We gathered again to continue honoring Bilhah and Zilpah, grounding our homecoming welcome by inviting in the memories of ancestors fueling our learning: Joan Little who was tried and convicted instead of her rapist, the memory of a dad who retired to become a stay-at-home parent, and a maternal grandmother dedicated to community…
Our witness began through reading the lines of hierarchy demonstrated in Breishit (Genesis) 33:2. The ordering of wives and children directly relates to who is valued to live and who is positioned to be sacrificed to death, reinforcing concepts presented in Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson that are still with us.
Yaakov (Jacob) goes to Sukkot rather than join his brother Esav in Seir, despite feigning an intention to do so after a happy reunion instead of the vengeful scene he had feared. Yaakov’s refusal of Esav’s offer to send people from his people to accompany Yaakov and family foreshadows the opening of Dinah’s story within a story inside of parashat Vayishlakh. Dinah’s saga opens with the word וַתֵּצֵ֤א vateizei (she went out), harkening back to Yaakov leaving home… and maybe marriage gone awry…
Sukkot bridges the going out of the family who becomes the Israelite tribes through their twelve sons (completed as this parasha ends) with the going out Exodus of the Israelites leaving Egypt. Yaakov and family traveling to and naming Sukkot on his way to return to a parental homeland, and the Israelites returning to Sukkot, searching for a way home. Teshuva. Returning. To where? Home? New beginnings? Perhaps, returning to figuring out where we are returning to…?
Yaakov’s return leads to Dinah’a rape, which incites revenge killing, deferred from two brothers (Esav and Yaakov) to two sons (Shimon and Levi). Wealth is plundered, more cattle acquired, and women and children enslaved. The family leaves town in the wake of this destruction, on a journey toward more familial destruction in the deaths of Devora and Rachel.
Arrival in Beit El, a place invoked repeatedly, bridges Yaakov’s father’s (Isaac) marriage to his mother (Rivka) encountered at a well with his own marriages starting with meeting Rachel at a well. There is also a connection between Devora, Rachel, and idols all buried under a tree in Beit El, a place simultaneously referenced as going to and leaving from, yet remaining in the same place… perhaps reinforcing a need to figure out where we are returning to… or suggesting an impossibility of returning home…?
We noted the women of the portion that would have been in contact with Bilhah and Zilpah: other enslaved women in Yaakov’s camp, Leah, Rachel, Dinah, the daughters of the land in Shekhem, Devora, and a midwife. We waded through unexplored relationships and allegory for ritual opportunities to remember, name, and honor enslaved matriarchs, sacrificed matriarchs, and concubine matriarchs. We will return to this ritual foundation when we meet again on December 22 and link biblical matriarchs with historic and modern women and issues. Register to join us next time and/or on Sunday December 29 for Weaving Matriarchal Legacies, where we will look to the generations and story threads that tie us together. We would love to study with you!
Until then, keep listening for and hearing Bilhah’s and Zilpah’s voices.
Jews of Color Sanctuary 