Third Reading: Iron Women
“Laban had given his maidservant Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her maid.... Laban had given his maidservant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maid.”
Mistresses and Maidservants
In the third reading of Vayeitzei, we learn that Jacob not only married Laban’s two daughters, Leah and Rachel. He also married their maidservants. There is a well-known acronym used to remember Jacob’s four wives and who was whose maidservant. The acronym is the Hebrew word for “iron” (בַּרְזֶל), and it stands for Bilhah-Rachel and Zilpah-Leah (בִּלְהָה-רָחֵל, זִלְפָּה-לֵאָה). There is a well-known statement from Maimonides that natural wisdom, which we know today as science, should serve as a maid or cook for its mistress, the Torah. Thus, Leah and Rachel, the two noble daughters of Laban, represent the Torah while Zilpah and Bilhah, their two maidservants, represent mundane wisdom. To understand this correspondence let us begin by exploring why there are two aspects of Torah.
The Concealed and the Revealed
In Kabbalah and Chasidic thought, Rachel and Leah represent the revealed and concealed dimensions: Rachel is the revealed dimension and Leah the concealed. According to the Zohar, this provides a reason for why Rachel’s beauty was noticeable to all outwardly, “And Rachel was beautiful of form and beautiful of appearance,” while Leah’s beauty is more internal and hidden, and noticeable especially in her eyes—“And Leah’s eyes were tender”—where the eyes themselves symbolize inner intellectual contemplation.
Two Aspects of Torah
This division between the revealed and the concealed can also be found in Torah. There is the revealed dimension of Torah, primarily embodied in the study of halachah, also called “the Torah’s external dimension” (חִיצוֹנִיּוּת הַתּוֹרָה) or “the body of the Torah” (גוּף הַתּוֹרָה); and there is also the concealed dimension of Torah, elucidated and discussed in the teaching of Kabbalah and Chasidut, and also known as “the Torah’s inner dimension” (פְּנִימִיּוּת הַתּוֹרָה) or “the Torah’s soul” (נִשְׁמַת הַתּוֹרָה). Each aspect of Torah seeks to reveal the Divine Presence in its corresponding layer of reality. To use Chasidic nomenclature, the purpose of the revealed Torah is to reveal Godliness the way it is integrated into reality; it is known as, the indwelling or integrated light (אוֹר מְמַלֵּא), illustrating how Godliness is present in every detail of our earthly lives. The purpose of the Torah’s concealed dimension is to reveal Godliness that transcends or encompasses (אוֹר סוֹבֵב) reality in what we call the concealed dimension, including secrets and mysteries that ascend higher and higher, ad infinitum.
Thus, when we refer to Rachel and Leah as the “mistresses” who represent Torah, we mean to say that Rachel represents the Torah’s revealed or external dimension (halachah), while Leah represents the Torah’s hidden or inner dimension (kabbalah).
Science and Art
Based on this Kabbalistic perspective, we can also find a similar division among the maidservants. If each of the mistresses represents a dimension of Divine wisdom, then her maidservant should represent the corresponding type of mundane wisdom.
Though we tend to associate mundane wisdom mostly with natural wisdom—the natural sciences—it is actually wider in scope and refers to the totality of human wisdom, i.e., wisdom that grows from below, in contrast to the wisdom of God that is revealed from above. When holding this broader definition, science is revealed as only half of the picture. The other half is occupied by the second great pillar of modern culture: art.
Science and art are like two complementary halves of the human psyche, shaping our relationships with the world. Science seeks to encompass the laws of the world within human consciousness, and art seeks to project human will onto the world. Science expresses our more intellectual, which observes and analyzes, while art expresses our more inspirational side, which serves to express our emotions. The two worlds or languages of science and art can be likened to the two hemispheres of the human brain. The comparison is not merely metaphorical: The brain’s right hemisphere is the source of our intuitive, synthetic, and creative outlook, namely the artistic side of our personality, while the brain’s left hemisphere is the source of rational, analytical, and distinguishing thinking, namely the scientific side.
Now we can complete our model of Jacob’s four wives. Since Rachel represents the more external teachings of Torah, her maidservant Bilhah should embody the part of human wisdom that deals with the revealed and earthly plane of reality. This part is science, dedicated to the study of apparent phenomena. Similarly, since Leah represents the inner teachings of Torah, her maidservant Zilpah should embody the part that deals with the more hidden and spiritual plane. This part is art, dedicated to expressing the whispers of the human soul.
Our complete model is thus:
- Leah: Torah’s inner dimension
- Zilpah: art
- Rachel: Torah’s revealed dimension
- Bilhah: science
Four Women, Two Worlds
There is a beautiful numerical analysis that accompanies our observations. We have been speaking about two types of wisdom, Divine and mundane. The value of “wisdom” (חָכְמָה) is 73, so the value of two “wisdoms” is 146, which is also the value of “world” (עוֹלָם)—there are two forms of wisdom—Divine and mundane—in each world.
But just as there are two types of wisdom, there are also two worlds, or realities: there is the concealed world and there is the revealed world. Altogether then, we need four types of wisdom. Indeed, Leah and Zilpah represent the Divine and mundane dimensions of wisdom in the concealed world while Rachel and Bilhah represent the Divine and mundane dimensions of wisdom in the revealed world.
(from Ichud HaTorah VeHaMada, pp. 223-225)
