ותרא..ותקנא רחל באחותה, she saw that during the period that Leah bore 4 sons for Yaakov she had not even born him a single one.

ויחר...אשר מנע ממך, G’d denied you children, not I. You have to pray to Him, not to berate me. As far as I am concerned, I have made my contribution already having slept with you far more often than with Leah. If you are genetically barren then you have to ask G’d to open your womb. Your sister did the same and her prayer has been answered. The word מנע, prevented, which Yaakov used meant that the sperm did not enter the area of the womb where fertilisation takes place. Yaakov’s anger was due to Rachel attributing her problem to Yaakov and something Yaakov had failed to do, and not to G’d, Who decrees who is barren and who is fertile. The demand to her husband הבה לי בנים, “get me children,” was entirely out of place. Had she asked Yaakov to plead with G’d to have mercy on her, she would have been perfectly in order. He would not then have become angry at her.

ותאמר, she said that after Yaakov had explained to her that her failure to have children was G’d’s doing, she suggested what Sarah had suggested to Avraham, that she was willing to become a vicarious mother through her servant maid having a child by him. She therefore asked Yaakov to sleep with Bilhah.

ותלד על ברכי, whomsoever she will give birth to shall be considered as having been born on my knees, my becoming his foster mother seeing he will be part of my family.

ואבנה גם אנכי, so that I too will be built through her (Bilhah). The word גם here refers to Leah, Rachel saying that she too, as a foster mother, would consider herself as “built,” i.e. as leaving something of herself to posterity. We have explained the meaning of the word ואבנה in Genesis 16,2.

ותתן לו...לאשה. she provided Yaakov to be Bilhah’s exclusive sexual partner.

ותהר, we find with each of the four sons born to Yaakov by the servant maids that the Torah adds the word ליעקב, that these were born for Yaakov, although this word is missing when Leah gave birth to her first 4 sons. The reason is to underline that these sons by servant maids had the same status in Yaakov’s eyes as the sons born by Leah and Rachel. When it came to the Israelites being divided into 12 tribes, twelve army groups, supplying a specific number of judges, they were all treated equally.

ותאמר...דנני אלוקים, He compared my legal status with that of my sister and found me also as deserving to have children, just as she is deserving. Seeing she spoke about the legal aspect of G’d’s judgment, as opposed to the favours granted by G’d’s attribute of Mercy, i.e. ה', she used His attribute of Justice when referring to Him, i.e. אלוקים.

וגם שמע בקולי, to the prayer I offered to Him concerning this child. Even if I had not been worthy, He accepted my prayer.

ויתן לי בן, seeing that I intend to relate to him as if he were the fruit of my own womb. He is part of my family. [according to tradition both Zilpah and Bilhah were sisters to Rachel and Leah paternally, though they did not have the same mother. Ed.]

ותהר...ותאמר נפתולי אלוקים, “I have engaged in a difficult contest with my sister;” the root פתל means to twist or be twisted as in פתיל תכלת, a string made of blue wool, i.e. two strands of yarn combined to make a cord, twisted. By pulling the two strands together the whole string becomes stronger. ותהר...ותאמר נפתולי אלוקים, “I have engaged in a difficult contest with my sister;” the root פתל means to twist or be twisted as in פתיל תכלת, a string made of blue wool, i.e. two strands of yarn combined to make a cord, twisted. By pulling the two strands together the whole string becomes stronger.

אלוהים. The use of the word אלוהים is symbolic of the fierceness of the sisters’ competition, When we want to emphasise something as being extraordinary, we sometimes use the word “elohim” to do this, as for instance in the description of the size of the city of Nineveh in Jonah 3,3 where it is described as עיר גדולה לאלוהים. A similar expression in Psalms 36,7 כהררי א-ל describes towering mountains by using the word elohim as the appropriate adjective to describe this. Psalms 80,11 Jeremiah 2,31, and Song of Songs 8,6 are some more examples of the use of the word el or elohim as such an adjective.

