#reading this parsha my heart breaks at first most instinctively for Leah

[torahgalus]

Vayetzei

one night for your son’s mandrakes, a tent for this jasmine bloom, I will bargain the clothes off my back and the man off my bed and sister, can’t you see that I want just to be rooted, can’t you see that I am unmoored & unwhole & I know, if I cried out loud enough, she would answer, but I still hope foolishly, fervently, that this body alone can make life.

#poem #poetry #torah #jumblr #parsha #Parshat HaShavuah #Poem HaShavuah #Vayetzei #Rivkah #Leah #this time I really meant to write about something different #maybe God was in this place and I didn't know it #but it's just impossible for me to read this parsha and not be gripped and heartbroken and confused by the saga of sisters and childbirth #reading this parsha my heart breaks at first most instinctively for Leah #so unloved and so hopeful #and then upon further glance for Bilhah and Zilpah who don't even get to name their own children #but there's also a lot of heartache for Rachel #Rachel whose husband is supposed to love her so fervently but refuses to pray on her behalf #Rachel who watches her sister and handmaids birth eleven children to her husband #who sells her nights with him for fertility plans that don't work #who knows that just being loved won't be enough