The Dudaim: Friendship Between Sisters

In Parshat Veyetze, Rachel asks Leah to share with her some of the duda’im plants that Leah’s son, Reuven, had brought her.  Leah’s response to her sister’s request seems startling: “Is it not enough that you took my husband, that you shall also take my son’s duda’im?!” (30:15).  How could Leah have had the gall to accuse Rachel of “taking her husband?"  After all, Rachel was the woman Yaakov desired to marry, and it was only a result of her father’s shameless ruse – in which Leah seems to have been an active and cooperative participant – that he mistakenly married Leah.  How can we explain Leah’s accusation against Rachel?

            Today we will present two novel and unconventional approaches to understanding this verse.

            Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, in his commentary, takes the classical commentators to task for treating this entire episode of the duda’im too seriously:

This business of the mandrakes has again and again been taken by commentators in a serious vein.  But it is quite unthinkable that Leah, whose whole life was devoted to gain the complete love of her husband could possibly have uttered the words “You have got my man and now you want my bunch of flowers also” in any serious sense.  As if the possession of a few flowers could come into the very slightest consideration in connection with, or in comparison with, the possession of a beloved husband.

Rav Hirsch does not raise the question posed above – as to how Leah could have accused Rachel of taking her husband from her – but rather asks how Leah could have drawn any sort of comparison between being deprived of her husband’s affection and being deprived of flowers.  This question led Rav Hirsch to advance an entirely different reading of this episode.  Whereas this exchange between Leah and Rachel is generally understood as reflecting the tension and rivalry that characterized their relationship, Rav Hirsch understood that to the contrary, it demonstrates the remarkable congeniality that existed between the two sisters.  He writes:

Rather, the whole matter appears as an instance to show a state of the two sisters living together in the most confidential intimacy.  While Jacob is out in the fields the two wives sit together.  His evenings he spends alternatively with each one of them.  Reuben…brings some wild flowers home to his mother.  “Give me some of them” says Rachel.  “What sauce to ask for my precious flowers, etc.” says Leah jokingly, but of course she gives her some… “Now” says Rachel, “because you have been so kind, he shall come to you this evening…. Last evening you have had my husband etc.”

According to Rav Hirsch, Rachel and Leah’s remarks to each other in this instance were said in lighthearted humor.  That night was in any event Leah’s turn with Yaakov, and the two sisters joked together of how they share everything – their husband, their flowers, and so on.  Leah did not accuse Rachel of taking her husband.  Rather, she lightheartedly quipped, “Well, we share a husband – so I guess we can share flowers, too…”

            A much different – but equally unconventional – explanation of Leah’s remarks is cited in the name of Rav Shalom Schwadron.  (This approach is cited and developed by Rav Asher Brander athttp://www.kehilla.org/parsha-reflections-1/vayetzei-5769-the-power-of-hidden-love.)  This approach claims, surprisingly enough, that Leah never knew that Yaakov was supposed to marry Rachel.  Lavan arranged for Rachel’s marriage to Yaakov privately, and secretly, and throughout the seven years of Yaakov’s service for Rachel’s hand, nobody other than these three – Lavan, Yaakov and Rachel – was aware of the agreement.  Thus, when Lavan approached Leah and informed her that she would marry Yaakov, she had no knowledge of any scheme.  She innocently assumed that this was being done with Yaakov’s wholehearted consent.