Leah

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...

What is the mystery of the spiritual qualities represented by these two sisters? What was the secret cosmic schism that would span centuries of history?

Eve, Sarah, Rachel, Miriam, Batsheva . . . From the outside, the women of the Bible appear to play only a supportive role in a drama dominated by men; from the inside emerges a very different story . . .

At first Leah appears to be negative, weak and pale. But the more we dig, the more we learn and come to appreciate Leah, her strength, her quiet inspiration and her unending devotion.

“Like mother, like daughter,” comment our sages, comparing Dinah’s “going out to see the daughters of the land” with Leah’s own “outings.”

This is not the actual diary of Leah, wife of Jacob. To the best of my knowledge, no such document exists.

Leah’s soul stemmed from the world of thought; Rachel’s, from the world of speech. Leah was introspective, a master of meditation. Rachel was a communicator, charismatic and appealing.

Genuine love not only respects the individuality of the other, but actually seeks to cultivate it. Love, like the act of creation, is the courageous act of creating space for the presence of the other.

My new name held a softness to it, yet lent strength to my effort to heal and begin to live life again as a whole, and wholly new, person.

Along with Sarah (wife of Abraham), Rebecca (wife of Isaac), and Leah (her sister and fellow wife of Jacob), Rachel is one of the four mothers of the Jewish people.