Is it a small thing that you took my husband, and now you will also take the mandrakes of my son? (Bereishis 30:15)
Leah’s reaction seems very strange. She complains that Rachel “took her husband.” This doesn’t seem right, because Yaakov was originally to be Rachel’s husband exclusively. Yaakov worked for Lavan only because he sought to marry Rachel. In fact, Rachel was the one who brought Leah into marriage with Yaakov, at great personal sacrifice. How could Leah say that Rachel “took her husband”?
If someone opens the door for his friend, the latter owes the former his life.1
Accordingly, Leah should be tremendously grateful to Rachel. Now that Rachel asks her for some mandrakes, she has an opportunity to pay Rachel back a little bit for all the good she did for her. So why does Leah respond like that?
It says later on in the parshah: ויזכור אלקים את רחל – G-d remembered Rachel.
Rashi explains that Hashem remembered Rachel’s great act of giving the signs to Leah and thus saving her from humiliation. Hashem remembered the chesed that Rachel did.
But nowhere do we find that Leah herself remembered this act of kindness at all. And when Dinah (דינה) was born, whose name indicates that Leah judged herself (דנה), Rashi explains that Leah judged how many sons were destined to be born to Yaakov, and made sure that Rachel will not undergo the humiliation of having less sons than the maidservants did. But it does not say that she did this out of appreciation for what Rachel did for her.
Why does Leah seem so ungrateful to Rachel?
Rachel and Leah had no personal interests here. They both had the same goal and the same interest: to build the House of Yisrael. Leah had a special method to accomplish this goal, in accordance with her trait, as she was the oldest daughter and had the ability to engender all the virtues and distinguished qualities of the Jewish people. From her came the Kohanim, the Levi’im, the royal dynasty and all the other virtuous matters.
To paraphrase it, this is what Leah was saying to Rachel: strictly speaking, you should have been out of the picture altogether, and Yaakov should have been my husband exclusively, because if I would have built the House of Yisrael on my own, every Jew would be either a kohen or a levi or a king or a head of Sanhedrin or a wealthy man or a children’s teacher, who are like stars forever, or something else similarly great and important. There would never have been such a thing as a “simple” Jew.
This totally changes the picture. It shows how great our Imahos were. Even though Rachel put herself out so much for Leah, and Leah was naturally very grateful for this, Leah did not lose sight of her appointed mission to build the House of Yisrael as befits Leah. This is why she declined to give Rachel the mandrakes, which are an herb conducive to having children. Only when she received Yaakov that night, as recompense for the mandrakes, was she willing to give them to Rachel. That night Leah conceived, and thus brought Yissachar into the world. The tribe of Yissachar was distinguished by Torah study and had many members of Sanhedrin.
Originally, Binyamin was meant to be born from Leah. But Leah let Rachel give birth to him instead, after she “judged” herself.
It seems that if Leah would have given birth to Binyamin, then the Beis Hamikdash, which was in the territory of Binyamin, would have been superior and exalted to the extent that only the members of the tribe of Binyamin would have entered it, in order to stand before the Shechinah. Binyamin would have been like the tribe of Yehudah and the tribe of Levi, who have exclusive rights. The former holds the royal dynasty, and the latter holds the Kehunah. Only because Rachel was the one who gave birth to Binyamin, thus Beis Hamikdash became the place of the Shechinah’s presence for the entire Jewish people.
