have noted constantly.
Genesis is about real life, and in real life, family members don't always get along, especially siblings.
And that's important to know, and therefore it's lovely if they do, but it's not often.
That they do.
So if it's not your case, don't think that you have a terrible situation.
Look at the way it is for these wonderful folks, the patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish people.
And so here, look at this.
So Reuven, Leah's first son, goes out to get these mandrakes, which grow wild in the fields.
Torah Anti-Superstition Stance00:03:01
And I'll talk to you about mandrakes in a moment because they have an importance.
And so Rachel says to Leah, please give me some of your son's mandrakes, right?
You with me?
Rachel says to Leah, whose son got them.
But now, Leah says to Rachel, Wasn't it enough for you to take away my husband?
Now you'll also take away my son's mandrakes?
Now, what does one have to do with the other?
I mean, mandrake, shmandrake.
What is the big deal?
A, why did she ask for it?
And B, why would Leah have such a reaction?
Okay, here is what Sarna writes.
While the text is silent on the reason for the intense interest in the mandrakes on the part of both sisters, the underlying folkloristic associations are undoubtedly present.
It is significant that the subsequent narrative tacitly but effectively neutralizes this aspect, dismissing the notion that such superstitions may have any validity.
But what are the superstitions?
That mandrakes made you pregnant.
That's why they were of such value.
Okay?
That was the superstition.
There's some sort of flower.
It says here, which this will help you.
Not too much, but in the Latin term is Mondragora officinarum.
All right, does that more or less answer it for you?
Which grows wild in the fields, its small yellow tomato-like fruit ripens during March and April.
Chemical analysis shows it to contain emetic, purgative, and narcotic substances, which explains its widespread medicinal use in ancient times.
Because the fruit exudes a distinctive and heady fragrance, and its sturdy, forked, or intertwined root has torso-like features, the mandrake appears as a widely diffused folkloristic motif associated with aphrodisiac powers.
So it enhances sexual desire and helps pregnancy, and the two are often related when you come to think of it.
Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and sex, was given the epithet Hey Mandragoriti, Lady of the Mandrake.
And Dudaim in Hebrew for mandrake is close to Dodi, my love.
You might have heard the song Dodi Lee, Anila Dodi Ve Dodi Lee, which is now even used in many wedding ceremonies.
So that's the reason that they were all very interested in it.
All right?
But he points out that the Torah doesn't want to make a big deal of it because it's a very anti-superstition book, the Torah.
In fact, superstitions are against biblical law.
You cannot be superstitious.
Denying Magical Powers00:02:52
And there's a reason for that.
Superstition is considered idol worship, which is the worst sin outside of the obvious things like murder that a person can commit.
Why?
It'll interest you.
The moment you believe in a superstition, you are saying that something other than God governs the universe.
If you think a black cat will shape fate, then the black cat is more powerful than God.
That is why it is considered idol worship to attribute any magical power to anything. in the universe.
Judaism loathes magic.
Indeed, a magician, a sorceress, is to be put to death later in the Torah.
It is a capital offense.
Now, there are capital offenses for a lot of things in the Torah, and rarely, if ever, carried out.
The point is to show how awful the sin is, not that you go around shooting magicians.
And they don't mean magicians by the people who make elephants disappear.
They mean sorceresses or voodoo.
Voodoo is profoundly against Jewish law.
It implies powers that are not governed by God.
It is also humanly liberating.
If a cat can control me, if a broken mirror can control me, I can't control me.
It is not only a denial of God, it is a denial of your own power in life for you to believe in the powers of something else, in any magical power.
So the Torah makes no comment here on acknowledging the power of Dudaim, mandrakes.
Rather, what it does is tell you the story.
But obviously, Rachel and Leah believed in them.
And so who else believed in them?
Reuben.
He went out to get them for his mom.
He felt bad for his mom.
He wanted her to have to have more children.
She was, she too wanted more for obvious reasons as she'd been so happy to have who she had.
So it's a, again, it's only when you understand all this that something like that would make any sense.
Why would they tell a story about a kid going out for mandrakes and that Leah and Rachel would argue over it?
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
We live in a time where the moment you question the narrative, you're told to stop thinking and start complying.
That's why what Angel is doing matters.
With eye opening documentaries like Thank You, Dr. Fauci, and RFK Legacy, Angel is willing to explore the issues others avoid.
In a culture shaped by gatekeepers, Angel offers something rare, a platform for truth seeking storytelling that isn't constrained by fear or conformity.
Go to angel.comslash Prager, join the Angel Guild, and watch these films today.
Now, back to more of Dennis Prager's Timeless Wisdom.
