October 29, 2021 // 23 Heshvan 5782
The Torah’s description of Rebekah and Isaac’s first meeting is intimate and very moving.
Isaac had just come back from the vicinity of Beer-lahai-roi, for he was settled in the region of the Negeb. And Isaac went out walking in the field toward evening and, looking up, he saw camels approaching. Raising her eyes, Rebekah saw Isaac. She alighted from the camel and said to the servant, “Who is that man walking in the field toward us?” And the servant said, “That is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself. The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Isaac then brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he took Rebekah as his wife. Isaac loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death. [Genesis 24:62-67]
Why is Isaac ‘walking in the field toward evening’? Is he meditating or praying as the Greek and Latin translations of the Torah and the Talmudic rabbis suggest? Is he just out ‘walking among the trees or bushes’ as a number of medieval commentators indicate? Is he practicing an ancient form of hitbodedut – solitary calling out to God – as R Abraham Maimuni (Rambam’s son!) explains? Maybe it’s all of these things, wrapped up together, as anyone who has ever taken a walk in the woods has perhaps experienced. I’m drawn to that idea.
And how are we to understand Rebekah’s entry ‘into the tent of Isaac’s mother Sarah’? A midrash (cited by Aviva Zornberg) offers a particularly poignant reading:
Three years Isaac mourned for his mother. Every time he entered her tent, and saw it in darkness, he would tear his hair. But when he married Rebekah, and brought her into the tent, the light returned to its place. ‘Isaac then brought her into the tent (ohel) of his mother Sarah:’ ohel means ‘light’ as it is said, ‘Till the moon will no longer shine’ (Job 25:5). Isaac was comforted and saw it as though his mother were still in existence. That is why it says: Isaac ‘found comfort after his mother’s death.’ [Midrash ha-Gadol, Genesis 24:67]
Writes Zornberg: “to have left one’s tent in darkness is to deny the value of being…With Rebekah’s coming, the energy of hope returns…” How beautiful! Perhaps that was the light that Isaac was out in search of all along.
Shabbat Shalom!
Rabbi David
Torah
Isaac had just come back from the vicinity of Beer-lahai-roi, for he was settled in the region of the Negeb. And Isaac went out walking in the field toward evening and, looking up, he saw camels approaching. Raising her eyes, Rebekah saw Isaac. She alighted from the camel and said to the servant, “Who is that man walking in the field toward us?” And the servant said, “That is my master.” So she took her veil and covered herself. The servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. Isaac then brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he took Rebekah as his wife. Isaac loved her, and thus found comfort after his mother’s death. [Genesis 24:62-67]
Midrash
Most ancient translations relate לשוח to the noun שיחה, “conversation.” The Septuagint, for example, translates לשוח ἀδολεσχῆσαι, “to meditate,” and the Vulgate translates it in Latin asad meditandum, “in order to meditate.” The Aramaic Targumim are almost universal in translating it לצלאה, “to pray.” [Professor Aaron Demsky]
Lasuaḥ: To walk among the bushes. [Ibn Ezra, 12th century, Spain]It seems to me that Ibn Ezra recognized in the Hebrew verb לָשׂוּחַ a cognate of the Arabic saḥa ( ﺴﺎﺡ ﺴﻭﺡ saḥa u), “to travel about.” [Professor Aaron Demsky]From one of the bushes (or shrubs), meaning: He went out walking among the trees; and so it is in the language of Ishmael (i.e., Arabic). [R Yehuda ibn Bal’am, 11th century, Spain]
Lasuach basadeh: He (Isaac) planted trees and looked and looked to the doings of his workers. [Rashbam, 12th century, France]
…in order to walk with and serve God in the field with desire and solitude (hit’bod’dut) as was his practice and the practice of God’s prophets…[R Abraham Maimuni, 12th century, Egypt]
During the time for afternoon prayer he went out lasuah in the field, what this means is to be alone there and to pour out his speech before God. For it has become clear to me that siah refers to speech thoughts that shoot out from one’s imagination while thinking… [Malbim, 19th century, Rumania]
