Do we choose love, or do we choose fear? Both are elements in any relationship, but they are contrasting ways of relating to someone else. Similarly, while there are relationships that nurture and invest, there are also relationships that wield power and destroy.
This essay will explore some of these opposing qualities found within relationships in the Torah. But bear with me: though these tendrils wind their way through the text, offering examples, lessons, and guidance for our own lives, they are very subtle, tied to what would otherwise appear to be unnecessary or extraneous words and stories. I think the payoff, though, is worth it: the Torah deploys these ideas to offer examples, lessons, and guidance for our own lives.
Gifts, Mandrakes, and Wheat
And Reuven went in the days of the wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother Leah.
Reuven is engaged in an act of selfless love, of giving a gift of flowers to his mother. He thought, “what can I do for someone else?” Giving to others is a core Jewish and Torah ideal.
Because of the connection to the mandrakes in this verse, we learn that wheat represents an opportunity to grow close: mother and son, husbands and wives, man and G-d.
Wheat is promised among the gifts that come with our proper service and partnership in the Land of Israel:
For the Lord thy God brings thee into a good land, a land of water courses, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil, and honey.
The promised land reciprocates Reuven’s love for his mother.
Wheat is symbolically the rich food of co-investment: it is enormously difficult to turn wheat from a seed into edible food. So wheat is the grain of cooperation, of closeness, of working together toward a common goal.
Co-investment is also the job of the priests serving in the Tabernacle, which might explain why wheat is specifically named for the induction ceremony of priests:
… and wafers unleavened anointed with oil: of wheaten flour shalt thou make them.
Similarly, the feast of weeks (Shavuos) is connected to the giving of gifts, of thinking of others, because of its connection to the wheat harvest.
And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end.
And the wheat, which represents, after all, the grain that needs the MOST co-investment to become useable. So it is the grain of partnership, as commanded to be used in the making of challahs and unleavened bread used in the Tabernacle. Wheat reflects the love and investment that Reuven made toward his mother.
Destruction and Hail
And what stands in contrast to love and personal investment? Impersonal destruction, something that wrecks everything in its path. In the Torah, this is the plague of hail, fire and ice raining down from above.
I will cause it to rain a very grievous hail, such as has not been in Egypt since its foundation until now. Send therefore now, and gather thy cattle, and all that thou hast in the field; for upon every man and beast which shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down, and they shall die. … and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran down upon the ground; and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. … But the wheat and the spelt were not struck, for they were late ripening.
We know that hail is contradistinct from wheat because the Torah tells us that the hail had no effect on the wheat! Which tells us that G-d’s destructive force can co-exist with His love. Perhaps this also explains why the priest-induction used wheat – a reminder that G-d will treat the priests, who serve nearest the divine presence in the tabernacle, as He treated the wheat in Egypt: destruction will pass them over. Wheat offers some kind of protection to the priests.
More than this: the reference to the wheat being unharmed because it was too early in the season suggests that destruction does its damage before love and co-investment, the wheat, have had a chance to fully ripen and mature. There is a lesson here as well for the way in which relationships can develop and grow – fear can certainly come first, but the goal is to move toward love.
Yet both wheat and hail represent connections with the divine: G-d can love, and G-d can destroy.
Hail is first mentioned much earlier in the Torah; the word is given as a place name: Barad:
And [Hagar] called the name of the Lord that spoke to her, Thou G-d seest me: for she said, “Have I also here looked after Him that sees me?” Therefore the well was called Be᾽er-laĥay-ro᾽i; behold, it is between Kadesh and Barad.
Kadesh means “holiness” and “barad” is hail, symbolic of destruction and power. It tells us that although Hagar did not have access to G-d’s love, she found G-d midway between holiness and fear. The deity of Hagar (and of Islam, which claims Ishmael as a founding father) is powerful above all else – the god of Islam demands obedience, not partnership or love. And Hagar herself is, above all else, passive. She is kicked out – twice – and she gives in and gives up without lifting a finger to help herself. Investment is not in her toolbox, but she certainly is capable of fear, and she can still, limited as she is, connect to G-d.