ותרא לאה, she thought that she was not going to have any more children herself, and gave her handmaid to Yaakov seeing that the matriarchs’ main concern was to increase the number of children that would be born for Yaakov.

ותלד...ותאמר...בגד, the 2 words בא גד have been condensed into a single word, the letter א having been omitted. The meaning of the expression is “this one came or brought with him with good fortune.” It is read as if it had been written as two separate words, i.e. “good fortune has arrived.” The phrase העורכים לגד שלחן, in Isaiah 65,11 is also to be understood as “who set a table for luck?” Rabbi Moshe hacohen Gigatilia says that the word גד refers to a star so named in the language of Kedar. This is a star presumed to forecast good fortune. If we wanted to explain the word גד in terms of גדוד, we could still explain it as having a similar meaning, i.e. בא גודד הגדוד, “with the arrival of this one there is a full troop of sons.”

ותלד..ותאמר..באשרי, the root of the word is in the kal conjugation. She said that others will give me credit for building Yaakov’s future seeing that between her sons and her handmaids sons they had contributed 8 out of 12.

וילך ראובן, Reuven was about 6 or 7 years old at the time. He went out into the wheat fields, found these dudaim and brought them to his mother Leah. Dudaim are a kind of herb whose roots have a natural reddish appearance. Perhaps Reuven had heard some place that this herb is supposed to help women get pregnant, and that seeing his mother had not had any babies lately, he meant to help her in this regard. The popular belief in the efficacy of the dudaim in this respect is not based on fact. If it had been true, why did Rachel not get pregnant after eating them? Also Leah did not get pregnant as a result of eating dudaim, for the Torah says: וישמע אלוקים אל לאה, that G’d listened to Leah’s prayer. (verse 17)

ותאמר רחל, she was under the impression that the popularly held belief about dudaim was correct.

המעט קחתך את אישי, seeing that Rachel still did not have any children Yaakov slept with her far more often than he did with Leah in order to soothe her mind.

את אישי, she meant that Yaakov was her husband no less than he was Rachel’s husband.

ולקחת גם את דודאי בני, the word ולקחת is in an infinitive mode, as if she had said ותרצי לקחת, “you want to take.” If the meaning of the word would be as the translater (Onkelos) renders it as ותסבין, the letter ת in ולקחת should have had a dagesh as is customary, for instance in Kings I 14,3 ולקחת בידך.

לכן, in exchange for this.

ויבא יעקב, the reason why this whole paragraph has been preserved in the Torah for all times is to demonstrate that what motivated our matriarchs in their relations with their husbands was exclusively their task to produce as many children for them as possible. They were not concerned with indulging their libido. When Rachel, during those years, made a point of sleeping with Yaakov at every opportunity, it was because she hoped that on one of those occasions her prayers would be answered and that she would conceive. We find that in verse 22 this did indeed happen. It stands to reason then that when Leah requested that Yaakov sleep with her on a certain occasion, she too prayed that she would conceive as an answer to her prayers. She had resumed praying for additional children as soon as she had noticed that she no longer seemed to become pregnant easily. G’d did indeed listen to her prayer as we know from verse 17. As to Leah going out towards Yaakov while the latter was on his way home from work, she did this fully in accordance with accepted moral ethical rules, seeing that Yaakov had been unaware of the bargain Leah had made with Rachel. Had she not headed him off, Yaakov would have proceeded to Rachel’s tent, as was his custom. It would have been most inappropriate for Leah to ask Yaakov to leave Rachel’s tent after he had already arrived there.

אלי תבא, to my tent, seeing that each of the matriarchs had her own tent.

