Shavuot

Shavuot at UCLA only re-confirmed how badly I want to leave YU. A certain small percent of the college experience should be something like summer camp. At YU, that percentage is 0%.

Anyhoo, for the evening's learning I chose Ruth Rabbah. I got through the introductory Midrashim (petikhot) and the glosses on the first Perek. Some of the pieces were truly moving and dramatic, reminders of Hazal's finely honed reading skills and well-attuned sense of the tragically beautiful. I came away with some cool stuff - here's my favorite: (in five bite size parts)

1. What's Bothering me about Rashi?
Remember that romantic scene at the well, when Yaakov heroically rolls away a rock for his beloved Rachel? After he finally gets a good look at her, Yaakov kisses Rachel and cries. (Breishit 29:11)

The moment is one of Breishit's most dramatic, but also most ambiguous: afterall, what sort of tears dost Yaakov shed? Are these drops of joy for finding that perfect shidduch; sobs of sorrow, as he realizes how quickly he fell from favored son to exiled tramp; welps of wanting, for the beautiful Rachel remains out of his financial reach? The reader has plenty of viable options.

So why does Rashi go out on a limb and offer such a strange explanation? He quotes from Breishit Rabba: "For he saw in Ruach HaKodesh that she wouldn't be buried with him." What the heck?! Ruach HaKodesh?! Burial?!

Honestly, I've always read this Rashi as a conscious attempt to undo what should be a wonderfully romantic moment . . . to de-humanize a beautifully human moment.

2. Smooching Salutations
Remember this as we roll over to Ruth.

There are two acts of kissing in Ruth 1. The first time around, Naomi kisses her daughters-in-law and then they "lift up their voice and cry." (1:9) The second time, they once again raise their voices and weep, after which Orpah kisses Naomi, but Ruth chooses to remain with her mother-in-law. (1:14)

It seems like these Biblical pecks are "goodbye kisses." Naomi's original kiss is what triggers the women's emotional breakdown - it signals the break-up of their trio. Similarly, the final act between Naomi and Orpah is a kiss. Ruth, who vows to never leave her aged friend, chooses to not return Naomi's kiss.

3. The Midrash is no Fool
Ruth Rabbah picks up on the symbolism. It states that there are three types of Torah-endorsed kisses (the rest are licentious): kissing a person in high office, like Shmuel kissing David; the kiss of a reunion, like Moshe and Aharon; and the kiss of departing, like Naomi and Orpah.

A second opinion is offered, which presents a fourth grounds for canoodling: the kiss between relatives, like Yaakov and Rachel. (Who were related through Rivka.)

4. A New View of Yaakov's Locking Lips
Why is a second opinion needed to validate Yaakov's kiss? How did the first opinion interpret Yaakov's action?

Presumably, that their smooch fits into one of the original three categories. Obviously, it does not relate to high office or reunion, but perhaps it can be read as a kiss of departure.

In fact, there's a wonderful textual hint linking the kiss of Yaakov with that foundational goodbye peck found in Ruth 1. Compare Breishit 29:11

וַיִּשַּׁק יַעֲקֹב, לְרָחֵל; וַיִּשָּׂא אֶת-קֹלוֹ, וַיֵּבְךְּ.
And Yaakov kissed Rachel, and he lifted up his voice, and he cried

with Ruth 1:9

וַתִּשַּׁק לָהֶן, וַתִּשֶּׂאנָה קוֹלָן וַתִּבְכֶּינָה
And she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices, and they cried

At their very moment of meeting, Yaakov kisses Rachel goodbye.

5. From Kissing to Crying
The Midrash quoted by Rashi ("For he saw in Ruach HaKodesh that she wouldn't be buried with him") communicates just this point. In its view, Yaakov's "kiss of departure" is followed by a cry of goodbye, with Yaakov sobbing over both Rachel's early death and their eternal separation.

The focus on unshared burial grounds is not coincidental. Of all the moments of frustration and disappointment in the Rachel-Yaakov relationship, burial plays a particularly symbolic role. It echoes Ruth's primary, climactic example of shared togetherness:

בַּאֲשֶׁר תָּמוּתִי אָמוּת, וְשָׁם אֶקָּבֵר
Where you die, I will die, and there I shall be buried

The Midrash knows full well the parallel between Ruth and Breishit. It sets up a tragic contrast between Ruth-Naomi, the model of faithful devotion, and Yaakov-Rachel, a potentially perfect romance constantly marred by schism and incompleteness. At the peak of Yaakov's glorious return to Israel, Rachel dies. Where she is buried, he never returns.

6. Midrashic Pshat
So: was Yaakov actually saying goodbye when Rachel was hearing hello? Is this "pshat" in any sense?

Its unlikely that these specific thoughts actually fluttered through Yaakov's conscious, but, on a literary level, it adds a nice touch. It creates an awesome example of foreshadowing, as if, per horror movies, a bolt of lightning struck just as they experienced their first kiss.

Their relationship, is, after all doomed. The list of tragedy is almost endless: he labors seven years for her (unlike his father or grandfather), receives Leah in her stead, and then works another seven to earn Rachel. In the end, she is barren, angers Yaakov, and imperils him by stealing Lavan's idols (perhaps betraying her loyalty to Avodah Zarah.) He inadvertently curses his beloved, she passes whilst young, and he forever lives with the guilt. He loses Yosef, that one souvenir of the woman he loved, and for a moment, even his precious Binyamin is torn out of his arms. In the end, the Shvatim transport his mummified body all the way to Israel, only to bury him alongside Leah.

So, if at that initial meeting, Yaakov withdrew his lips, looked just slightly askance at Rachel and though, "I think I'm in love, but there was something strange about that kiss . . . ," it would certainly imbue the story with an ironic touch.

And that's what Rashi had in mind. (Maybe.)