The Mating Game

In Beraishit 38, we are told of Yehuda’s marriage and his interactions with his own immediate family. Yehuda’s choice to wed an ostensibly Canaanite woman—38:2 “Bat Ish Canaani” (the daughter of a Canaanite man)(1)—appears to fly in the face of the traditions that were begun by Avraham and continued down through subsequent generations of Avraham’s descendents. Avraham is quite explicit when he tells Eliezer (24:3) “Do not take a woman for my son of the Cannanite daughters among whom I live.” The Tora records that although Hagar arranges for Yishmael to marry after their banishment from Avraham’s house, he nevertheless marries an Egyptian woman (21:21) rather than a Canaanite one. When Eisav ignores the injunction originating with his grandfather, and marries two Canaanite women (26:34), the Tora lets the reader know in no uncertain terms how Yitzchak and Rivka react to their son’s decision. (26:35) “And they (the Hittite women) were a bitterness of spirit to Yitzchak and to Rivka.” Rivka exploits her and her husband’s extreme dissatisfaction with Eisav’s marriage partners, in order to rationalize to Yitzchak the need for Yaakov to leave home, lest he follow his brother’s example (27:46) and choose an unsatisfactory wife. Even Eisav finally appears to realize how negatively his parents felt about the women he married, and tries to at least partially appease them by marrying an additional wife from the family of Yishmael (27:8-9).   The fact that Dinah’s rapist was a Canaanite (34:2), just added insult to injury, and Yaakov and his sons fail to anticipate that the ruse that they  proposed in order to win Dina’s freedom, i.e., the only way that the two peoples could intermarry and live together would be for the inhabitants of Shechem to undergo ritual circumcision, might actually be taken seriously by them (34:13 ff.)  

 Acknowledging this pattern of spousal preference, and recognizing the importance of maintaining the fledgling spiritual traditions that had evolved over the course of only three previous generations, would lead us to think that Yehuda would naturally follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, and would make sure not to marry a Canaanite.  It is striking when this does not appear to be the case.

Perhaps for the very reason that it seems so outlandish for Yehuda to marry a Canaanite, not only RaShI, who often incorporates Midrashic interpretations into his Tora commentary, but even someone as rigorously devoted to the simple, literal meaning of the text as RaShI’s grandson, RaShBaM, accepts Targum Onkelos’ interpretation of “Canaanite” in 38:2, as connoting “a merchant” rather than a member of a particular ethnic group.(2)  And while Ibn Ezra does mention that it is possible to understand that Yehuda married an actual Canaanite, he also includes the Rabbinic approach that he did nothing of the sort, suggesting that this commentator also has strong reservations about conclusively asserting that Yehuda married improperly. RaDaK offers a literary indication that Yehuda must have married a non-Canaanite woman. When we look at the genealogical list of the descendents of Yaakov mentioned by the Tora when it describes the family traveling from Canaan to Egypt (46:1 ff.), a particular name among the children of Shimon leaps out at us: (46:10) “Shaul, the son of the Canaanite woman”.(3) If Yehuda and possibly others of Yaakov’s offspring married Canaanites, it would not make sense to single out Shimon. The Tora’s drawing attention to this case implies that it is the only case, and all of the other brothers, including Yehuda, married appropriate wives. 

RaMBaN explains that the view that Yehuda’s wife was not a Canaanite, reflects these commentators offering an additional alternative to an argument first recorded in a Midrash. Regarding 37:35 where the Tora relates how all of Yaakov’s children—including daughters (plural!)—tried to comfort him after his concluding that Yosef was dead, (Beraishit Rabba 84:21) “R. Yehuda said that the tribes married their sisters…R. Nechemia said that they married Canaanites…”

R. Yehuda’s view that for lack of appropriate candidates for marriage from outside the immediate family, intermarriage took place within this patriarch’s intimate family circle, hearkens back to an earlier problem in the Tora. Whether it should be assumed that daughter twins accompany the birth of sons in situations where suitable mates seem to be unavailable, is an issue at the very beginning of Creation. Consider RaShI’s comments on 4:1-2: “’VaTeled Et Kayin…VaTosef Laledet Et Achiv, Et Hevel…’ (And she bore ET Kayin…and she continued to give birth ET his brother, ET Hevel.) The three ‘Et’s are inclusionary words, (i.e., words whose purpose is to indicate that more has happened or has been said than meets the eye; yet no overt mention of these events or statements will be recorded other than by means of a word connoting ‘more’, ‘additionally’).  This is to teach that a twin sister was born along with Kayin, and two twin sisters with Hevel. For this reason the verb ‘VaTosef’ (and she continued) was employed.”(4) This school of thought assumes that rules of incest are overlooked prior to the giving of the Tora at Sinai, at those times when there are no other marriage partners available to Divinely Chosen family lines. Although ultimately what Lot’s daughters do in 19:31 ff. is discredited, since they were not the last people on earth but rather only the sole survivors of Sodom and Amora, had the former been the case, their actions as a means for the human race to continue to exist, could have been justified. A further hint that points to the legitimacy of such a claim is assumed by some to be found in VaYikra 20:17: “A man who marries his sister, the daughter of his father or the daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness and she sees his nakedness, it is Chesed (compassion?), and they will be cut off before the eyes of their people, he has uncovered her nakedness and he will bear his sin.” RaShI, after declaring that the simple meaning of “Chesed” within this context is “shame, embarrassment”, cites a Midrashic interpretation in Sanhedrin 58b, to the effect that in order to assure that Kayin would have someone to marry, God made available to him a sister,(5) constituting a fulfillment of Tehillim 89:3, “The world He constructed on the basis of ‘Chesed’”.

