Parashat Chayei-Sara tells of the marriage of Yitzchak and Rivka. Rashi, in the beginning of Parashat Toledot (25:20), famously cites the comment of the Seder Olam Rabba that Rivka was all of three years old when she married Yitzchak. The exegetical basis of this startling theory is the series of verses that follows the account of akeidat Yitzchak(22:20-24), which tells that Avraham learned of the birth of his brother’s children and grandchildren. The list of Avraham’s brother’s offspring concludes with Rivka, and according to the Seder Olam Rabba, this list appears after the narrative of akeidat Yitzchak because Rivka was born at the time of the akeida. The Seder Olam Rabba further claims that Sara died immediately following the akeida, and as she died at the age of 127 (23:1), and Yitzchak was born when she was ninety (17:17), Yitzchak was thirty-seven years old at the time of the akeida, which is when Rivka was born. And since Yitzchak was forty years old when he was married (25:20), Rivka must have been three years old.
The assertion that Rivka was three years of age at the time of her marriage is, of course, baffling. Besides the obvious difficulty envisioning a three-year-old entering marriage, and a forty-year-old man finding such a relationship fulfilling (as the Torah says about Yitzchak – 24:67), the Torah describes Rivka drawing water from a well for Avraham’s servant and his ten camels. She speaks to the servant respectfully and offers him and his men lodging, behavior that does not seem possible for even the most gifted and precocious three-year-old.
Indeed, other opinions exist in Midrashic literature. The Sifrei, cited by Tosefot in Masekhet Yevamot (61b), writes that Rivka lived to the same age as Levi’s son Kehat, who, as we know from Sefer Shemot (6:18), lived to the age of 133. Tosefot cite Rabbi Shmuel Chasid as calculating that according to this view, Rivka must have fourteen when she married Yitzhak, and this is, in fact, the view of the Seder Olam Rabba according to the textual emendations of the Vilna Gaon. The Gemara there in Yevamot seems to present yet a third view, claiming that the term na’ara (“maiden” or “young girl”) used repeatedly in reference to Rivka in Parashat Chayei-Sara means “na’ara” in the halakhic sense – a girl before her twelfth birthday. The Tosefot Yeshanim indeed comments that there appear to be several different opinions in the Midrashim regarding Rivka’s age at the time of her marriage to Yitzchak.
Still, the question remains as to how we might explain the view that Rivka was three years old. How could such a claim be made? Is it conceivable that she was truly angelic, and not human?
Dr Yisrael Rosenson boldly suggests that this view should not be taken literally. Chazal here do not actually mean that Rivka was three years old, and wish instead to underscore her quality of pure innocence. The image of a three-year-old conjures associations of playfulness, trust, and unbridled joy that has yet to be tarnished by awareness of the harsh realities of life – and this is the image that our Sages sought to ascribe to our matriarch. As an adult, Rivka would be forced to use devious means for the sake of her family’s future, having Yaakov disguise himself as Esav to receive Yitzchak’s blessing. Possibly, the Sages used the image of a three-year-old girl to depict Rivka as a truly sincere and innocent woman. The scheme she initiated does not characterize her nature and essence. She was a woman as pure and innocent as a child, despite having been compelled to resort to devious tactics. Even if Rivka was not three years old at the time of her marriage, she brought into her marriage the innocence and simplicity of a young girl, and this is the association Chazal sought to develop, painting our matriarch’s image as one characterized by purity and piety, despite the difficult measures that she would have to take later in life.