Both Rachel and Leah are considered beautiful women in Jewish tradition, but a verse in this week’s Torah seems to suggest that Rachel was the “beauty queen” of the family: “Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was shapely and beautiful” (Gen. 29:17). Why are Leah’s eyes described as “weak”? Is this a euphemism for saying she was unsightly? After all, Rachel is described in this verse as yifat mareh – “beautiful of sight” (i.e., attractive). Does this text therefore contrast the two women by implying that Leah was physically unattractive? Or does having “weak eyes” mean that she was perhaps nearsighted? How are we to understand Leah’s weak eyes?
The word translated as “weak” is the Hebrew word rakkot (רַכּוֹת), the plural form of the word rak (רַךְ), meaning soft or tender. Rashi comments that Leah’s eyes were made “weak” (tender) from crying “until her eyelashes fell out.” But why was she so sad? According to midrash, Leah’s eyes were reddened and puffy because she was constantly lamenting the prospect of marrying Esau. The adage of the town was: “Two sons to Rivkah; two daughters to Lavan; the older to the older, the younger to the younger.” Another, and perhaps more likely reason for Leah’s tears, however, was that her father Laban was an evil man…
Leah’s eyes were tender and tear-stained, then, but this is not intended to say she was physically unattractive. On the contrary, saying that she had “weak eyes” is a term of praise for her, since (according to the midrash) her greatest fear was to be forced to undergo an arranged marriage with Esau, and therefore she wept and wept to be the mother of the righteous…. God saw her tears — and blessed her to become the most fruitful of the four matriarchs of Israel. Ironically, it was the less teary-eyed Rachel, who later died in childbirth, that was prophesied to weep for her children (Jer. 31:15).
Regarding this subject the Talmud states that the word rak (tender) connotes royalty (Bava Basra 4a). Indeed, two lines of Jewish royalty were destined to descend from Leah: the royal family of Judah (from whom would come King David and King Messiah himself) and the spiritual line of Levi, from whom would descend Moses, Aaron, and the Kohanim (the priestly class of Israel). Like their tenderhearted mother, both of these houses of Israel would shed tears of concern for the well-being of Israel.
Hebrew Lesson:
Recall that after Jacob had received the (
If you have read the gospels, you are surely familiar with a disciple of Yeshua named “Thomas Didymus,” sometimes referred to as “Doubting Thomas.” Recall that when Thomas had first heard the testimony of the other disciples that Yeshua was raised from the dead, he was apprehensive and vowed to suspend his judgment until he had sufficient evidence to believe the matter for himself: “Unless I see the wounds from the nails in his hands, and put my finger into the wounds from the nails, and put my hand into his side,” he said, “I will never believe it!” (John 20:25). You know the rest of the story. When Yeshua later appeared to the disciples and this time Thomas was present, he said to him: “Put your finger here, and examine my hands. Extend your hand and put it into my side. Do not be become faithless, but believe” (John 20:27).
In our Torah portion for this week, 
All of us have unhealed parts, “hidden faults” (נסתרות) of which we are not fully aware. “Blind spots.” Therefore king David prayed, “Who can discern his errors? cleanse me from secret faults” (Psalm 19:12). We are cleansed by confession, that is, by looking within our hearts to uncover deeper motivations… If we are honest with ourselves we may discover, for example, that we are angry or fearful people, despite how we otherwise wish to regard ourselves. If you find yourself unable to let something go, for instance, some pain or failure of the past, remind yourself that you must do so if you want to move on with your life. Focusing on how things could have been different is to be enslaved to the past. The goal of teshuvah (repentance) is to turn us back to God for life, but to do this, we must be be willing to let go of what makes us sick.
Heaven and earth touch in innumerable ways. Every day we are given opportunity to turn to God and find life. The sages have said that the sun is red in the morning because it passes by the roses of the garden of Eden, and at sunset because it passes by the gate of Hell (Bava Batra 84a). The tender mercies of the Lord are renewed every morning, and for that reason we should turn to God when we first open our eyes to the light of the new day and say: Modeh ani lefanekha Adonai (מודה אני לפניך יהוה), “thank you, O Lord, for another opportunity to reach out to you for life.” Amen.
How we choose to deal with trouble and suffering (i.e., tzuris) makes all the difference. We may be tempted to bitterness over our lives, but then what? To paraphrase Soren Kierkegaard, the way of life is “how” more than it is “what.” You may be powerless to control reality, but you are nevertheless responsible for how you respond to it. Check your attitude. Do you chose to live in lament over a healing that has not yet happened, or perhaps regard yourself as a hapless victim? Or will you attempt to justify your suffering as a means of personal atonement, accepting it passively as a “good child” or martyr? Does your suffering stretch your heart, or does it cause you to shrink back in fear or self-pity?
Part of the meaning of teshuvah (i.e., “repentance”), at least for some of us, is learning to trust and believe in love…. If you were abandoned as a child, for instance, you were deprived of the security, nurture, and basic human connection you needed to partake in love. Instead of acquiring a sense of belonging and acceptance your soul desperately needed, you inherited a sense of shame that taught that you were inherently unlovable and unworthy. Consequently, as you grew up, you may have found it difficult to trust or ask others for help; you might have turned inward, relying only on yourself, protecting yourself from further pain. You may have became lonely, filled with sadness, anger, and fear. Ironically and tragically, as you protected yourself from abandonment you made your heart hard and numb, and that led to the abandonment of yourself….
The Torah of Moses teaches that a defect-free male lamb must be sacrificed and roasted at the appointed time every year, eaten with matzah and bitter herbs, as a memorial of the redemption from Egypt (Num. 9:2, Deut. 16:1-8) — yet today, after the ministry and sacrificial death of Yeshua as the Lamb of God, we no longer perform the sacrificial rite of the Passover given to the Levites on behalf of Israel. We do not offer a lamb for sacrifice not because there is no Temple to offer such sacrifices, but because we have a greater priesthood based on the sworn oath of God that predates the Levitical priesthood in the life of the Messiah (Psalm 110:4). This is explained in the Book of Hebrews, chapter seven, which explains that “if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? But when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well” (Heb. 7:11-12). The bottom line is that the promised new covenant (בּרית חדשׁה) of God centers on the sacrificial ministry of Yeshua as our Great High Priest, and this covenant provides a new way – “not according to the covenant made with the fathers at Sinai after the Exodus” – to be in right relationship with God (Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:1-13). “And when Messiah had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by one offering He has perfected forever those being sanctified” (Heb. 10:14).
It is vital to affirm your identity as a beloved child of God… You may not always feel the connection, but you must choose it regardless of your present emotional state, because your place in God’s heart is a matter of truth, not sentimentality. Who you really are is grounded in the Reality and power of the LORD God of Israel.