And her brother and her mother said, "Let the maiden stay with us a year or ten [months]; afterwards she will go."
Bereishis 24:55
Rashi comments on the peculiarity that “her brother and mother” had made the statement and that her father, Besuel, was nowhere to be found. He explains:
And where was Besuel? He wanted to stop [Rivka’s marriage]; so an angel came and slew him.
Rashi, ibid.
G-d does not let anything get in the way of the match and executes Besuel when he attempts to stop it.
Another example of G-d’s direct involvement, is found when Eliezer asks Rivka to return with him. She immediately responds in the affirmative.
“Do not delay me, since the Lord has made my way prosper. Send me away, and I will go to my master.” And they said, “Let us call the maiden and ask her.” And they summoned Rivka, and they said to her, "Will you go with this man?" And she said, "I will go."
Bereishis 24:56-57
Rivka immediately acquiesced to journey with a man that she had met only a few moments before.
Why would a girl of three years old leave her parents’ house against their wishes, with a man that she had just met and knew nothing about?!
This is inexplicable unless understood as a G-dly interference—one which caused her to agree to the match without any cajoling on Eliezer’s part.
Why did Eliezer change his words?
If Avraham’s words had such deliberate meaning, describing G-d’s direct involvement in the mission—as expressed in the above-mentioned instances—why did Eliezer change those words? Why, when recounting Avraham’s instructions at Rivka’s home, did he say something that Avraham had not actually told him?
The reason though, is fairly simple. Saying that his success was guaranteed from the outset would not be something that would be befitting to tell Besuel, when asking for his consent to the match.
Were Besuel to have been told that his opinion did not really matter, and that the match would take place regardless of whether he was interested (as actually happened), he would have dismissed the entire conversation from the onset, as Eliezer would essentially be telling him that he does not need his input!
Eliezer therefore finessed Avraham’s words to make them palatable for Besuel to ingest. Instead of telling Besuel, “He will send His angel before you,” which would render Besuel irrelevant in the discussion of sending his daughter, he told him, “'The Lord...will send His angel with you.”
The connotation implied that though G-d’s assistance would definitely be present, it wasn’t a done deal from the start, and Besuel’s input was necessary.
Changing the order
Based on the understanding of the above, we can appreciate a second dissimilarity in Eliezer’s dialogue with Besuel to the way the event occurred:
Eliezer tells Besuel, “And I asked her, and I said, 'Whose daughter are you?' And she replied, 'The daughter of Besuel the son of Nachor, whom Milcah bore to him.' And I placed the nose ring on her nose and the bracelets on her hands.”
Instead of recounting the true order of these occurrences—where Eliezer had actually first given Rivka the many gifts, and only afterwards asked her about her lineage—he instead first tells Besuel that he asked Rivka about who she was, and then that he gave her the jewelry.
Eliezer had given Rivka the jewelry before he asked about her identity, being that he was certain that the Almighty assured the success of his mission from the onset, and that having fit the qualifications of his sign, she was indeed the destined bride.
However, when he repeated this to Besuel, he did not wish to tell him that he was already assured success, and therefore rearranged the sequence of the events.
True success
Though Eliezer may not have overtly expressed the success that Avraham had guaranteed him, he did manage to embed in his account, words that alluded to this assurance.
And I said to my master, “Perhaps the woman will not follow me?” And he said to me, “The Lord, before Whom I walked, will send His angel with you and make your way prosper, and you shall take a wife for my son from my family and from my father's house...” So I came today to the fountain, and I said, “O Lord, G-d of my master Avraham, if You desire to prosper my way upon which I am going.”
Bereishis 24:40-42
Eliezer did not only change the words “before you” to “with you,” he also added that G-d would help him prosper—words that had not been in Avraham’s original statement.
Eliezer said these words since he himself believed that true success is when the Almighty completes all the work for the individual, without any exertion on his part.
Therefore, instead of informing Besuel outright that G-d had sent His angel before him, he said that G-d promised that he would prosper. Through telling Besuel that G-d would help him prosper, he was insinuating his ensured success without saying so in a way that would be disruptive to his mission.
True success
The word “prosper” is found later on in the book of Bereishis, in the language that the Torah uses when describing the success of Yosef in Egypt.
The Lord was with Yosef, and he was a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master. And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and whatever he [Yosef] did, the Lord made prosper in his hand.
Bereishis 39:2-3
When the verse expresses Yosef’s success, it stresses multiple times that the prosperity came from the Holy One, blessed be He.
Yosef’s success in all that he did was not because of his own work, but it was G-d who was there for him the entire time, assuring that all his actions would be fruitful.
