The Zohar calls Leah "The Hidden World" and calls Rachel "The Revealed World." Rachel catches Yaakov's eye; she is out by the well, good-looking, popular and everyone knows her; "Hey, here comes Rachel now." When she gets to the well, Yaakov gets a spiritual testosterone boost and pops the rock off of the top of the well, the work of ten men. If we remember, Yitzhak's wife Rivka was tested by Eliezer, who said, "If she offers to draw water for me and for my camels…". However Rachel, off the bat, was love at first sight. Meanwhile Leah, back at the ranch, slowly becoming an old maid, is crying at the thought of having to marry Esav; she's quite virtuous, hoping and praying not even that she should merit to marry a tzaddik, but that she shouldn't have to marry such an evil one as Esav. Yaakov, as any of us would, bites on Rachel, the beautiful outgoing one. He doesn't even know Leah exists. That is, until his wedding night. He doesn't even meet her before he has slept with her. The deepest connection possible has been forged before they have looked each other in the eye. Married.
As I said, Leah is "The Hidden World," Rachel "The Revealed World." Carl Jung might read it as Rachel being the conscious self and Leah being the unconscious. We try to present to the eye what we think we are, and we ultimately look at the world seeing what we want to see. Much of ourselves are hidden from the world, and much of the world is hidden from us. That which bubbles below the surface we hide, either because we are ashamed or because we do not understand. Every once in a while I get this urge to wear my boxer shorts and undershirt, pick up a cucumber and pretend it is a microphone, and sing "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll." Being that this is in most circles not socially acceptable, I never do it. Every time the urge comes, I suppress it and go study some more, thinking I can intellectually bludgeon this urge to death, can rationalize it away by convincing myself that civilized people don't express themselves fully. And then ultimately I end up a footnote in a book by Robert Bly about 35-year-old men painting themselves with war paint and beating drums in the forest one weekend a year. Leah, the "Hidden World," is called hated, because Yaakov doesn't understand who she is or why Hashem wanted him to marry her, is a bit ashamed because he gave his most intimate self to her without even knowing her, and treated her badly by thinking she was someone else, not giving her the attention she deserved. Yet, during this whole time she is bearing him children, dreams or Freudian slips, urges, all of them saying "Notice me!" She names them accordingly - Reuven "See me!" Shemuel "Hear me!" Levi "Join with me!" All along, the unconscious says, "Pay attention: I am not trying to hurt you by making you do something socially embarrassing. I don't even want you to do the whole 'Old Time Rock 'n' Roll' thing. I just give you that urge so you'll notice me. If you did that whole cucumber thing, the urge still would not be satisfied forever, because there's something much bigger underneath there. Because when you were three you saw MTV and there was Bruce Springsteen and you thought for sure you wanted to be like him because he got all the chicks, but even that's not the bottom of it because really what your keen unconscious but brilliant eye noticed was that he was playing the electric guitar and had these huge amplifiers so everyone could hear him, and really the thing is you don't feel like you're being heard…" This hidden world contains all the keys, all the deepest secrets, and must be paid attention to. This miniscule attempt to encapsulate an infinitely deep topic such as the relationship between our conscious and unconscious selves is only meant to point to a reading each person must do on his own with individual results. See Jung for help.
Rav Gavriel Goldfeder
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Rav Gavriel Goldfeder is one of the first semicha recipients of the yeshiva. A graduate of Drew University in Religious Studies, he came to Bat Ayin after stints in other yeshivot and found a spiritual and intellectual home. Here he met his wife, Ketriellah, who was a student in our short-lived Women's Yeshiva. Upon graduation, Gavriel took the position of rabbi of the Aish Kodesh Congregation in Boulder, Colorado and together with Ketriellah and their growing family, they are busy creating (in Gavriel's words), "a community infused with Torah values, passion for learning and prayer, consideration of one another, and action, as well as deep celebration of the joys of life." |