On its face, there is no reason for Jacob not to join his family with Esau’s family. After Jacob sends gifts, he then bows seven times, refers to Esau as “my lord.” When they meet, Esau kisses Jacob, and Jacob says that he appreciates that his offerings were accepted. Esau appears willing to put the past behind them, and wants to bring the family back together.
So why then does Jacob decline to travel with Esau, to seek to reunify the family? There is a hint of an answer in the reason that Jacob gives. Jacob tells Esau: “My lord knows that the children are frail…”
But the word used for “frail,” רַכִּ֔ (Rok), does not actually mean “frail.” In the text it is used to describe the tender calf that Avraham serves his guests, as well as Leah’s eyes. A tender calf is not necessarily weak, but it is not yet toughened or callused – it is soft, not yet hardened for thriving in a grown-up environment.
I think this is a sub-surface textual message. Jacob’s choice of word for the state of the children is not that they are weak (like Ex. 32:18), but that they are impressionable, susceptible to their environment. And the environment which Esau offers, one that reflected his trait of being a man of nature, or power, of short-term thinking, would have been unacceptably corrupting for Jacob’s children. There was family history here as well: remember that Sarah had Ishmael sent away from Isaac for the same reasons.
But this is not the only place and time that rok is used to describe something. The first was with the calf, but the second use of this word is to describe Leah’s eyes. What do we learn about Leah from her eyes being tender or impressionable?
I think the answer helps explain Leah for the rest of her life: our eyes can lead us astray, but they are also the gateway for new information, as we know from Eve in the story of the fruit:
Your eyes will be opened and you will be like divine beings who know good and bad. … Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they perceived.
The eye is how we can bring in new information – and gain the knowledge that connects man and G-d! G-d relates to Adam and Eve entirely differently after their eyes are opened; he engages with them as never before. The eyes are the gateway to a more full and developed relationship: the Torah tells us that Noah found favor in the eyes of G-d.
I want to suggest the following: Leah’s eyes were a way to discern new information. And the fact that her eyes were rok tells us that she was deeply receptive to that information. In other words, Leah was open to spiritual growth. And so we see in the text that with everything she does, Leah grows. Look at the reason for the names she gives her sons:
Reuben: G-d has seen my pain, so my husband will love me.
Simeon: G-d has heard that I am hated.
Levi: My husband will be joined to me, since I have born three sons.
Judah: I praise the Lord.
Issachar: G-d has paid me back, because I gave my handmaid to my husband.
The progressions are fascinating. Leah starts by seeing G-d as an external observer – who first sees, and then hears Leah. Leah then becomes more active in the relationship, praising the Lord. With Issachar, Leah has engaged in a commercial transaction with G-d, exchanging favors, and seeing G-d as a stand-in for her husband: she gave to her husband, and G-d pays her back.
Leah grows, from nothing, an amazing and close connection to G-d. Which is entirely consistent with having impressionable eyes.
So maybe the Torah is not criticizing Leah’s appearance at all – the Torah is instead telling us about the kind of person Leah was, a model for all of us to aspire to emulate!
P.S. Rachel, by contrast, is described as being both capable (yefas tohar) and attractive (yefas mareh) [I write on these two phrases specifically here]. Beauty is clearly described in the Torah as a dangerous attribute since being attractive to others leads to trouble for both Sarah and Joseph, and seemingly does Rachel no favors either.