Hiring for More Kids00:11:53
Verse.
Verse 15 again.
So now again, Leah is saying to Rachel, Wasn't it enough for you to take away my husband?
So this is her complaint.
Partly because he loves Rachel more, which you said, partly because Leah has been so often pregnant, and Rachel therefore looks better.
And the reason I say this is not out of my own opinion, but because in many traditional societies which had polygamy, one wife, her duty was to have children, the other wife was to stay attractive.
And so that can also be a factor, like I'm the child bearing one and you're his lover, is part of what could have also been said here, according to some.
Now, let me go back to something on the mandrakes that was written by Gaster.
Because of the resemblance of its root to the human form, remember Sarna wrote that torso-like root?
The mandrake is almost universally credited with magical powers.
Dioscorides, the Greek physician, calls it Circe's plant, Kyrkyon, and among modern Arabs it is known as the apple of the jinns.
Jinns, as I recall from studying early Islam, in the Arabian Peninsula they had the belief that jinn is like an invisible spirit.
that had powers in the world and is used in concocting philtries, which I don't know what that is.
Theophrastus says that it is an antidote against spells and enchantments.
Josephus records the popular belief that it expels demons.
Indeed, it has been suggested that the drug named Moli, which Hermes supplied to Odysseus in order to counteract the magic potions brewed by Circe, was really the mandrake.
The plant is used especially, as in our biblical narrative, as an aphrodisiac.
and as an antidote to barrenness.
It is thus mentioned, for example, by the Greek comic dramatist Alexis, 4th century BCE, and Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was sometimes styled, as you heard, Our Lady of the Mandrake.
The Hebrew word rendered mandrake is indeed connected with the verbal root meaning to love, as I told you, and has its English counterpart in the popular term love apple.
How popular is it?
I'm curious.
Anybody here ever use the term love apple?
Okay.
I guess in Gaster's time it was more popular.
In the Song of Songs, when the maiden invites her lover to enjoy her favors, she adds to her inducements the statement that she has stored up for him fragrant mandrakes.
In Jewish folklore, the mandrake was long believed to relieve barrenness, while in Germany and other parts of Europe, it was customary to place mandrakes under a bridal bed.
You now know more about mandrakes than you'll ever want to know in your life, and if Jeopardy ever. has it, you will look like a genius.
So, was it not enough for you to take away my husband that you would also take my son's mandrakes?
So, in other words, taking him in order to have more children.
So you now have the husband and want children.
Rachel replied, I promise he shall lie with you tonight in return for your son's mandrakes.
I could not figure this out.
In all honesty, I looked at every source I have.
I could not figure this statement out.
How could she make a promise about whom Jacob will sleep with that night?
She had a headache that night.
She had a headache that night.
Comes from a man in row one.
In all seriousness, I don't know how this was done.
I mean, if it implies that she could tell him to go and sleep with Leah, then if that is the truth, then it is very, it is no wonder Leah is as depressed as she would be.
I mean, to that extent that he didn't want to sleep with her, and the other, and the sister, the other wife, is the one who gets him to sleep with her, it's pathetic.
It is.
It's sadly pathetic.
If that is the case, that indeed that that would happen.
So you give me the mandrakes so that I can get pregnant, but you can have your lover.
I want pregnancy.
You want love.
That's the deal here that the two were making.
You see?
All right, anyway, by the way, there was an interesting point made by Sarna.
The Hebrew is he will lie with you.
Literally.
And he writes, oh, he uses the word.
The pathetic nature of the barter arrangement is underlined by the striking fact that the verb shachav, when employed in Genesis with a sexual nuance, never connotes a relationship of marital love, but is invariably used in unsavory circumstances.
So she uses almost he'll screw you.
In a sense, as jargon in this.
And it's a very sad scene with these two sisters, obviously, and the deal that is being made for the one wanting the pregnancy, the one wanting the love.
Yes, but.
That's right.
She was still striving for biological pregnancy.
That is correct.
That is absolutely right.
Verse 16.
When Jacob came home from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him and said.
You are to sleep with me for I've hired you.
I mean, and the Hebrew word is to hire.
Just in modern Hebrew, if you'd hire, in fact, if you'd say, I rented a car, you use this term in modern Hebrew, this car.
It's so sad.
To say to your own husband, I've hired you for the evening, it gives you an idea of what has happened.
That's terribly sad, but it's not Jacob's fault.
He didn't want her.
It's not like he started this.
It's Laban's fault.
That's just an important thing to remember.
I mean, Jacob's being a good guy about it, as it were.
And he does what he's told.
And he does what he's told.
That's right.
He certainly does.
Well, listen, he did what Rebecca told him.