For Hagar, G-d is found between holiness and destruction. As long as we never lose interest entirely, as long as we keep both partnership/holiness and divine destruction in mind, G-d remains accessible, able and willing to hear our cries.
Extracting Commitments
Hail is, in turn, connected to another word – Akeidah, or akod. But first we need to introduce this word and give it meaning.
G-d tells Avraham to sacrifice his son. Avraham sets out with Isaac to do this.
They arrived at the place of which God had told him. Abraham built an altar there; he laid out the wood; he bound his son Isaac; he laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. And Abraham picked up the knife to slay his son.
The word for bound” is akod. Think about this action – Avraham binds Isaac, taking Isaac out of the decision-tree. Avraham makes it just about himself and G-d: Isaac is unable to save himself. Avraham is ready to proceed, and the binding of Isaac essentially forces G-d’s hand. It works: G-d intervenes before Isaac is murdered. But there is something else that comes as well: a promise.
“By Myself I swear,” G-d declares: “Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your favored one, I will bestow My blessing upon you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore; and your descendants shall seize the gates of their foes. All the nations of the earth shall bless themselves by your descendants, because you have obeyed My command.”
Avraham leaves the mountaintop with a “chit” in his pocket: G-d owes him one.
The next time the word akod is found, Jacob uses it. He proposes a deal with Lavan, wherein Jacob will keep the spotted sheep. What word does Jacob use to describe these sheep? Akod!
Think of it! Jacob is trying to figure out his future. He knows his grandfather, because he bound Isaac, had a promise from G-d. And so Jacob calls in the chit! He uses the very same word for “binding” to refer to the pattern on the sheep. Jacob seems to be saying, “G-d, you promised, at the Binding of Isaac, to keep my family line alive. Now I am using that word, akod, to remind you of that promise. Deliver me the spotted (akod) sheep!” By invoking this word, Jacob is forcing G-d’s hand!
And so it plays out. Jacob ends up with a large flock of spotted and speckled sheep. But something else is introduced between the promise and the delivery: Jacob tells his wives of a vision from G-d in a dream. In this vision, the sheep are not only akod – a new element is introduced:
And it came to pass at the time that the flock conceived, that I raised my eyes, and saw in a dream, and, behold, the rams which leaped upon the cattle were streaked, speckled, and grizzled (barad). And the angel of God spoke to me in a dream, saying, “Jacob.” And I said, “Here I am.” And he said, “Lift up now thy eyes, and see, all the rams which leap upon the flock are streaked, speckled, and grizzled (barad).”
Yes! G-d not only delivers to Jacob the promise made to Avraham of akod. on the promise made to Avraham. But G-d also shows Jacob barad, hail, representing G-d’s destructive force! There is a conversation going on here: G-d delivered, but the akod sheep came with a caution, the reminder of the possibility of divine destruction. It is as if G-d is saying: “I have delivered. But don’t push me!” Which, if we consider how Jacob forced G-d’s hand in the first place, seems like an entirely reasonable caution.
Lessons?
In a full partnership, marriage or relationship, there is no blind obedience or unconditional love. Instead, there are challenges for both sides to grow and develop, to invest in each other – despite those qualities, in the case of the Jewish people, that are lacking. Deep relationships end up ignoring trivial externalities.
It is thus no accident that the Jewish people ourselves are not the biggest or strongest or most beautiful people, at least not physically. We are identified with the akeidah, with the spotted and speckled sheep (traits which, by the way, do not render an animal unfit for sacrifice). We Jews invariably stick out in every population we have ever lived, almost as if standing out is our way of identifying as G-d’s people, spots and speckles and grizzles and all.
Our commitment to this relationship spans the entire gamut: from the love Reuven shows his mother, to appreciating and fearing G-d’s destructive wrath, to seeking connection and holiness. And all of this in pursuit of the bigger intergenerational picture: fulfilling our obligations to G-d – and calling on Him to, in turn, fulfill His promises to our forefathers and thus to ourselves.