November 20th: Toldot
THIS WEEK IN THE TORAH
Rabbi David E. Ostrich
All stories or reports, even in the Bible, are edited by the narrator. Even if we are talking about the Narrator (God), there is a certain amount of selection involved in choosing which details to include and which details to omit. In other words, when one thinks about the myriad details of a human life and the relatively few specifics included in the Torah’s account, there must have been a lot in the lives of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs that we simply do not know. Though we have many and important stories, giants swaths of their lives and experiences are simply untold. Every once in a while, however, a little hint pops up that suggests a hitherto unknown aspect of their ancient lives.
A case in point comes in our Torah portion this week, as we read about Isaac’s and Rebekah’s twenty year struggle with infertility. “Isaac was forty years old when he took to wife Rebekah, daughter of Bethuel the Aramean of Padan-aram, sister of Laban the Aramean. Isaac pleaded with the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and the Lord responded to his plea, and his wife Rebekah conceived.”
This is all wonderful, but the pregnancy does not go well.
“But the children struggled in her womb, and she said, ‘If so, why do I exist?’ She went to inquire of the Lord, and the Lord answered her.
‘Two nations are in your womb,
Two separate peoples shall issue from your body;
One people shall be mightier than the other,
And the older shall serve the younger.’
Ultimately, she is able to carry the pregnancy to term.
“When her time to give birth was at hand, there were twins in her womb. The first one emerged red, like a hairy mantle all over; so they named him Esau. Then his brother emerged, holding on to the heel of Esau; so they named him Jacob. Isaac was sixty years old when they were born.” (Genesis 25.20-27)
There is a lot to think about in this paragraph—most importantly the contentious nature of the twins’ relationship. However, I want to focus on that almost skippable mention of the unnamed place where Rebekah goes “to inquire of the Lord.” It could simply mean that she prays and gets an answer, but the passage suggests something else: that there is a particular place where people can go to communicate with God, and that there is someone there who effects the oracle.
I am not the first reader to wonder about this. In fact the ancient Rabbis worked their Midrashic skills to give us an answer. Rebekah, they explain, goes to Jerusalem—then called Salem or Moriah. It is the home of a religious academy—a yeshiva, as it were—where Shem and Eber teach ancients the ways of God. Shem is Noah’s son, and, in his 600 years (Genesis 11.10-11), he lives to see many generations of his descendants, including Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Eber is Shem’s great-grandson (Noah’s great-great grandson), and, in his 464 years (Genesis 11.16-17), he also gets to see many, many generations of his descendants. Some ancient scholar added up all the years and used this curious fact to construct an important lesson. No one gets to be a spiritual master spontaneously; he must be trained; he must study. So, the legend developed where these ancestors of Abraham run a religious institution at the future site of the Temple—a religious place where the pious of the time go to study, and where people can commune with the Divine.
This could have been the unnamed place where Rebekah “went to inquire of the Lord,” though, without the Midrashic treatment, one can imagine other possibilities. There were and are in the world certain places known for their spirituality. Often these are associated with a particular religion, but some are open to all. In Morocco, both Jews and Muslims visit the graves of spiritual masters of both faiths, hoping to commune with the great spirits and get guidance from Above. In ancient Greece, there was the Oracle of Delphi, and, throughout India, Iran, Tibet, etc., there are places where people go for an extra intense spiritual experience. Perhaps one of these places is accessible to Rebekah and with interpreters to help with her query.
The Tradition is uncomfortable with our pious ancestors accessing any non-Jewish sources, and thus it assumes that everyone is 100% Jewish from the very beginning. We know, however, that Abram and Sarai begin their lives as Aramean idolators, and we know that Rebekah and later Leah and Rachel also begin their lives as Aramean idolators. When the “conversion to Judaism” takes place—and the length of time such a transition requires—is not part of the Biblical narrative. In other words, it should not come as a surprise that they may retain remnants of the attitudes or practices that they learned as children.
Clearly, we have only speculation—because the Biblical Narrator/narrator leaves out details of the Judaization process. However, the logic of a gradual transformation in a gradually developing “Judaism” makes sense. Even as late as the Talmudic Period, our religion is clearly undergoing a developmental process as the Rabbis derive and apply Divine principles to earthly and communal life. Why would this not be happening at the very beginning of our faith? And, could not this unnamed place where Rebekah goes “to inquire of the Lord,” be part of her pre-Jewish spiritual world?
The modern author, Anita Diamant, thinks in these terms in her 1997 novel, The Red Tent, a “behind the scenes” look at the life of the Matriarchs. She speculates about the gradual process of Judaizing—and how some pre-Jewish rituals and practices hang on. It is all speculation, though she does see a variety of hints in various passages in Genesis and uses them to construct a modern Midrash. Her point—and mine—is that the entirety of history is not included in the Torah’s narrative, and we are left to wonder about the broader religious views, practices, and experiences of our ancient forebears.