בלילה הוא the noun has the definitive article, i.e. the patach under the letter ב in the word בלילה, whereas the adjective, the word הוא, does not have the prefix ה which would signal such a definitive article, i.e. referring to a specific night we already know about. There are many such constructions in the Torah, one of the best known ones being in Numbers 28,4 את הכבש אחד, where we would have expected the word האחד instead of merely אחד. Samuel II 6,3 is another such example where we would have expected the word החדשה instead of חדשה.

וישמע, when the Torah speaks of “the fifth son,” “the sixth son,” this is to remind us that this woman was deemed worthy to bear half of the 12 founding fathers of the Jewish nation.

ותאמר, seeing that she had stopped bearing children and had given her maidservant to Yaakov in her stead, she thought that she had been rewarded for this by G’d (for two reasons; 1) for helping her husband to father more children so that his indulging in sexual intercourse with a woman who could not provide him with children would not be accounted as mere physical gratification. 2) for having done her maidservant a great favour to become able to mother the children of such a righteous man as Yaakov. For both of these reasons she expressed the hope that G’d would reward her. When she subsequently indeed bore children for Yaakov again herself, she considered this as her reward from G’d and thanked Him for it. She made certain that her son’s name reflected her feeling of gratitude by naming him יששכר.

ותהר...ותאמר זבדני אלוקים אותי זבד טוב, the meaning of the name corresponds to the circumstances surrounding the child’s birth. As to the apparent repetition, i.e. saying אותי, something already mentioned by the suffix ני in the word זבדני, this may have been to make her intention in naming the boy even more unmistakable. It is also possible that the letters את in this word mean “from,” as in Genesis 44,3 הם יצאו את העיר, “they had departed from the city,” so that the suffix י would make the word mean “from me.” She would then have emphasised that not only had she been built up through raising the children of her handmaid, but that G’d had even granted her additional children from her own womb. She was grateful that her husband’s semen when sleeping with her did not go to waste. She was grateful that the gift of this baby originated in her womb.

הפעם יזבלני, my house will now become his permanent residence seeing that I have born six sons for him. She perpetuated this feeling of Yaakov making his home predominantly in her tent by naming the child Zevulun.

ואחר ילדה בת, it would appear that originally Dinah was meant to become Zevulun’s twin (brother). This is why the Torah wrote ואחר ילדה בת, without making any mention of Leah again becoming pregnant. The Torah did not even write ותלד עוד. No mention is made of why she named the girl Dinah. There is a well known aggadic explanation that Leah did not want her sister to be shamed in having fewer sons than even the handmaids; her prayer to that effect was answered by this fetus becoming a girl.

And God remembered: after it appeared as thought she was forgotten, since they had all given birth and she had not given birth. God saw the insults and remembered her.

וישמע, now He heard all her prayers, i.e. the time had come for her prayers to be answered.

ותהר..אסף אלוקים את חרפתי, the word אסף is to be understood like the same word in Joel 4,15 אספו נגהם, ”they have withdrawn their brightness.” Rachel’s shame, embarrassment was removed. Alternatively, the word could mean the destruction, termination of something as in Judges 18,25 ואספת נפשך, “you would lose your lives.” Rachel now lost her shame. The root אסף in the transitive sense also occurs in Samuel I 15,6 as פן אוסיפך עמו, “lest I destroy you with them.” Accordingly, the meaning of אסף here would be that it had terminated, ceased to exist.

ותקרא...בן אחר. Rachel meant that she hoped for at least one more son.

ויהי כאשר ילדה, Yaakov told Lavan that now that all his wives and handmaids had born children including Rachel who had been barren, there was no further reason for him to detain Yaakov. There is an aggadic commentary quoted by Rashi according to which now that Joseph had been born Yaakov was reassured about his fear of Esau being able to harm him. He considered Joseph the antidote to such a danger. He had been told in a prophetic vision that the descendants of Esau would fall victim to the descendants of Joseph, and this is why he was prepared to go back now to his father’s house

שלחני, a polite form of asking permission, though in fact none was needed.

תנה, seeing that all my belongings are still in your house.

