[Avodah] Yaakov kissing Rachel

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, November 29, 2006 11:10 pm, Moshe Yehuda Gluck wrote:
: This reminds me of something that I once said. We don't find anywhere that
: Avrohom loved Sorah. We find that Yitzchok loved Rivkah at some point after
: they got married. We find that Ya'akov loved Rochel at first sight.

I wrote a blog entry on the avos and love. (Actually, it started out as a
devar Torah at my brother's aufruf.) See
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2004/12/love-part-ii.shtml>.

I suggest there that each of the avos had a different model of ahavah, which
is reflected in their marriage, their parenting, and their avodas Hashem.

Rashei peraqim as a teaser:

Avraham loved by working together. He and Sarah did outreach in Charan
together. His chessed is the continuing Hashem's work of being a meitiv.

Yitzchaq loved by reaching out to the other. Thus he is the only one about
whom we are told he was metzacheiq his wife. And, this is why Yitzchaq's
characterized by being a qorban and his tefillah.

Ya'aqov was the synthesis of the two, in the Hegelian sense of combining both
to produce something that is neither. He sought to know the other, da'as. Thus
he was the one av who gave each son a matching brother. And his avodah was
focused on yeshivas ohalim.

Avraham and Yitzchaq's parenting, Ya'aqov's marriages, and how Ya'aqov's love
is a synthesis are among the details you'll have to read the blog entry to
see.

Tir'u baTov!
-mi

-- 
Micha Berger             Spirituality is like a bird: if you tighten
micha at aishdas.org        your grip on it, it chokes; slacken your grip,
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Fax: (270) 514-1507                            - Rav Yisrael Salanter