Rivka and Yitzchak
The second patriarch and matriarch are the couple of choice for those with an inclination to the right. A shadchan is entrusted with making the match for the young couple. The bride leaves her home to join her husband where he resides. The husband marries the young woman chosen for him;he comes to love her after marriage. Rivka proves to be the docile ideal who covers hides behind her scarf when she first sees her intended and seems to keep herself under wraps, as well, avoiding any direct confrontation with her husband. Unlike Sarah, she does not tell her husband directly what she thinks should be done about the differences between their two sons. Instead, she has to orchestrate a rather elaborate ruse to get Yitzchak to utter the blessing for Yaakov. (The only time we see her speaking directly to Yitzchak is when she seeks a way to get Yaakov out of Esav's reach and so declares that her younger son must go abroad to find his wife, so that not all their daughters-in-law will be like the wives chosen by their eldest.)
It seems to me that Rivka saw herself on such unequal footing with her husband from the first time she laid eyes on him that she could never be as open with him as Sarah and Rachel are able to be with their husbands. Chazal's assumption of a 37 year age gap between them would also fit well with the uneven position between them. She may have felt that she simply could not contradict someone so senior even when she was certain that she was correct in her perception of her two sons. While Sarah's prophetically inspired vision was ratified as possessing greater clarity than her husband's by none other than G-d himself, Rivka did not have such a guarantee. When she went to seek an answer to the troubling effect she experienced in pregnancy, she did not get it directly but through the intermediary of Shem and Ever(Beraishis Rabba ). So she could not claim greater prophetic prowess than her husband.
Yet we know from the narrative of what the king espied (26:8) that there was an intimacy between the two maintained many years into their marriage. So their relationship was a success for them. However, that does not mean it is the ultimate mold for all marriages. We don't know how Avraham came to marry Sarah, but given their proximity of family, it is unlikely that the match was determined by a go-between. Certainly, Yaakov's choice of wife was his own, and the Torah clearly states that he felt love for her before he married her. There is also his marriage to Leah to consider. Perhaps I will get to that in a future post.
It seems to me that Rivka saw herself on such unequal footing with her husband from the first time she laid eyes on him that she could never be as open with him as Sarah and Rachel are able to be with their husbands. Chazal's assumption of a 37 year age gap between them would also fit well with the uneven position between them. She may have felt that she simply could not contradict someone so senior even when she was certain that she was correct in her perception of her two sons. While Sarah's prophetically inspired vision was ratified as possessing greater clarity than her husband's by none other than G-d himself, Rivka did not have such a guarantee. When she went to seek an answer to the troubling effect she experienced in pregnancy, she did not get it directly but through the intermediary of Shem and Ever(Beraishis Rabba ). So she could not claim greater prophetic prowess than her husband.
Yet we know from the narrative of what the king espied (26:8) that there was an intimacy between the two maintained many years into their marriage. So their relationship was a success for them. However, that does not mean it is the ultimate mold for all marriages. We don't know how Avraham came to marry Sarah, but given their proximity of family, it is unlikely that the match was determined by a go-between. Certainly, Yaakov's choice of wife was his own, and the Torah clearly states that he felt love for her before he married her. There is also his marriage to Leah to consider. Perhaps I will get to that in a future post.
Comments