אשר עבדתי אותך, for whom I have served you. Yaakov meant that Lavan had no legal right to detain them seeing Yaakov had served for them, i.e. had paid for them in full. He wanted to take them home with him.

בהן, the word refers to the word נשי earlier in the verse.

נחשתי, I have divined, i.e. I have gone to magicians, mediums, etc., to find confirmation that your stay with me was the cause of my good fortune during the last 14 years. As a result, I want that you stay with me some more time.

נקבה, as rendered by Onkelos, “spell out, determine!” We find this word in a similar sense in Isaiah 62,2 אשר פי ה' יקבנו, “which the Lord Himself will determine.” Lavan meant that he was amenable to any terms Yaakov would demand in order to retain his presence and his services.

ויאמר..ואת אשר היה, the meaning of the word מעט in verse 30 is that Lavan was well aware that when Yaakov had come to him he had possessed very little, and that his wealth now was due to Yaakov’s faithful labour on his behalf, and that G’d had increased the amount of livestock he owned now on account of Yaakov.

כי מעט...לרגלי, from the time I walked into your house to work for you, you became blessed, along the lines of the proverb רגל טובה לפלוני, “this person has a blessed foot,” [as in English we speak about someone having “green fingers,” i.e. that plants grow successfully under his care. Ed.]

?גם אנכי לביתי. When will I start providing for the needs of my own family as I have been doing for your family for 14 years?Rabbeinu Shlomoh (Rashi) explains “thus far only my children have worked for me. When will I finally help them?” (This explains the word גם in the verse).

ויאמר, Lavan said that he wanted him, Yaakov, to stay with him, asking: ?מה אתן לך, as your wages?

לא תתן לי מאומה, do not give me anything as fixed salary as my reward; my wages shall be in the nature of something that accrues to me coincidentally as an act of kindness by G’d, not as a sign of goodwill from you, diminishing what was yours. If you agree to these terms, אשובה ארעה צאנך שמור, I will once again tend your flocks as I used to do.

אעבור, I will check in passing together with you.

הסר, the word is either in the infinitive, or an instruction by Yaakov to Lavan to remove these animals so that he would not be able to say at a later stage that they had been part of his flock which had been overlooked in their joint count of them, and that it was these mother sheep which had given birth to the lambs with the skin patterns Yaakov had chosen to be his wages.

כל שה נקוד וטלוא , of the תישים, i.e. the males, whereas of the goats the female are meant. As the Torah says וטלוד ונקוד בעזים. The reason why the תישים have not been spelled out by name is that both had understood that they were meant without their having to spell this out. In the story narrative (verse 35) they have been mentioned specifically. The reason Yaakov used the term שה was that this term includes both the males and the females of the species. (compare Ezekiel 34,20 בין שה בריה ובין שה רזה) Another verse referring to the word שה as clearly both male and female is found in Leviticus 22,27 ושור או שה אותו ואת בנו.

נקד, displaying white spots among the black or yellowish ones.

וטלוא, a reference to larger patches, as per Joshua 9,5. We encounter this expression in this sense also in Shabbat 114, i.e. טלאי על גבי טלאי.

חום, black The word has this meaning in Arabic when one refers to the colour of the head and throat of the sheep.

והיה שכרי, any animals born in the flock henceforth displaying these skin patterns will be my wages.

וענתה בי צדקתי, this will prove that I dealt fairly with you, and will continue to deal fairly with you. My righteousness will be proved by the fact that animals with such skin patterns will be born though their mother animals or their fathers did not possess these skin patterns, so that I did not benefit by genetic factors contributed by your animals. Not only had Lavan removed all animals with traces of such skin patterns from the flocks entrusted to Yaakov for tending, but even animals which had displayed such skin patterns only on their legs had been removed by him, not to speak of animals which had displayed such spots on other parts of their bodies.

