Why We Fall In Love With Rachel Rachel was beautiful. Rachel was Beloved. Rachel’s children, Joseph and Benjamin, represent inner serenity, spirituality and righteousness. Jacob loved Rachel, he worked seven years, and then, after he was tricked into marrying her sister Leah, another seven years, for the right to marry her. Leah, by contrast, was not as beautiful. [“Leah's eyes were tender”; Rashi explains: “Tender. Because she expected to fall into Esau’s lot, and she wept”.] Leah was not as beloved. [“and he {Jacob} also loved Rachel more than Leah”. Leah’s children were less than perfect. [They kidnapped their brother Joseph and sold him as a slave. Their father described Simon and Levi as “Cursed be their wrath for it is mighty, and their anger because it is harsh”.] But, surprisingly perhaps, it was Leah who gave birth to the most children and established six of the twelve tribes of Israel. It was Leah who merited to be buried with Jacob in the family plot, in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron; as opposed to Rachel who was buried on the side of the road, on the way to Beit Lechem. Like Jacob, we too fall in love with Rachel. We want peace, serenity, and a tension free life. Like Jacob, we too experience both the beauty of “Rachel” as well as the challenges of “Leah”. Like Jacob, we learn that growth and greatness comes not from perfection but from growing from the challenges. Not from innocence but from correcting mistakes. Like Jacob we learn that what G-d values more than righteousness is the effort and growth that emerges from overcoming the darkness of challenges and ultimately transforming them to light.
It was Leah’s children who became the leaders of the Jewish people, the monarchy from Judah, and the priesthood from Levi.
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