Meeting Leah, The Undervalued Matriarch

Jacob Meeting the two Daughters of Laban at the Well. Image courtesy of The Getty Museum and supplied by Hadassah.

I’ve been thinking about Leah a good bit lately. Jewish tradition recognizes Leah as a matriarch—along with sister Rachel, mother-in-law Rebecca, and grandmother-in-law Sarah. Many liberal prayer books list these four matriarchs—שָׂרָה, רִבְקָה, לֵאָה וְרָחֵל—after the three patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob— אַבְרָהָ֛ם יִצְחָ֥ק וְיַעֲקֹ֖ in the Amidah prayer that is central to Jewish liturgy. But most list Leah last, even though she’s the third oldest. Then she’s pretty much ignored.

In current jargon, we might say that Leah has no agency. Her fate is determined by others and she’s not consulted. This doesn’t mean she’s not interesting. Rather, we need to look further into the Biblical text for information about what she feels or thinks. Indeed, the text does let us hear from Leah herself on what’s most important to her.

Here is Leah’s story.

We first meet Leah (alternatively spelled Le’a) in Genesis, Chapter 29 when she’s identified as one of two daughters of Laban, the uncle to whose home Jacob has fled after stealing his brother’s birthright.

This recently arrived young man immediately falls for Rachel, Laban’s younger daughter, evidenced by the text’s simple and unusual declaration that “Jacob loved Rachel” (Genesis 29:18). Jacob offers Laban seven years of labor in exchange for Rachel’s hand in marriage, and they strike the deal. At the end of seven years, however, on Jacob’s wedding night, Leah is snuck into the wedding tent instead of Rachel.

The next morning, Jacob, having consummated the marriage, discovers the switch. The text conveys surprise: “And when it became morning, here she was: Leah!” (as if “Poof: Leah!”). Jacob confronts Laban, who responds simply and unkindly, “Such is not done in our place, giving away the younger before the firstborn” (Genesis 29.26). Laban then offers up Rachel as an additional wife to Jacob in exchange for another seven years’ labor. This time, Jacob works off the debt after the marriage.

Moving forward, Leah is generally mentioned only in relation to someone else: as Jacob’s wife, as the handmaiden Zilpah’s mistress, or in a genealogical listing. But when Leah names her sons, we finally hear from her directly. Leah seems to embrace her assigned role as mother and procreator, to implement God’s promise to make later generations of Abraham’s offspring as “numerous as the stars of heaven and the sands on the seashore” (Genesis 22.17).

And she does her job well! Leah gives birth to seven of Jacob’s 13 children, including Levi, whose offspring will lead the Temple’s worship, and Judah, after whom the Jewish people will later be called. In addition, Leah provides her maid Zilpah as a birth surrogate, contributing two more boys. Nevertheless, she remains unappreciated and unloved.

When Leah names her boys, I hear anguish rather than joy. For the first child, Reuben, reu (see) and ben (son), she declares, “Behold a son.” The text also connects Re’uven to ra’ah, affliction, as Leah affirms that “God has seen my affliction.” Now, of course, her husband will love her. Jacob does not.

The second son she names Simeon (Shim’on), based on the root shema (“hear”) because the Lord heard her prayer (for another son and, we imagine, for Jacob’s missing love).

The third boy she names Levi, based on the root lavah (join), because, at last, Jacob would become joined with her (Genesis 29.32-34). Because, she says, “I have borne him three sons” (Genesis 29.32-34).

In naming her forth son, Leah ignores Jacob, saving her appreciation only for the God who is with her: “This time I will praise יהוה” (God). Therefore she named him Judah (Genesis 29.35), based on ya for God and hodah (to praise).

Nonetheless, Leah continues to yearn for Jacob to love her as he so obviously does Rachel. Following a pregnancy break, during which Leah sends her maid to Jacob’s bed as a fertile surrogate, Leah returns to baby making, hoping once again for Jacob’s affection. She gives birth to a fourth son, whom she names Issachar, from the double meaning of the Hebrew root sacher – reward and to hire – in celebration of having “hired” (loaned) Zilpah as her surrogate “God has given me my reward for having given my maid to my husband,” she explains (Genesis 30.18).

At the next birth, of Zebulon, Leah acknowledges six sons as God’s gift but, ever hopeful, adds, “This time my husband will exalt me,” drawing on the multiple meanings—exault and dwell with—of the root zevel (Genesis 30.18-20). Again Jacob does not. Daughter Dinah’s name goes uninterpreted.

As I read of Leah’s heartache, I began to wonder why she is so underappreciated. To Laban, her father, Leah might have been only chattel, to be traded for labor. To Jacob, in love at first sight with Rachel, Leah must have felt like an interloper, foisted upon him.

An answer lies, I think, in the text’s lone physical description of Leah—that she has rachote [ רַכּ֑וֹת ] eyes. Rachel, in contrast, is described as “comely in features and comely to look at.”

Rachote can be translated as soft, tender, or weak, suggesting that Leah’s eyes were attractive, or maybe nearsighted. Or, perhaps, rachote eyes was an idiom suggesting something about her personality—maybe she was timid or gently sweet and compassionate. Maybe, as some commentaries suggest, the text damns Leah with faint praise, suggesting that Leah’s eyes were her only attractive feature—in sharp contrast to Rachel’s “comely” appearance. Or, perhaps Leah had an extra copy of chromosome 21, a condition often accompanied by unusually shaped eyes that would become known as Down’s syndrome.

In the end, Leah’s primary fault appears to be that she was not Rachel. God, being less superficial than Jacob, supported Leah through seven live births and her eventual burial at the ancestral grave site, a fate denied to the preferred wife. The message, perhaps, is that God gave Leah the attention that Jacob did not.

In Genesis’s telling, Leah’s life trajectory was conventional, and she seems to have been compliant with that fate. Fortunately, the text does let us hear Leah’s anguish. No matter how Leah appeared to others, it seems to me that Leah, who wanted only to be accepted, appreciated and loved, deserves a share of rachmones, of empathy and compassion, a Yiddish term derived from the same root, rach, ( רָֽךְ ) as her rachote— soft eyes. And need she always be thought of last?

Michele is a member of the Hadassah Writers’ Circle, a dynamic and diverse writing group for leaders and members to express their thoughts and feelings about all the things Hadassah does to make the world a better place. It’s where they celebrate their personal Hadassah journeys and share their Jewish values, family traditions and interpretations of Jewish texts. Since 2019, the Hadassah Writers’ Circle has published nearly 500 columns in The Times of Israel Blogs and other Jewish media outlets. Interested? Please contact hwc@hadassah.org.