וישם, Lavan instructed his sons to make the spotted and speckled sheep in his flocks graze 3 days away from the animals Yaakov was tending. Yaakov let the remainder of the flock graze in the areas he had been used to. Lavan was so concerned that some of the striped and spotted animals under his sons’ care might wander back to the meadows in which they had grazed previously, and become mixed with the animals Yaakov was now tending. Yaakov might then claim that these animals were his.

ויקח, Yaakov did not do this in the first year, but only from the second year on. He did not place the sticks in front of the animals belonging to Lavan, but only in front of those animals which were now his as a result of the young ones born with the agreed upon skin patterns during that year. When he placed the sticks in front of those animals which were his, he did not intend for them to have young ones of a different skin pattern from the one they already had, but only to ensure that all his animals would give birth to young ones bearing the same skin patterns as did their mothers. In other words, he did not deprive Lavan of anything, either directly or indirectly. He acted in a manner which would not allow Lavan even to suspect him of stealing from him. This is the way my father of blessed memory explained these verses in light of the fact that numerous people, reading the story superficially, had expressed surprise that our patriarch Yaakov had been as devious as a superficial reading of the text makes it appear.

לבנה, a tree (poplar) with a white trunk. (before peeling off its bark) He used such a tree in order to produce the desired colour contrasts after peeling the bark partially into the respective shapes to resemble עקוד ונקוד. This could be done only while the saplings were still moist. He also took branches, or sticks that were moist, fresh, as when peeled they would look more whitish. The trees called here לוז and ערמון respectively, are both well known, (plane-tree ad almond tree.)

ויצג את המקלות, he positioned them at the water troughs. This is the meaning of the words

אשר תבאן, meaning: “as they would come there.” In Exodus 14,13 the word אשר in the line אשר ראיתם את מצרים היום also means “when, as,” i.e. “as you have seen Egypt to day.” The word אשר in the line תאכל מצות אשר צויתיך in Exodus 34,18 also means “as,” i.e. “you shall eat unleavened bread as I commanded you.”

לנכח הצאן, he had made them face the sheep.

ויחמנה, it is in the nature of the sheep to become heated, excited, and to mount the females when they are about to drink from the troughs.

ברהטים, Onkelos translates the word ותרץ in 29,12 as “she ran.” The word here means that this was a place where the water ran into pools which had been dug in the ground in order to facilitate the watering of the sheep. The word ויחמנה contains both masculine and feminine components, perhaps to hint at the mating of the two sexes. A similar construction occurs in Samuel I 6,12.

ויחמו, a reference to the males. However, as we learned earlier, the females would be in heat simultaneously.

אל המקלות, toward the sticks.

ותלדן הצאן, the sheep would give birth to young with the skin patterns Yaakov desired, as their imagination had been fired at a time when they were more than usually impressionable.

והכבשים הפריד יעקב, he separated the females from the goats whether male or female, not watering the two species at the same time, in order to prevent goats with undesirable skin patterns being born. None of the goats that were not black belonged to Yaakov [according to Joseph Kimichi’s commentary, there was nothing wrong in what Yaakov did or failed to do, since these goats never had displayed such skin patterns, so why should Yaakov encourage their being born with new skin patterns. Ed.] Yaakov watered the goats elsewhere where they did not observe any sticks or branches that could arouse their imagination. Yaakov did not have any black paint which would have enabled him to paint sticks black. Even if he had possessed such paint, his stratagem would have become public knowledge as naturally black sticks or branches did not exist in that region. He therefore had to content himself with increasing his share of the births of the sheep, foregoing any artificial measures to make the goats throw young ones that were black-skinned. [the interested reader will find that different commentators arrive at different conclusions regarding exactly what was agreed between Yaakov and Lavan, and they each explain his procedures according to their understanding of the agreement. Ed.]