He does what Rachel tells him.
And now he does what Leah tells him.
But he gets a little stronger as time goes on, as you will note.
Yes?
I'm just wondering what the relationship is in terms of who he sleeps with what night.
Do you think he trades off one night, one night?
Do I think that he trades off?
Right, I understand.
Do I think that he traded off each night?
Right.
The sense that you get from here is that he was with Rachel whenever possible.
Otherwise, she would not have made the deal, Leah.
I mean, that's what I would infer from the thing.
We have no way of knowing, but it seems that if she had to go to all this end to make a deal to get Jacob to sleep with her, that in fact he was not doing so on any regular basis at all.
I just have to infer it from the text.
I just see it as a possible.
I'm imagining if it were every other night.
Well, but it was every other night.
Why, you know, unless she was a.
Oh, an extra night to trade mandrakes for an extra night?
I mean, maybe, but then she was really a very vibrant, sexually alive woman.
There's no question about that, and I don't think that that would be the issue.
I think that he wasn't doing it.
For I have hired you with my son's mandrakes.
Well, that, I mean, that would make sense.
And he lay with her.
That night, God heeded Leah, and she conceived and bore him a fifth son.
And Leah said, God has given me my reward for having given my maid to my husband.
By the way, important point, I don't remember who made it, but notice that the mandrakes are not necessary.
God gives pregnancy.
Leah gave the mandrakes away, and she got pregnant.
Notice that?
One of the constant themes is God runs things.
Nothing else.
So she named him Isachar.
And that is from the term to hire.
Sachar.
When Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son, Leah said, God has given me a choice gift.
This time my husband will exalt me, for I have borne him six sons.
So clearly what is aimed, she is still aiming for his love.
It's not that she's dying for more kids.
She's dying for his love.
Obviously.
My text says, now that I've given him six sons, my husband will finally dwell with me.
Well, the Hebrew is the Zion Bet Lamed, and he says ancient versions and Jewish commentators took to mean to dwell.
Does anybody have that?
Is that what you had?
That is the literal.
That is apparently the literal.
It's a very uncommon word in the Torah.
That's right.
It's a good point, and that's why it is important.
It seems that he was living full time with Rachel, so here you have another proof.
He was not switching off nights.
I know you wish he were.
I know I do too.
And his name was called Zivulun.
Last, she bore him a daughter and named her Dina.
This verse cracks me up.
This is in case anyone needed proof of.
The ancient world's sexism, this is about as obvious.
It's so obvious that you almost have to laugh.
When all of the sons are born, there's always a thinking out why the name was given.
Nothing.
It's like just this passing reference, almost like, and it was a warm day that day.
A daughter was born, nothing is said, why it was chosen, how she reacts, nobody's grateful.
Oh, and a daughter was born, her name was Dina.
Now let's move on to important things.
It's not the Torah.
In this case, that's being sexist.
It's the way girls were viewed.
It's being accurate to the way it was.
Which was sexist.
Yeah, it's exactly obvious.
That was my point.
But I just wanted to point it out to you about how dramatic it is.
It's almost as if the Torah is making it glaringly obvious.
And he was born and for this reason and they were so grateful.
And then he was born and they were so grateful and that's why he got the name.
And then they had a daughter named Dina.
But it's exactly how it's written.
That's the point.
I really believe it's the Torah's way of even making it starker.
This is the way they thought in those days.
The Torah has a different view of the woman, I think, from.
Jacob's Sheep Strategies00:15:48
She conceived and bore a son and said, God has taken away my disgrace.
So she named him Joseph.
Now, Joseph comes from two things, which is to say, may the Lord add another son for me.
Yosef in Hebrew literally means will add.
But also, it has to do with Asaf, which is took away from the took away the shame.
So there are two reasons for the Yosef, but specifically that the Lord would add another son to me.
So Rachel's room is opened by whom?
God, not mandrakes.
Critical, and just one of those subtexts that is stated here.
Verse 25.
After Rachel had born Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, Give me leave to go back to my own homeland.
Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, that I may go, for well you know what services I have rendered you.
Now, it's a very complex issue.
Who did who belong to?
You would think that he married the daughters, that they were now his wives, they belonged to him.
So, this is a complex area which I won't get into, but those of you interested will read up about ancient Near Eastern societal laws about who belonged, how did you, in fact, acquire a wife, really become yours, and the children yours, or when did, in fact, everybody stay belonging to the father, even if you married, because he is still considered a stranger.
He is not a local.
And apparently, that differentiated, as you will see, the laws over who belonged to whom.
So, he's going to go, right?
Give me my wives, my children, and I served you well, and you know well how I've served you.