In both Eliezer’s and Yosef’s situations, the guaranteed success by the Almighty, is expressed in the same manner.
In both of these scenarios the Almighty caused them to prosper and succeed without needing to put in usual efforts of their own.
Therefore, by expressing to Besuel that he was promised success, Eliezer was essentially saying the exact same thing as Avraham—that the fulfillment of the mission was already guaranteed from the onset.
Being Sure
According to the above explanation, we can also explain a perplexing detail in Avraham’s words.
When Eliezer asks Avraham, “Perhaps the woman will not wish to go after me to this land,” Avraham tells him, “The Lord, G-d of the heavens...He will send His angel before you, and you shall take a wife for my son from there.”
Avraham instructs Eliezer, “You shall take a wife,” guaranteeing that he would be successful. This though is not understood:
How did Avraham know from the onset that there definitely would be a woman willing to return with Eliezer to marry Yitzchak?
According to the above explanation of G-d’s ensured success through His angel however, this too becomes clear.
In the same manner in which the angel’s intervention ensures that the individual’s own efforts are not necessary or taken into account, and that success is guaranteed, the same too is with free choice.
In the case of G-d’s comprehensive assurance of success, there is nothing that a person can or cannot do to interfere with the pre-destined G-dly plan.
G-d had ensured that there would be a girl that would return with Eliezer and marry Yitzchak.
Though the concept of free choice continued to exist, in the quest of finding a proper wife for Yitzchak, G-d ensured that there would be a girl worthy and willing to make the journey back.
Speaking is better
We can now explain the following statement Rashi make concerning Eliezer’s portion in this mission.
From the fact that this episode was recorded twice in the Torah—once when the story actually took place, and the second when Eliezer recounted it—the following observation was made:
Rabbi Acha said: “The conversation of the servants of the Patriarchs is more beloved before the Omnipresent than the Torah of their sons, for the section dealing with Eliezer is repeated in the Torah, whereas many fundamentals of the Torah were given only through allusions.”
Rashi, Bereishis 24:42
When it comes to the children—the Jewish people--G-d leaves free choice in their hands.
However, concerning Eliezer, a Canaanite servant, he was given the ability to succeed in a way that superseded choice.
In this aspect, Eliezer’s greatness is deemed as higher than that of the sons, as G-d intervened in a way that He usually does not—ensuring his success before his mission even began.
In order for G-d to intercede in a manner which transcends a person’s own efforts, as can be seen in the story of Eliezer, there are two prerequisites:
- A person needs to be like “the servants of the Patriarchs.” His entire identity needs to be defined as a servant of his Master.
- A person must pray to G-d. He cannot rely on his own abilities, but must depend solely on the Almighty, just as Eliezer did.
We see this expressed in the quote, “The conversation of the servants of the Patriarchs is more beloved before the Omnipresent than the Torah of their sons.” “Conversation” in this context means prayer.
G-d dealt with Eliezer in this awesome manner, because he was a servant who had no personal identity of his own, and because he prayed to him.
The connection between the terms “conversation” (as mentioned in the above quote) and “prayer” can be seen from the following verse regarding Yitzchak:
Yitzchak instituted the afternoon tefilah (prayer), as it says, “And Yitzchak went out to converse in the field at evening,” and “converse” means only prayer, as it says, “A prayer of the afflicted when he swoons and pours forth his conversation before the Lord.”
Talmud 26b
The Talmud tells us that conversing means prayer. Eliezer’s success in his mission was guaranteed because he relied completely on the Almighty.
When a person realizes that he cannot rely on his own abilities and prays to G-d, he becomes a conduit to receive G-dly assistance directly, through which he can succeed in a fashion that is leaps and bounds beyond what he can attain through his own abilities.
The lesson
Although there is a distinction between Eliezer and the Jewish people in the matter of free choice in general—in which Eliezer was able to reach a level of guaranteed success, whereas the Jewish people need to put in efforts through their own accord—from the fact that this story is part of Torah, it is understood that there is a lesson for us as well.
This story demonstrates that “children” too, can reach the level of “servants.”
When a person is complete nullified to G-d and merely acts as the agent to fulfill His mission, like a servant, praying to the Almighty for success in his mission in making this world a dwelling place for the Almighty, he receives blessings of success in the same manner as Avraham promised to Eliezer: “He will send His angel before you” and “make your way prosper.”
He will be successful in the ultimate mission of the Holy One, blessed by He, in taking the Jewish people as a bride for Almighty with the coming of Moshiach.
(Based on Likkutei Sichos 25, reworked by Rabbi Dovid Markel. To see other projects and to partner in our work, visit: www.Neirot.com.)
