Genesis - Parashath VaYetze - Aliyah 4.
ALIYAH 4 [30:14-27] - RACHEL'S REMEDY.
Leah's firstborn son Reuben finds some mandrakes ([ דֽוּדָאִים֙ | dudaim ]; translated as "jasmine" according to Rashi, but "mandrakes" is the more likely reading) and gives them to his mother. Rachel, still childless, strikes a deal with Leah, offering a night with their husband Jacob in return for some of the mandrakes - presumably sacrificing the short-term benefit of marital relations for the long-term benefit of the putative fertility-enhancing powers of the mandrakes. But it is Leah, once again, who benefits, bearing two more sons (Issachar and Zebulun) and a daughter (Dinah).
On Leah's accusation against Rachel (30:15) "Is it not enough that you have taken away my husband?", Dennis Prager sees an element of projection, since "precisely the opposite was the case" (Prager, p. 357). Robert Alter, however, infers from Leah's wording that "Jacob has been sexually boycotting Leah" (Alter, p. 108, note on 30:16).
The rivalry between Leah and Rachel - one fertile but unloved, the other loved but barren - is surely one of the most poignant relationships in the Bible. In the end, Rachel finally conceives, and gives birth to the only son she will know - Joseph. There is surely a note of disapproval in the text regarding Rachel's strategem of the mandrakes, as 30:22 pointedly declares "G-d heard her and opened her womb" - the Creator, and not the mandrakes. [222]
Leah's firstborn son Reuben finds some mandrakes ([ דֽוּדָאִים֙ | dudaim ]; translated as "jasmine" according to Rashi, but "mandrakes" is the more likely reading) and gives them to his mother. Rachel, still childless, strikes a deal with Leah, offering a night with their husband Jacob in return for some of the mandrakes - presumably sacrificing the short-term benefit of marital relations for the long-term benefit of the putative fertility-enhancing powers of the mandrakes. But it is Leah, once again, who benefits, bearing two more sons (Issachar and Zebulun) and a daughter (Dinah).
On Leah's accusation against Rachel (30:15) "Is it not enough that you have taken away my husband?", Dennis Prager sees an element of projection, since "precisely the opposite was the case" (Prager, p. 357). Robert Alter, however, infers from Leah's wording that "Jacob has been sexually boycotting Leah" (Alter, p. 108, note on 30:16).
The rivalry between Leah and Rachel - one fertile but unloved, the other loved but barren - is surely one of the most poignant relationships in the Bible. In the end, Rachel finally conceives, and gives birth to the only son she will know - Joseph. There is surely a note of disapproval in the text regarding Rachel's strategem of the mandrakes, as 30:22 pointedly declares "G-d heard her and opened her womb" - the Creator, and not the mandrakes. [222]