But Laban said to him, If you will indulge me, I've learned by divination that God has blessed me on your account.
Okay.
I have prospered.
Yes.
Okay.
One more, one thing on 27.
Okay.
In other words, I know that it's on.
That it's by God that I have prospered on your account.
And he continued, Laban, Name the wages due for me, and I will pay you.
But he said, You know well how I've served you, this is Jacob, and how your livestock has fared with me.
For the little you had before I came has grown to a lot, since God has blessed you wherever I turned.
And now, when shall I make provision for my own household?
Okay, I've done great by you, Laban.
You got rich thanks to me.
Now I've got to worry about my own house and family.
He's growing up, as it were, Jacob.
It's part of the narrative here.
And Laban said, He said, What shall I pay you?
And Jacob said, Pay me nothing.
Okay, that's noble.
He's getting a little, he's developing, Jacob.
Pay me nothing.
Just do this one thing for me, I will again pasture and keep your flocks.
Let me pass through your whole flock today, removing from there every speckled. and spotted animal.
Every dark colored sheep and every spotted and speckled goat.
That will be my wages.
Those were very rare.
So he's purposely saying, I'll just take a handful.
You understand?
That's very rare what he described.
In the future, when you go over my wages, let my honesty toward you testify for me.
If there are among my goats any that are not speckled or spotted, or any sheep that are not dark colored, They got there by theft.
So you will know exactly what I have taken.
This small number of colored animals.
And Laban said, Very well, let it be as you say.
Verse 35.
But the same day Laban removed the streaked and spotted he goats and all the speckled and spotted she goats, everyone that had white in it.
This is a Torah joke.
I know you're not all laughing, but it is a Torah joke.
The word Laban in Hebrew is lavan.
Laban means white.
It's just a play on words, and that's all.
And all the dark colored sheep, and left them in the charge of his sons.
And he put a distance of three days' journey between himself and Jacob.
He's a real slimy character, Laban, right?
I mean, from the beginning.
And you have to understand that there are cultures, I won't name any, nor is it important to identify one, but where tricking and chicanery is part of life.
It's just the way you dealt with things.
And Laban is part of it.
And it's not a good thing.
And we don't want Jacob, our patriarch, to be part of it.
That's why the Torah is not happy with his tricks, even if necessary.
He put a distance of three days' journey between himself and Jacob while Jacob was pasturing the rest of Laban's flock.
You get that?
Jacob is working on Laban's flock and he flees with Jacob's flock.
Jacob then got fresh shoots of poplar.
This took me so long to work through.
This stuff is very complex.
What one thing has to do with anything else?
Also, my knowledge of shoots of poplar is very minimal, very minimal.
So, but basically I'll explain after I read it.
And of almond and plain, and peeled white stripes in them, laying bare the white of the shoots.
The rods that he had peeled, he set up in front of the goats in the troughs, the water receptacles that the goats come to drink from.
Their mating occurred when they came to drink, and since the goats mated by the rods, the goats brought forth streaked, speckled, and spotted young.
Which I'm sure you all understand completely because the color of the rods by which animals mate determines the color of their animals.
This was what they used to believe.
After all the research I did, that's what it is.
They would actually believe that there was an effect by the environment that affected the animal's progeny.
Okay?
And let's see.
Yep.
I won't read you the details on that.
Let's see.
40.
But Jacob dealt separately with the sheep.
He made these animals face the streaked or holy dark colored animals in Laban's flock.
And so he produced special flocks for himself, which he did not put with Laban's flocks.
By the way, there is another interesting dilemma in all of this.
The number of sentences devoted to rods and flocks and he goats and she goats is quite substantial.
There are more sentences on this than on the creation of the world.
And you really do wonder.
I don't have an answer to that.
But I do acknowledge that I wonder too.
The only thing that comes to mind is that we have here stories that meant a great deal.
It's not an abstract book, the Torah.
It is a compilation of many things, including the stories of the origins of the Jews.
Why Neptune is invented is not as interesting as to how your own people got started.
And that's in effect what is being said here.
I would prefer more on the creation of the world and the he-goats and she-goats.
of Laban and Jacob, I acknowledge.
But do understand that this is the nitty gritty of life.
Most of us live, not most, all of us, we all live with the details of life, not with why was the world created.
You get to do that after you got through the daily details, which for most of us are so enervating that you want to fall asleep.
It is the nitty gritty of life, after all.
It's the details that preoccupy us, the trivial details.
Or, as the statement used to go, God is in the details.
So I'm just saying, I wish this weren't so, but I understand why it is so.
Anyway, also, it does build up the notion of the authenticity.
That I will say.
These things had to be written contemporaneously.
