In this week’s parshah, Sara Imeinu has just passed away and Avraham Avinu concerns himself with finding a wife for Yitzchak. He summons Eliezer, his faithful servant, and tells him to travel to Haran and find a suitable girl there. Eliezer at first protests that “perhaps” the prospective bride will not wish to return to Eretz Canaan with him and asks whether, in that case, he should take Yitzchak to Haran to marry and settle there. Avraham rejects this idea and Eliezer sets off and eventually finds Rivka, Besuel’s daughter. There, when recounting Avraham’s instructions, he repeats his doubts regarding her wish to accompany him back.
Rashi notes an interesting discrepancy between the spelling used for “perhaps” - אולי - in this account of Avraham’s instructions and the original request made by Avraham. When Eliezer first expresses his doubts to Avraham, the word אולי is written with a “vav” (the usual spelling) but when Eliezer repeats the instruction to Besuel, it’s written אלי without the “vav,” which can also be translated as “to me.” Rashi writes that this revealed Eliezer’s hidden hope that the girl will not want to return home with him — because he wanted his own daughter to marry Yitzchak.
It remains difficult to understand why “perhaps” was not spelled in a way that revealed Eliezer’s true intentions before he set out to Haran. The Kotzker Rebbe ztz”l explains that at first, Eliezer was not aware of his subconscious bias. He didn’t know why he was expressing doubts regarding the journey to find a kallah for Yitzchak; he considered himself a loyal servant. However, once Avraham made it clear to him that there was no question of his daughter marrying Yitzchak and his own wishes were no longer relevant, he became aware of his initial motives.
Becoming aware of one’s subconscious desires is not easy. It’s only natural for a person to be biased toward his own interests — the problems start when we don’t realize we are, and try to explain away our feelings with rational-sounding explanations. When we fool only ourselves, it’s bad enough — when we impose our feelings on others and justify them too, without even being aware of what the real issue is, problems tend to get bigger rather than go away. It’s hard to resolve issues we aren’t aware of or won’t admit to.
