Va-Yeitzei: Sometimes, a Mandrake is not a Mandrake...

You know that feeling, when you can cut the tension in the room with a knife? It could be for lots of different reasons - sadness, anger, desire, awkwardness - but somehow you’ve found yourself in a room with two, or more, people (you might be one of them) are experiencing a strong, uncomfortable emotion, usually yielding silence... and now no one knows what to do or say next. The tension creates a stifling energy that is palpable, thick, heavy. We’ve all been there (not infrequently in the context of Thanksgiving...). Part of the challenge of that moment is, almost nothing can ease that tension. If you try and change the subject, the tension will likely just follow your smooth transition, and even a conversation about the weather, the Eagles, or food risks dialing the awkward back up to 11. We see a fascinating example of this in our Torah portion, where the tension in question both comes to a sharp climax... and is actually not resolved at all. 

It begins with some mandrakes. Oh, sure, you’re thinking. Of course! Doesn’t drama seem to always begin with some mandrakes??? (*Awkward Silence*) Yeah, I didn’t really know what they were either. Basically, it’s a plant, with pretty flowers and roots that look like the human form when pulled out of the ground. For our purposes, it’s worth knowing that in the ancient world they were considered very potent herbs, either to stimulate conception and/or as an aphrodisiac. In our story, Jacob’s oldest son, Reuben, while still a boy, finds some mandrakes growing out in the field, and he brings them back to his mother, Leah. Innocent enough, right? But the underlying tension is that Leah has given Jacob six (!!) sons already, but Jacob still loves his OTHER wife, Rachel, who has not been able to conceive. Because of this, Rachel is VERY interested in those mandrakes... but Leah might be reticent to share them with her sister... who is also her rival!

When Rachel asks Leah for some of the mandrakes, the pressure instantly boils over! Leah snaps: “Was it not enough for you to take away my husband, that you would also take my son’s mandrakes?!?” (Gen. 30:15) The story moves on from this moment, obviously, but I wanted to stay in this discomfort for another minute, because I think many of us can TOTALLY relate to both Leah and Rachel in this predicament. One of them is feeling, “ENOUGH already!! You take, and take, and take!” The other might be feeling, “Sheesh. I just asked her for some flowers...” In many of our lives, we bicker, nitpick, squabble, and spar over the silliest of things: “He never puts the cap back on the tube!” “She hums incessantly!” “They always get into the dumbest arguments about the garden!” Sound familiar, right? Especially around the holiday season, this whole blog post might be hitting a nerve... or perhaps several dozen of them!

Ultimately, what I want to suggest to you all is, the squabbling is NOT easier. We tell ourselves over and over again, “It isn’t worth it.” I’m not going to zero in on the *real* issue, so we’ll just go on arguing about the dishes, the remote, or laundry. And I think this kind of tension is actually VERY damaging to the psyche over time. We learn to live with it, so it doesn’t cut as deep every time, but would it really be SO much worse to just talk about “the thing” itself? The elephant in the room? Maybe it seems like THAT conversation would be much, much worse... but is this languishing and bickering really SO much better? It’s the same amount of pain, just inflicted in tiny pricks over decades... and I’m pretty sure that would be considered a form of torture in some cultures! So my challenge to us all is, what would happen if you didn’t make it all about the mandrakes? What if you, and I, and everyone acknowledged when a mandrake isn’t really a mandrake, and we’re yelling at each other over an older grievance that was *never* resolved? And now it’s festering like an old wound. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of wrangling over silly things. It’s just a weed, people. What do you REALLY want to talk about?

CC images in this blogpost, courtesy of:
1. pixabay
2. Wikimedia Commons (via Wellcome Images)
3. pixabay
4. Durova on Wikimedia Commons