Talia Meezraci - Dvar Torah

Shabbat shalom, my torah portion is Vayeitzei and can be found in the book of Genesis or Bereishit. Previously, Jacob was forced to leave his family because he had stolen the birthrights from his brother Esau. His mother advised him to flee to Haran, the land of her family until his brother’s rage cooled. 

Vayeeitzei starts when Jacob leaves Beersheva and sets out for Haran. On the way he had a dream of a ladder reaching into heaven, with angels going up and down the rungs and Hashem spoke to him and promised him the land on which he lay for all his descendants. 

Jacob then arrived at a well and met Laban’s daughter Rachael and he fell in love with her immediately.

His uncle, Laban welcomed Jacob into his home. Jacob offered to work for Laban for seven years in return for his younger daughter Rachel’s hand in marriage. After seven years, Laban did not let Jacob marry Rachael but tricked him into marrying Leah instead. When Jacob complained, Laban made him work another seven years for Rachael, the love of his life. Jacob did so and at last married Rachael. 

The sisters competed for Jacob’s love, especially because Jacob favoured Rachael. Leah believed that by having children she would win Jacob’s love. Together Rachael, Leah and their handmaids bore Jacob  13 children. After some time Jacob wanted payment for the work he had done for Laban, again Laban tried to trick him and give him less that he was deserving of, Jacob managed to outsmart Laban but  this created animosity in the family. So Jacob decided to take his wives,sons,daughter and livestock and go back to Canaan.

Something that stood out for me when studying my parsha, was the role of women in the Torah, or should I say the lack thereof. The Torah never talks much about the women, it never mentions their personalities or their relationship with God, they are only spoken of in terms of their beauty or ability to have children. 

 When Leah and Rachel are first mentioned, it tells us about their looks. Jacob wants to marry Rachael but it does not mention whether she or Leah want to marry him. The parsha looks at the competition and rivalry between Rachael and Leah; sisters who are pitted against each other vying for the love and favour of Jacob, their husband. In the race to prove themselves as the best woman, they need to have more and more children as if the only way to be valuable as a woman is to bear children. 

I feel that as a young woman I must change this narrative of women competing with other women and I must support my fellow women. our grandmothers and great grandmothers fought for women to be valued and respected and as women we must also respect and value each other. Vayeitzei mentions Jacob’s only daughter Dina and I learnt that the only other thing mentioned about her in the Torah is that she was abused by men. Violence against women is a big problem in our society and women need to stand together as sisters to support each other and not allow this to continue.Recently in our country many people united to bring awareness to the gender based violence crisis in our country.

The Torah talks about Rachael being beautiful and her sister Leah not. This poses the question of who decides what is beautiful? It is easy these days especially as a teenage girl, seeing images on social media to think that you have to look a certain way to be beautiful. I have learnt that the ideal beauty is always changing. This is a lesson for me not to put too much importance on what others consider beautiful. That  myself and other women are so much more  (valuable) than just what is considered beautiful at a particular time.

Reflecting on my parasha, the parts that stood out for me were the role of women as this is important to me. Taking on the challenge of a bat mitzvah I have been supported by many people from my bat mitzvah teachers, my friends at school who helped me raise funds for Tom Ro Haven, to my aunts, my cousins and my amazing parents.l’v experienced how much I can accomplish with their support and I have learnt that to make things happen we need community. And so I am grateful to be part of this community that allows me to participate and be heard as a young woman,as well as my school and family communities.Shabbat Shalom.