Every once in a while, my ideas for the Drash don’t start with me but are thrust upon me. This week for example, I got one of those signs I couldn’t ignore, and then some. A friend of mine asked a question, and then that question was repeated during a discussion of the new Reform prayerbook Mishkan Tefilah. It was too coincidental to ignore.
The Mishkan Tefilah question was based on the addition of a few decades ago which has spread to many other movements. In the beginning of the traditional Amidah, there is the invocation of the patriarchs with the phrase “the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob.” The Reform movement added the matriarchs “The God of Sara, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah” But there is still something missing here. We read in this week’s portion:
23. The sons of Leah; Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, and Simeon, and Levi, and Judah, and Issachar, and Zebulun; 24. The sons of Rachel; Joseph, and Benjamin; 25. And the sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant; Dan, and Naphtali; 26. And the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant; Gad, and Asher; these are the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Padan-Aram.
Two of Jacob’s son’s come from Bilhah and two from Zilpah. Should they not be included as Matriarchs? My friend asked the question more succinctly: What is the status and role of these two women? How did they fit into the picture?
There is lot of evidence they are of lower status. Probably one of the most graphic is the one found at the beginning of the portion.
1. And Jacob lifted up his eyes, and looked, and, behold, Esau came, and with him four hundred men. And he divided the children to Leah, and to Rachel, and to the two maidservants. 2. And he put the maidservants and their children foremost, and Leah and her children after, and Rachel and Joseph hindermost. [Genesis 33:1-2]
If Esau attacks with his 400 horsemen, as Jacob believes, the first to die will be the maidservants and their children. Jacob’s beloved Rachel and Joseph would be the last Esau would reach. People are ordered according to their importance, and Bilhah and Zilpah don’t have enough importance to even be named here. The Midrash points at another example of a lower status for Bilhah.
22. And it came to pass, when Israel lived in that land, that Reuben went and lay with Bilhah his father’s concubine; and Israel heard it. Now the sons of Jacob were twelve;
The text appears to indicate Ruben, Leah’s oldest sleeps with Bilhah. Yet, the rabbis weren’t happy with that possibility, since it presents a bit of hypocrisy later in Deuteronomy, so they come up with a different story:
The truth, however, is that he vindicated his mother's humiliation. For as long as Rachel lived her bed stood near that of the Patriarch Jacob; when Rachel died, Jacob took Bilhah's bed and placed it at the side of his. ‘Is it not enough for my mother to be jealous during her sister's lifetime,’ he exclaimed, ‘but must she also be so after her death!’ Thereupon he went up and disarranged the beds. [Genesis R. XCVIII:4]
Essentially, Jacob promoted Bilhah, the handmaid to the position of wife that Rachel had held until her death. Reuben believed the legitimate wife of Jacob, his mother Leah should have that position. Reuben responds to this by moving the beds around, changing Bilhah’s bed with his mother Leah’s, and such moving of beds is the equivalent of sleeping with Bilhah.
We do have one other text that gives us some identity of who these two women were.
13. And Laban answered and said unto Jacob: the daughters are my daughters, etc. [Gen 31:43]. R. Reuben said: They were all his daughters, for the daughters are my daughters indicates two, while and what can I do for these my daughter's makes four. The Rabbis adduced it from this verse: If thou shall afflict my daughters [Gen 31:50] indicates two; while and if thou shall take wives beside my daughters makes four. [Gen R. LXXIV: 13]
In Hebrew the word “my daughters” is repeated in the two verses discussed. The rabbis conclude this is two sets of daughters. Thus this text implies that all four of the wives of Jacob were daughters of Laban. Rashi explicitly states that Bilhah and Zilpah themselves were the daughters of Laban’s concubines. In that light, there is the comment in Midrash about 17-year old Joseph, gossiping about his brothers:
R. Judah said: They [i.e. Leah’s sons] insult the sons of the bondmaids [Bilhah and Zilpah] and call them slaves.
Joseph as a young man was an annoying tattletale. This report to his father does have some justification, based on this Midrash about Joseph’s dream that the sun and the moon, representing his father and mother, would bow down to him [cf. 37:9-10]
“Rachel is dead, yet you say I and you mother will come to bow down to you”. But our ancestor [i.e. Jacob] did not know that it applied to Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid, who had brought him Joseph up like a mother. [Gen R. LXXXIV: 11]
As Joseph spent more time with the sons of the hand maids than the sons of Leah, it makes sense for him to defend them, though they were silent when he got into trouble. Thus what we know about Bilhah and Zilpah is clear, they were second class citizens and even in the time of the rabbis such people did not have the rights and status of others. Being born from a second class status one inherited the second class status. Some did seek to change that, as did Jacob, promoting Bilhah to Rachel’s position. Yet society demanded things in a correct order, one corrected by Reuben. According to one Midrash by R. Berkiah, He didn’t just move Bilhah’s bed but also Zilpah’s as well away from Jacob’s. They were to be the inferior position to the legitimate wife of Leah.