וישת לו עדרים לבדו, from the lambs that were born as his share, year after year, Yaakov formed separate flocks which he kept apart seeing that they amounted to a formidable number of animals. He did not let them graze anywhere near where Lavan’s flocks were grazing. Lavan had displayed envy of Yaakov, and therefore Yaakov did not want to inflame his envy by letting him see his flocks all the time, knowing that Yaakov’s share of the newly born sheep had outnumbered those born as his own share

על צאן, as if the Torah had written עם צאן, “with the sheep.” A similar construction is found in Exodus 35,22 ויבאו האנשים על הנשים, “the men came together with the women.”

והיה בכל יחם, during all the periods when the animals were in heat, i.e. at the time when they mated; this is in accordance with Onkelos’ rendering of these words. This is the standard translation every time the word occurs.

ויחם, the reason the infinitive mode is used for the word is in order for it to be connected to the preceding word בכל, which is used in lieu of the word שם, “there, wherever.” When the word does not signify any specific time, i.e. either past, present of future, which would limit its application, then the word בכל is appropriate as it also is a totally inclusive word, not allowing for exceptions. The infinitive is therefore absolutely in place. The sheep give birth twice a year, and the Torah now tells us before which of the cycle of births Yaakov positioned the sticks by the troughs. Yaakov positioned the sticks before the first cycle of births which was numerically much smaller, because Lavan did not bother to check on what was going on during that period. Before the second birthing during that year Yaakov did not position the sticks in order to arouse the imagination of the animals because at that time Lavan would come to inspect his sheep and if he had discovered that Yaakov was using these sticks this would have resulted in a quarrel between them, and Lavan would have stolen from him whatever he thought should be his. Even though Yaakov had never positioned the sticks in front of any animals that were Lavan’s, as I explained on verse 37, in the name of my late father, Lavan would have argued that just as Yaakov placed this sticks before his own animals so he would presumably do also when watering Lavan’s flocks.

The meaning of the words המקושרות, הקשורים and העטופים, as well as the word ובהעטיף, is in accordance with the way Onkelos translates them, descriptions of the time cycle during which certain animals would give birth. My late father of blessed memory, explained that the agreement for the first year called for the result of the first birthing to be Yaakov’s, whereas the result of the second birthing would be Lavan’s.

ליחמנה במקלות, to bring them to heat through their viewing the sticks, as I already explained. The letter ה at the end of the word ליחמנה is appended just as we find this letter appended in such words as אותנה (Exodus 35,26), where we do not know any reason for this addition. The word really should have been ליחמן without the letter ה at the end but with a dagesh in the final ן. Still we do have a similar construction to ours here in Micah 7,7 עיני תיראנה בה as well as in Ezekiel 4,12 תעגנה לעיניהם where the letter נ in תעגנה is “weak,” i.e. without the dagesh we would have expected. Even though, as we explained, the places where these constructions occur are not quite analogous to one another, the fact remains that the entire story is told by the Torah in such detail in order to show the reader to what extent G’d’s providence intervened in order to make sure that Yaakov did not lose out to the crooked Lavan. This once again confirms what we read in Psalms 37,12 and 33 that זומם רשע לצדיק....ה' לא יעזבנו בידו, “when the wicked tries to set a trap the righteous G’d will not abandon the righteous to the devices of the wicked.”

ויפרץ, this refers to financial success, not to the number of offspring. This is also what G’d had promised Yaakov in 28,14 when He said: ופרצת ימה וקדמה וגו'. Yaakov’s wealth is symbolically described as bursting through its fences. There is not enough space to accommodate it. Clearly, this is one of the instances in which the Torah deliberately indulges in exaggeration in order to illustrate its point.

מאד מאד, to emphasise further the quantitative element the Torah speaks of.

ויהי לו צאן רבות, the feminine ending in רבות refers to the females of the sheep, the ones producing the lambs. One single ram would service many ewes. Cattle are not mentioned here at all as Yaakov’s work was restricted to raising sheep and goats. He did possess cattle, however.