These ideas we now only know from archaeology are what people used to think and how people used to live.
If nothing else, at least it gives you the truth of the antiquity of the Torah.
Okay?
Which is not moreover, when the sturdier animals were mating, Jacob would place the rods in the trunks in full view of the animals, again, so that they mated by the rods.
But with the feebler animals, he would not place them there.
Thus, the feeble ones went to Laban, and the sturdy went to Jacob.
But very important, you will note in the next chapter, it's not because of the rods, it's because of God.
Okay?
So the man grew exceedingly prosperous.
In other words, even with the miserable deal that Laban made with him, Still, Jacob grew prosperous.
And why?
God.
Okay?
He grew exceedingly prosperous and came to own large flocks, maid servants and men servants, camels and asses.
That is a rich man.
Chapter 31.
Now he heard the things that Laban's sons were saying.
Jacob has taken all that was our father's.
He got rich and they blame him for taking away.
It sounds like members of a certain political party in America.
but I don't want to get political, that when people get rich it must only be because they took away from others.
Jacob has taken all that was our fathers, and from that which was our fathers he has built up all this wealth.
Jacob also saw that Laban's manner toward him was not as it had been in the past, which wasn't too positive in the past, so you can only imagine what it is now.
Then the Lord said to Jacob, Return to the land of your fathers where you were born, and I will be with you.
It's time for you to move on, just like he had told Abraham it was time for you to move on.
And this is very interesting.
Jacob called for Rachel and Leah to the field where his flock was and said to them, Why is it interesting?
The first thing he did after God's announcement was consult with his wives.
Okay?
I think it's a nice thing.
Of course, it does say Rachel first because that's who we cared about more.
It was not in order of age and it was not in order of marriage, it was in order of love.
He called to Rachel and Leah, and he said to them, verse 5, I see that your father's matter to me is not as it's been in the past, but the God of my father has been with me.
Now, this is the way in which he refers to God.
Because remember, where did Leah and Rachel grow up?
With a pagan named Laban.
And gods were localized then.
Rachel and Leah don't really know about the God of the heavens and the earth.
By the way, I'm not even certain that at this time Jacob does.
It still may be a God who is very localized.
It's the God of my father.
It's still this somewhat, what is the, a clannish view of God or clan based.
The God of my father has been with me.
Verse 6.
As you know, I've served your father with all my might.
But your father has cheated me, changing my wages time and again.
God, however, would not let him do me harm.
If he said thus, the speckled will be your wages, then all the flocks would drop speckled young.
You get it?
Now it's not the rods.
God made sure whatever Laban would say was Jacob's, those would be the ones born.
And Jacob is only saying, and this is important, he's attributing all of his wealth to God.
So if Laban had said, if your father had said, speckled will be your wages, All the flocks would have dropped speckled young.
And if he said, the street shall be your wages, then all the flocks would drop street young.
God has taken away your father's livestock and given it to me.
God has.
Not rods, not me.
Once at the mating time of the flocks, I had a dream.
He's continuing now, talking to his wives.
That the he-goats mating with the flock were streaked, speckled, and mottled.
And in the dream, an angel of God said to me, Jacob, here I answered.
And he said, Note well that all the he-goats which are mating with the flock are streaked, speckled, and mottled.
For I have noted all that Laban has been doing to you.
I am the God of Bethel.
You remember Bethel where he put the rock under his head and made a little altar, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me.
Now arise and leave this land and return to your native land.
So Rachel responds to all of this, and she says, excuse me, Rachel and Leah answered him saying, Where is he?
Where's Laban's hand?
I'm sorry?
It's not in Israel at this time.
No, no, it was in Padan Aram outside.
Yes.
I should bring you a map one time to show you where they have traversed.
I'll try to remember that.
Then Rachel and Leah answered him, saying, Have we still a share in the inheritance of our Father's house?
Surely he regards us as outsiders.
Now that he has sold us and has used up our purchased price, truly all the wealth that God has taken away from our Father belongs to us and to our children.
Now, so do just as God has told you.
All right?
She realizes, the girls realize that we don't have status in our father's house anymore.
We are like outsiders like you are.
Remember I told you that?
What is their status?
They're saying we are outsiders and the money for bride and everything he has taken and he has spent and so on.
So do what God has told you.
The wives are totally supportive of leaving the father.
That's very important.
Because he is going to charge Jacob with stealing the girls.
Girls.
I don't even know how old they are, but they're not girls.
But to him, I mean his daughter girls.
Verse 17.
Thereupon Jacob put his children and wives on camels, and he drove off all his livestock and all the wealth that he had amassed, the livestock and his possession that he had acquired in Padanaram, to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan.