Yet, interestingly, there is an opposing though minority opinion. One instance is here:
R. Joshua of Siknin said in the name of R. Levi: Why are not the names of the tribes in the same order in all places, but sometimes one takes the precedence and sometimes another? So that you should not think that the children of the wives come first, and those of the hand-maidens last, but to teach you that these were not greater than the others. [Exodus R. I: 6]
Most telling this comment from Midrash Rabbah to Numbers, repeated in the Midrash to Esther, and Midrash to Song of Songs
17. AND THEY BROUGHT THEIR OFFERING BEFORE THE LORD, SIX COVERED WAGONS, etc. [VII, 3). Six corresponding to the six days of creation. Six corresponding to the six Orders of the Mishnah. Six corresponding to the Matriarchs, namely Sarah and Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah. [Numbers R XII:17]
Bilhah and Zilpah, in the view of some rabbis are matriarchs as much as Rachel and Leah. Yet, in the biblical world where women are not equal to men and slaves not equal to free people, Bilhah and Zilpah were in some sense the lowest of the low, even though they were family. We tend to believe we don’t pull this lower status stuff any more, but even in the smallest of ways, it still happens all the time.
As things would have it, I had the chance to face such prejudice this week. After a long day at work all I wanted was a quiet good meal. I went to seafood restaurant I usually go to when I am in that particular suburb and asked for a table for one. The hostess asked me if I wanted to sit at the bar, and I answered no, I really wanted a quiet table. So she sat me at one of the bar tables even though they had an incredibly large dining room. When I explained I wanted one of the dining room seats I was told there were none available, yet I saw couple after couple enter the dining room from the seat which overlooked the hostess station. I got so angry at my treatment; I left the restaurant and ate somewhere else.
Braxton Seafood Grill pegged me for second class status, and I got the second rate tables in the restaurant. This was not the first but the second time this had occurred. Six weeks earlier when I went there to conduct the same business, I got that same bar seat. For some reason, I was not to be allowed in the dining room. Did I not fit the profile of a guest who belongs in the dining room?
Braxton loses a loyal customer this week, who had been eating there eight times a year. I’m sure their competitors will not be upset, as I’ve been known to run up my food tab and tip generously. But the thing that I can do is make a choice. I can go to another restaurant that is very happy to treat me as a good customer. Bilhah and Zilpah did not have that choice, nor do many people today. It was only decades ago I would have been sure that the reason for my treatment in Braxton was anti-Semitism. I don’t believe that is the case this time. There are many people today who still given 2nd class status in some major, but even more minor ways that we are not even aware of. Yet it happens. Why? I’m not sure. I suspect it is about making us feel better about ourselves. It’s an affirmation in the key of lashon hara we are not the most inferior creature in the universe.
Thanksgiving sets off a season of personal interaction between now and New Years Day. Repeatedly, we will be tested to think of people as equals. This particularly is true of salespeople, counter help, and restaurant servers. Most people don’t treat them as equals but as slaves, barking orders at them. Let’s avoid that this year, and treat the people behind the counter as people in a very stressful position.
I did think of one reason I became 2nd class and it’s an ironic one. I treated the host staff like people, smiling, saying hello to not just the one who greeted me but the whole staff at the host desk. I treated them as real people as not as slaves and that got me the 2nd class table in the restaurant – they didn’t know what to do with that (thought they killed that real fast). So I have a prayer and a vision for this Holiday season, my ultimate revenge for this incident is for this to be true:
God of our forefathers and our foremothers, God of Joseph, Aaron, Bilhah, Zilpah and Miriam. Let us remember in this season that we were once slaves in Egypt. In this season we celebrate with light our liberation from the second class status the Greeks imposed on us. Let us remember that all of humanity is B’tzelem Elohim, in Your image. May it be Your will that we see our transgressions between ourselves and others before we do them, and thus choose to not treat our fellow human being like a slave, but as a fellow human being.
Amen.
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