Jacob Marries Leah and Rachel

You cannot build a family, let alone a society, on love alone. For that you need justice also.

How shall I dance before my younger sister? How shall I dance

After all others failed, Rachel successfully persuaded G-d to eventually bring her children back from their exiled lands. What merit did she have which swayed G-d?

In an age of instant messaging, instant coffee and instant soup, how long would you wait for a return on a favor before you wrote it off? Patience may be considered a virtue but for many, we are too impatient to be that virtuous...

The relationship of the individual with other people often demands a special skill: keeping one's balance. There are my needs and the needs of others. There are personal points of stringency; and there are universal imperatives. This point is brought out ...

How could Jacob marry two sisters? How can one reconcile their own needs and personal improvement with assisting others with their improvement and needs? A timely lesson from this weeks Torah portion.

We know that Jacob, and all the patriarchs, kept the commandments of the Torah that would be later given to their descendants. Why, then, did Jacob marry sisters, a direct prohibition?

Jacob rests on his way to Charan and dreams of a ladder with angels ascending and descending. Laban tricks Jacob into marrying his daughter Leah. A week later, Jacob also marries Rachel. He works for Laban for 14 years, then escapes with his wives and chi...

Aspire to the greatest piety possible, but never at the expense of others

Jacob’s carefully planned marriage is the only wedding party ever documented in the Torah. It ended up becoming an epic matrimonial mix-up, which surprisingly continues to affect the way we do Jewish weddings today. According to the literal biblical narra...