Stealing Household Idols00:15:01
19.
Meanwhile, Laban had gone to share his sheep and Rachel stole her father's household idols.
This is an interesting thing here.
Why do you think Rachel stole her father's idols?
She didn't believe in God.
She was concerned about what he did.
There are two basic possible answers, I think.
One is that.
She believed in them and wanted them, that they would give her good luck on the trip.
That's right, she grew up with it, exactly.
And I don't have any problem with believing that.
But to give you a very interesting idea about how we often will explain text in the light of what we want to believe, Rashi, the most famous Jewish commentator of all, medieval French rabbi, His answer was, his explanation was to wean her father away from idol worship.
I know.
Rashi always wanted to believe the nicest things about all the patriarchs and matriarchs.
But I don't find that a compelling explanation, frankly.
Yes, this is a very good question.
She said that God took away her disgrace, so doesn't it mean that she believed in God?
There are, right, exactly.
There are two separate issues.
Do you believe in God or do you believe in God alone?
Hebrew monotheism is exclusive.
It's not just that you believe in God, you only believe in God or believe in God only.
Jewish monotheism is not just this is your God, but there are others.
This is your God, and there are none others.
So it's very possible, you're right, she believed in the God of Jacob and the God of Jacob's father Isaac and in the little idols that her father had kept around.
And it's not that uncommon.
I am sure that there are people in this room who believe in God.
And also, we'll take a charm on a trip.
Or we'll do something superstitious.
But that's a good example.
You know, you can laugh at Rachel and the little idols, but do we not have our own little compromises with God's sovereignty, as it were?
Not as it were, as it is.
Let me read to you now, page 214 in Plout, on Rachel's theft.
Rachel's theft of the household idols.
Well, let me, you know what, let me read to you about his concern.
No, I'll read you the thing.
Rachel's theft of the household idols, Laban's angry concern, which we'll read about, and Jacob's extravagant denial, which we'll read about, all point to the great importance that ancient man attached to these objects.
They were figurines, usually small and in the shape of men.
We know they're small because she sat on them to hide them, as you'll see in the chapter.
Their use in Israel continued into the days of the judges and the prophets.
Josephus reported that even in his day, first century, It was the custom, quote, among all the people in that country to have objects of worship in their house and to take them along when going abroad.
Rachel, therefore, may have felt it necessary to take household deities along on her journey and decided to appropriate her father's idols.
By doing this, however, she left him without proper protection, hence his great anger.
Another interpretation is a legal one, but I don't find that compelling, so I'll read you that.
We have already learned, this is Plout writing, we have already learned of Rachel's consideration and charm at the time of her first meeting with Jacob, of her agony over her long barrenness, her jealousy over her sister's good fortune, and of her attempt to utilize aphrodisiacs.
Right?
We now see her to be an independent woman.
With the rift between Laban and Jacob widening, she took the lead over her sister.
In siding with her husband instead of her father.
And in the moment of parting, it was she again who was stirred to decisive action.
However, her impetuousness caused Jacob to make an extreme and tragic oath, which we are coming to.
It gets very dramatic now, or more dramatic than with the spotted he goats.
In fact, anything compared to that will be dramatic.
So she, this is in.
19 That she stole her father's little idols.
20.
Jacob kept Laban the Aramaean in the dark, not telling him that he was fleeing.
And fled.
By the way, it's very interesting the Hebrew words.
She stole his idols, uses the word ganav.
Some of you who don't know Hebrew but know Yiddish know ganav.
Comes from the Hebrew ganav, which is, by the way, the eighth commandment.
Do not steal.
It's the same word.
Lotignov.
So, Vatignov Rachel.
Rachel stole the idols.
20.
Jacob stole Laban's heart.
They both did stealing.
That's what the Torah is saying.
To steal heart means to trick.
Okay?
It said, kept Laban in the dark.
I'm sure some of you have different ones.
But whatever it is, it's fooled him, kept it from him.
But I just wanted you to see the play on words.
She stole idols, he stole heart.
Jacob kept Laban in dark, not telling him he was fleeing, and fled with all that he had.
Soon he was across the Euphrates and heading toward the hill country of Gilead.
On the third day, Laban was told that Jacob had fled.
The reason he didn't know for three days, apparently, shearing sheep is a very long and difficult process.
And if you recall from 19, that's where Laban had gone.
On the third day, Laban was told that Jacob had fled.
So he took his kinsmen with him and pursued him a distance of seven days, catching up with him in the hill country of Gilad.
But God appeared to Laban the Aramean in a dream by night.
Remember God helping out Abraham in a dream with the king, Abi Melech, and said to him, beware of attempting anything with Jacob, good or bad.