Yaakov was the first father in the formative generations of the Jewish people confronting the problem of finding suitable marriage partners for a sizeable number of offspring. Avraham had only Yishmael and Yitzchak to be concerned about.(6) Yitzchak, in turn, assumed parental responsibilities only for Eisav and Yaakov. But Yaakov had thirteen children for whom to seek appropriate matches. While RaMBaN, on 37:2, sees the alternative to assuming that Canaanite women became Yaakov’s daughters-in-law, as choosing suitable non-Canaanite women from among local Geirei Toshav (sojourners, as opposed to the native inhabitants, the former at least observing the seven Noachide commands, and who derived ethnically from the Amonites or the Moabites), others posit that even these peoples would simply not do as the next generation of Imahot of the Jewish people. And as for returning to Aram Naharaim in order to find twelve more good women and one good man on the level of Rivka, Rachel and Leah, this most probably would prove unsuccessful. Consequently, for the advocates of this position, one and only one alternative remains, namely to assume that siblings married one another. Perhaps the degree of incest would be somewhat lessened were it be assumed that marriage partners, even if they had the same father, would require to be descended from a different mother, among Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah.(7) 

In conclusion, while having a large number of children was necessary at this point for the continuation and expansion of the Jewish people, the logistical challenge of finding marriage partners was daunting for Yaakov and his children. Worrying about whom one’s offspring will marry and how they will hopefully continue in the traditions of the past is not something that has decreased down through the ages. While choices seem to be broader than the rock and the hard place that the Rabbis describe were the alternatives facing Yaakov’s family, parents continue to be concerned and hope and pray that their children will marry well and merit to build faithful and lasting families among the Jewish people.

Shabbat Shalom, Happy Chanuka, and may we see Nachat from our children in every way, including IY”H their spouses and children.

(1) See also Divrei HaYamim I 2:3.

(2) A similar style of interpretation is applied to Sholomo HaMelech’s chief artisan in the construction of the Temple. Chiram is identified as the son of an (Melachim I 7:14) “Ish Tzori”. While this could connote a non-Jewish resident of Tyre—the fact that his mother is identified as Jewish (Ibid.) at least takes care of the fact that Chiram was technically Jewish—nevertheless both RaShI and RaDaK, insist that while a resident of Tyre, the father was Jewish as well. By extension, there could be non-Canaanites living in Canaan who would be called “Canaanites”, and conversely, when Eliezer is sent to Avraham’s birthplace to find a non-Canaanite wife for Yitzchak, who is to say that he might not choose a Canaanite who had relocated to Aram Naharaim? Fro this reason, Yishmael was taking a major risk when according to the sequence of events recorded in Braishit 24:22-23, he first gives Rivka gifts before he asks her who she is. How could he not have been more careful about clearly ascertaining her identity before making any commitments in light of Avraham’s instructions? It would appear that even he recognized that he might have been too hasty when in his discussions with Rivka’s family, Eliezer reverses the order (24:47).

(3) RaShI tries to get Shimon off the hook as well, by interpreting the “Canaanite woman” to be none other than Dina, who because she was raped by a Canaanite, can be referred to as a Canaanite herself. The fact that this then becomes an incest issue appears to be a case of from the frying pan into the fire. Furthermore, a Midrash (Midrash Aggada, Buber edition, Beraishit 41:45) suggests that Osnat, Yosef’s wife, was not the biological child of Potifera, but a foundling whom they raised. In fact, she was the daughter of Dina and Shechem, whom Yaakov and his family left on a doorstep, since they considered her the concrete reminder of the rape that Dina suffered. By linking the stories of Dina and Yosef’s marriage, yet another of Yaakov’s sons marries a blood relative.

(4) In the drama, Inherit the Wind, the character modeled after Clarence Darrow imperiously asks his nemesis, William Jennings Bryant, if we are to take the Bible’s account of Creation literally, then how and with whom did all the “begetting” take place following the births of Kayin and Hevel, in light of the fact that no female offspring are mentioned?

(5) The only other alternatives would be to assume that either Kayin’s own mother was the mother of his children, or that there were other female births that the Tora simply did not record.

(6) Regarding Ketura’s children, since according to the text, they were not considered on Yitzchak’s level—see 25:5-6—Avraham worried neither about their spouses nor subsequent offspring. In a related comment cited by RaMBaN on 24:1 quotes Bava Batra 16b, where several interpretations of the phrase, “And God Blessed Avraham BaKol (in everything)”. Among the views expressed in the Gemora is that of R. Meir, who explains that the blessing was that Avraham did not have a daughter. Rather than simply dismissing this view as paternalistic, or even somewhat misogynistic, RaMBaN explains that whereas it could be insisted that a wife would have to come to live with the husband’s family, the reverse was not true. Consequently, if Avraham had a daughter, she would have gone off and lived with her husband’s idolatrous family, practically insuring her disconnection from the spiritual traditions that Avraham was developing. That was obviously not the case with respect to Rivka, Leah, or Rachel, although Yaakov stayed away from his family and their traditions longer than he should have. The example of Dina further illustrates how R. Meir may have reached his point of view.

(7) If Leah had six pregnancies, that then suggests according to this approach six sons and six daughters. When you calculate that Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah each had two sons and two daughters, there should be enough of each gender to go around. As for Dina, see fn. 3 above, although in this case both Shimon and Dina not only have the same father, but also the same mother.