Sometimes, even being in second (or third or fourth) place is also vital to the health of the enterprise. Not everyone can stand on center stage. (It would get too crowded!)
Vayetze Yaakov miBeer Sheva vayeilech Charana, And Yaakov left Beer Sheva and went to Charan. Such simple words! Even a second-grade child can manage them with no difficulty. But this long, twenty-year saga at the house of Lavan is replete with torturous paths, and is seminal to the birth of the Jewish nation. It is here that Yaakov lays the foundations for the House of Israel.
He marries Leah and Rachel (in the wrong order!) and their two handmaidens (their half-sisters), and fathers eleven sons. (Binyamin, of course, would be born in Eretz Yisrael.) Although second to be married, Rachel was the prominent and chosen wife, and remained, until her death, the most beloved. She is considered the Mother of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
The Torah touches upon many basic human emotions in this saga of the two sisters. Love, hatred, jealousy, sorrow, gratitude. How do we deal with them?
Out of a feeling of love, responsibility, and the desire not to see her sister humiliated, Rachel was willing to give Leah her place at the chuppah. Her nobility and willingness to sacrifice is the symbol and motif of her righteousness throughout the ages. But what happened in this family as a result of this “switching places,” this act of righteousness?
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