Actually, literally, from good to bad, meaning anything.
That's really what it means.
Just don't mess with him at all.
Period.
Laban overtook Jacob.
Jacob had pitched his tent on the height, and Laban and his kinsmen encamped in the hill country of Gilad.
And Laban said to Jacob, What did you mean by keeping me in the dark and carrying off my daughters like captives of the sword?
Which is an absolute lie.
He did not steal the daughters.
The daughters, that's why it was important to get earlier that they said, We want to go with you.
Okay?
Why did you flee?
27 Why did you flee in secrecy and mislead me and not tell me?
This is hilarious now.
I would have sent you off with festive music, with timbrel and lyre.
Is that a riot?
He would have had an orchestra sending him off if only he had told him.
You know what?
The only question I would ask if I were Jacob is, do you believe your lies?
I mean, sometimes you meet people who lie so much, you really start wondering, do they know they're lying?
Did he really believe, hey, if you'd only told me, I'd have had a 20-piece orchestra to send you off?
And it is really a riot, what he says here.
You didn't even kiss my sons and daughters goodbye.
It was a foolish thing for you to do.
I have it in my power to do you harm.
But the God of your father, that's the one who came to me.
I don't recognize him, but you do.
And I honor that.
In the pagan world, they honored you.
There was one thing they did have in the pagan world was great tolerance.
Judaism is not tolerant of other gods.
Paganism was.
You have your gods, I have my gods.
When the Jews came and said there's only one God for everybody, this was the start of, among other things, Jew hatred.
In fact, I wrote a whole book just on that theme that this is the ultimate cause of anti-Semitism.
The massive intolerance of the Jewish view that there's only one God for everybody.
In the pagan world, a real toleration existed.
Hey, you got your God, I got my God.
And I won't tell you who to worship.
You don't tell me who to worship.
But of course, if we conquer you, our God is clearly the stronger one.
What the Jews were saying was even more amazing.
Even when we Jews are conquered, your God is not God, which drove their conquerors to distraction.
That was unbelievable arrogance.
So the God of your father said to me last night, Beware of attempting anything with Jacob, good or bad.
Very well, you had to leave because you were longing for your father's house.
But why did you steal my gods?
Oof.
Jacob answered Laban saying, He answered two things, right?
There were two questions.
Why'd you leave in secrecy and why'd you steal my gods?
Answer to number one I was afraid because I thought you would take your daughters from me by force.
Answer number two But anyone with whom you find your gods shall not remain alive.
Ladies and gentlemen, never.
Make these sorts of pronouncements.
Okay?
What you do is answer the truth.
I didn't, and I can't believe anybody else did, but I can only tell you I didn't.
But this is a little too much.
Anyone with whom you find your God shall not remain alive.
Can you imagine what Rachel felt when she heard this?
In the presence of our kinsmen, point out what I have of yours and take it.
Jacob, of course, did not know that Rachel had stolen them.
So Laban went into Jacob's tent.
Now, that is incredible.
He didn't believe Jacob.
One of the more charming traits.
Cheaters is that they think everybody else cheats.
That, by the way, I have always believed is the built in punishment of liars that they don't believe anybody else and they walk through life constantly thinking they're being lied to.
It is a miserable way to live.
I much rather be cheated occasionally than think everybody is cheating me all the time.
But I have seen this, I have seen it.
I am thinking of one case.
And this man was a very deceptive businessman and was absolutely certain that everybody else was trying to be deceptive with him.
And it was a very unhappy way to lead a life.
This is Laban.
He doesn't even believe.
Jacob says they should die if anybody took him.
And he goes to Jacob's tent and then Leah's tent and the tents of the two maidservants.
But he didn't find them.
Leaving Leah's tent, he entered Rachel's tent.
I assume, by the way, this is interesting, that Laban had this order because he would have thought who was most likely to steal it and presumed Rachel last.
You always start looking where you first think something will be.
So it shows what he thought of Jacob, which is interesting unto itself.
He entered Rachel's tent.
Rachel, meanwhile, had taken the idols and placed them in the camel cushion.
and sat on them.
And Laban rummaged through the tent without finding them.
Because she said to her father, Let not my lord take it amiss that I cannot rise before you, for the period of women is upon me.
Thus he searched but could not find the household idols.
So at least at this point menstruation, or faking menstruation, saved her life.
What does menstruation, though, have to do with this is a very interesting little thing, too.
The, let's see, why didn't Laban say, okay, so when you get up, I'll look in the camel cushion?
That's a theoretical answer.
I mean, a woman menstruating in ancient times did not sit in the same spot the entire period.
