Rebecca, Philosopher of Tragedy
“But the children struggled in Rebecca’s womb, and she said, “Why - this - I am?” She went to inquire of God, and God answered her: Two nations are in your womb…” (Genesis 25:22-23)
“It is much easier to live in a world in which one side is good and the other evil than it is to embrace complexity…Listening to and reading many of the folks [who see this conflict as between an all-good side and an all-bad side], I’ve been tempted to excoriate them for their moral and intellectual laziness. But under that laziness lies something many of us can actually relate to - a fear of encountering the world as fundamentally tragic.” Rabbi Shai Held
“We begin to live when we have conceived life as a tragedy.” W.B. Yeats
Oof. I know that’s a gloomy way to open a teaching. Yet at the heart of our ancestor Rebecca’s experience of nurturing new life is a painful awareness of likely enmity between her two children. She is literally conceiving life as a tragedy.
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg notes Rebecca’s “enigmatic cry…a bare, rudimentary three-word riddle: Lama zeh anokhi - ‘Why - this - I am?’”
Many commentators try to solve the riddle, mostly by reading it as a form of existential angst. Rebecca struggles to make sense of the multiple narratives she embodies. In being unable to clearly see herself as whole, unified, and coherent, she questions her own being.
Zornberg, though, brings in a remarkable teaching from the Maharal (16th century, Prague). “Maharal…expresses some dismay at [these teachings’] existential skepticism. He suggests a modulated translation of anokhi: “Why am I sitting passively, why do I not investigate? It is my task to seek out explanations - and she went to seek God.” In Maharal’s reading, Rebecca confronts the despair of the self, and discovers that the question of meaning has a dynamic force. Her despair is not to circle hollowly upon itself, but to launch searchings and researching, inquiries for God.”
Through Zornberg’s interpretation of Maharal, we discover Rebecca the Philosopher. The experience of feeling torn - of seeing a tragic world rather than one with obvious heroes and villains - has the potential to awaken in us, as in Rebecca, the urge to investigate nothing less than the meaning of life itself.
I don’t want to valorize tragedy in any way. But what I see in Rabbi Shai Held’s comment, in the line from William Butler Yeats’ autobiography, and in Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg’s essay, is a sense that naming tragedy as part of our experience helps us see more clearly. A heroes-and-villains worldview (which is clearly compelling across a wide political spectrum) motivates us to act but doesn’t connect us to reality. It is a story-telling version of spiritual bypass, "the tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks".
There’s a seemingly comedic commentary on why exactly the twin fetuses were struggling with each other, from the Tur HaAroch (14th century, Spain). He notes that Esau is described as hairy, while Jacob is smooth. Obviously, then, Esau’s hairs were poking Jacob in the womb and causing all the agitation!
I shared this teaching at a staff meeting earlier this week, and after some (mild) laughter, Rabbi Rachel plucked some profundity out of the interpretation: At the root of their conflict was a feeling of discomfort.
I don’t know a single person in Jewish circles who is feeling particularly comfortable right now. When I think about what wisdom Rebecca Imeinu, our ancestor, teacher, and guide, might offer, these words come to mind:
May your discomfort lead you to inquire.
May your inquiry lead to learning.
May your learning never lapse into too much comfort.
To encounter the world as it is with all its pain and promise, is also to encounter the Source of Life. Hold the pain tenderly, and pursue the promise as honestly as you can.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Jay LeVine
