וַיִּשַּׁק יַעֲקֹב, לְרָחֵל; וַיִּשָּׂא אֶת-קֹלוֹ, וַיֵּבְךְּ.Why does Jacob weep? In Toldot, after he realizes that his blessing has been stolen from him as well as his birthright, Esau begs his father Isaac:
And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept. (Bereshit 29:11)
וַיֹּאמֶר עֵשָׂו אֶל-אָבִיו, הַבְרָכָה אַחַת הִוא-לְךָ אָבִי―בָּרְכֵנִי גַם-אָנִי, אָבִי; וַיִּשָּׂא עֵשָׂו קֹלוֹ, וַיֵּבְךְּ.Jacob has stolen his brother's blessing even more shamelessly than he stole his birthright, and my understanding of the patriarchal blessing―influenced, I'm sorry to say, by Bloom's rubbishy Book of J―is that it conveys a metaphysical quality of vitality, a kind of innate power and irresistible charisma passed down from Abraham: a real and crushing loss, like the loss of one's health, a realization of limitation and entanglement. It's the difference between Saul and David, between Jeroboam and Rehoboam, between the nation of Israel and the tiny semitic tribes wiped from the face of the earth before Rome grew old. Esau weeps in annihilated desperation. What has Jacob lost, that Torah repeats these words (וַיִּשָּׂא אֶת-קֹלוֹ, וַיֵּבְךְּ / and he lifted up his voice, and wept) and establishes a secret parallel? After all, Jacob has recognized the love of his life and the last of the matriarchs; the blessing that he stole from Esau, just recently made manifest at Beth-El, is standing in front of him "of beautiful form, and fair to look upon" (29:17).
And Esau said unto his father: 'Hast thou but one blessing, my father? bless me, even me also, O my father.' And Esau lifted up his voice, and wept. (Bereshit 27:38)
Rashi says that Jacob experiences a prophetic insight, seeing his whole future and specifically that Rachel will be buried apart from him on the road to Ephrath and not in the cave of Machpelah with himself, Rebeccah, and Sarah. If he does experience this revelation (and I'm not at all convinced that we should call the patriarchs prophets, despite the rabbinical conviction that they certainly were), then he certainly sees his whole future laid out in front of him―of which he will say, "few and evil have been the days of the years of my life" (47:9). But he would also see his immense progeny, his years of happiness with Rachel, his reunion with Joseph: all the glory of the blessing of Abraham. Jacob does not weep for Machpelah.
Esau weeps at his loss. What has Jacob lost?
In his revelation, Jacob will foresee everything: but what happens immediately? He will be indentured to Laban for seven years, cheated, and indentured for seven more. For fourteen years and in order to achieve his heart's desire he will not be his own master; to achieve the fulfillment of the blessing he loses his freedom, he loses the precious days of the years of his life to frustrating subordination while Esau ranges across the wild places and, as they say, waxes very great. Does Jacob weep for fourteen years?
Let's go back to the beginning of Vayetzei, to Beth-El. Now, Jacob has shown himself as a prototype of Joseph, that consummate charlatan, and has―I mean this with the full force of the expression―stolen for himself the vitality of the seed of Abraham, the power and the charisma. He is a young man in terms of the lifespan of a patriarch and has only now broken free from his father's house; he is on the road to make something of himself, to find his own way and to be more than his father's son. To my mind―if I were in his position―there should be at his back a commanding imperative to be an un-Isaac; his father is a pale figure in comparison to Abraham, a man who has lived his life in the image of Moriah and who has been little more than the obedient offspring of the revolutionary who left Ur full of broken idols. What would his escape route be?
The family of Abraham is a cage. Abraham protects Isaac from the kind of marriage that helps transform Esau into an Edomite, his "daughters of Heth" that trouble Rebecca; Abraham went so far as to send his servant with explicit instructions to bring a woman of the tribe to Isaac, to make certain that the boy would have no chance to fall in love with a woman that would undermine the house. Isaac, imitating his father (as in all things,) gives the same instruction to Jacob (26:1-6), but does not send him out with a chaperone: there's no time; Jacob is too weak to defend himself. Whatever plans Isaac might have had for his son are now partially in Jacob's hands, and the son is free―should circumstance present itself―to take whatever wife he wishes. Torah says he assents ("Jacob hearkened to his father and his mother," 28:7), but you can look at any Conservative congregation in America and wonder whether the nature of the male striking off into the world has changed so very much in 3,500 years. Whatever his best intentions, surely the possibility of freedom is at the corners of his mind. When the tent of Isaac dips beneath the horizon on the road to Paddan-Aram the enormous potential of the unfettered blessing must open around Jacob like a O'Keefe vista. Perhaps G-d will never speak to him. Perhaps he will live without compulsion, his own man, his own family, his own future.
He lays down to sleep at Beth-El and dreams of the ineffable god of his grandfather standing beside him, just outside his peripheral vision and speaking in the terrible voice:
וְהִנֵּה אָנֹכִי עִמָּךְ, וּשְׁמַרְתִּיךָ בְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר-תֵּלֵךְ, וַהֲשִׁבֹתִיךָ, אֶל-הָאֲדָמָה הַזֹּאת: כִּי, לֹא אֶעֱזָבְךָ, עַד אֲשֶׁר אִם-עָשִׂיתִי, אֵת אֲשֶׁר-דִּבַּרְתִּי לָךְ.I will not leave thee, I will keep thee whithersoever thou goest. G-d has placed his heavy hand on Jacob as surely as he placed it on Abraham, and his life is not his own. He cannot escape. He, too, is in the cage of Abraham.
And, behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee whithersoever thou goest, and will bring thee back into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of. (Bereshit 28:15)
Bereshit is punctuated by killswitches, points at which the whole enterprise of creating the nation of Israel could have been nipped in the bud and all the glory and suffering could have passed away: Abraham could have refused to send away Ishmael; Isaac could have died on Mount Moriah; Jacob could have married a Hittite. Later, Moses could have been killed at birth or G-d himself could have aborted his project were it not for Zipporah's intercession at the inn: how many times could the road to Sinai have been stopped short, or a crossroad taken, or G-d repent of his undertaking and spare the world? Had Jacob married a daughter of Heth there had been be no passover, no Sinai, no Talmud, no Israel and no Shoah. Should Jacob weep?
I think he weeps because he sees Rachel and his heart is moved with desire, with real assent to the bizarre project that has hijacked the life of his father and his father's father: he loves Rachel, knows that his life is not his own, and kisses the rod. What of Esau? He weeps to have lost the blessing and the birthright―but he goes on to live in freedom, the pure freedom of all the nations that are not chosen, not born in the cage of Abraham. Edom is free but Israel is holy to the Lord. Edom is erased in its freedom, but Israel endures in beauty and the covenant and every kind of suffering forever.
Every morning I thank G-d that he has restored to me a soul that, much against my will, was also present at Sinai―but I weep with Jacob.