I mean, that is an assumption I think it's fair to.
To draw.
But the reason is menstruation was considered an impurity.
And so it would have been impossible in Laban's mind to imagine that she'd menstruate on her gods.
That's the point.
That's why this is important.
She could have made up, oh, I have a broken leg.
If the issue was not standing up, then she could have done any disease.
But the menstruation has a very important point here.
Menstruation as Impurity00:05:51
If nobody would menstruate on a god, it's just you don't do that.
So the point here, too, then, therefore, is that she doesn't believe in them.
Or that's the assumption.
or made it up, really wasn't menstruating, used as an excuse, but if she's using it as an excuse, it might be tough for her to do because if she believed it would impurify a god, even maybe to say it.
So we don't know.
I can't say for sure she didn't believe in the gods.
A lot of later commentaries say that this was her way of saying, I don't believe in those gods, I even menstruate on them.
But of course, then why would she take them?
Maybe she took them just as amulets and not as gods.
Who knows?
I don't know the answer.
Or maybe it's just the obvious what I said.
It's a great excuse to get him not to look, but she still believes in them.
Right?
That is possible.
But now at least you understand why she used that excuse and not a broken leg, let's say.
So we go on to 36.
Now Laban became incensed and took up his grievance.
Excuse me.
Jacob became incensed.
Finally.
He finally got incensed.
After 20 years, right?
By the way, oh, one thing I noted, and I don't know what it means, if anything, but notice that Rachel called her father my Lord, not my father.
Now, if that was the traditional practice, I don't know, but I found that interesting.
It strikes me as a very formal greeting of a daughter to a father, and the estrangement may have been very, very obvious by that title.
I'm just throwing that out as a possibility.
So Jacob became incensed, took up his grievance with Laban.
Jacob spoke up and said to Laban, What is my crime?
What is my guilt that you should pursue me?
In other words, look, even search my tent.
You rummage through all my things.
That's what really incensed him.
Okay, you look at the people around, but I told you I didn't steal it.
After all the honesty I have shown to you all these years for you not to believe me, now I am incensed.
This was the last straw.
What have you found of all your household objects?
Set it here before my kinsmen and yours and let them decide between us two.
These twenty years I spent in your service, your ewes and she-goats never miscarried, nor did I feast on rams from your flock.
That which was torn by beasts I never brought to you.
I myself made good the loss.
You exacted it of me, whether snatched by day or snatched by night.
Often scorching heat ravaged me by day and frost by night, and sleep fled from my eyes.
Of the twenty years that I spent in your household, I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, and you changed my wages time and again.
Had not the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac been with me, you would have sent me away empty-handed.
But God took notice of my plight and the toil of my hands, and he gave judgment last night.
Then Laban spoke up and said to Jacob, The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks.
All that you see is mine, yet what can I do now about my daughters or the children they have born?
In other words, it's clear they want to go with you.
It is all mine, but they obviously want to go with you.
That and God wants it too.
It's not absolutely clear which is the more powerful factor.
Come then, let's make a pact, you and I, that there may be a witness between you and me.
Thereupon Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar, and Jacob said to his kinsmen, Gather stones.
So they took stones and made a mound and they partook of a meal there by the mound.
Laban named it Yegar Sahadutah and Jacob called it Gal-ed.
Laban declared this mount as a witness between you and me this day.
That is why it was named Gal-ed.
Eid is witness, Gal is rock.
And it was called Mitzpah because he said, may the Lord watch, it's from the same root, between you and me when we are out of sight of each other.
If you ill-treat my daughters or take other wives besides my daughters, though no one else be about, remember God himself will be witness between you and me.
I think that's the most decent thing Laban has done, the only decent thing in the entire thing.
Even with all that, he was still a father caring about his daughters.
Don't take another wife and don't ill-treat them.
God will watch you, even though I won't be there to watch you.
And Laban said to Jacob, Here is this mound, and here the pillar which I have set up between you and me.
This mound shall be witness and this pillar shall be witness that I am not to cross to you past this mound and you are not to cross to me past this mound and this pillar with hostile intent.
May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, their ancestral deities, judge between us.
And Jacob swore by the fear of his father Isaac.
Jacob then offered up a sacrifice on the height and invited his kinsmen to partake of the meal.
After the meal, They spent the night on the height.
Chapters 31 and 32.
I thank you.
See you next time.
On tomorrow's Sunday Fireside Chat.
Sacrifice and Future Fear00:01:14
Fear in most people is the dominant emotion.
And I see that happening.
There are people I know, really wonderful people, who have stayed indoors for more than a year.
And that, of course, was induced entirely by fear.
Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
This has been Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
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