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.
If you’re reading along in the triennial portion, there are two focal lines that start to reveal Bilhah and Zilpah. These lines happen in the dramatic confrontation between Yaakov (Jacob) and Lavan that has been brewing over the previous twenty years. A moment catalyzed by Yaakov finally finding a way to leave and return home at the behest of God. During the encounter, in Breishit (Genesis) 31:43, Lavan declares he owns everything after searching for his stolen terafim hidden under a Rachel who uses menstruation to avoid detection.
Breishit 31:33 reveals Lavan entering Yaakov’s tent, Leah’s tent, and the tent of the two slaves. Not finding it Lavan leaves Leah’s tent and enters Rachel’s tent.
Imagining the everyday realities of these different near-eastern biblical scenes can organically bring a lot to our connection to the text. Are these the same tents that were used back in Padan Aram, but quickly erected while journeying? Why is Lavan noted as entering the tent of Bilhah and Zilpah, then leaving Leah’s tent… do they have quarters secluded inside of Leah’s space? Why do Bilhah and Zilpah share a tent?
Trying to visualize how Bilhah and Zilpah lived, what activities occupied their days, and how they endured the oppressive systems controlling them bring to mind the ways that photographs can be used to explore the lived realities of people obscured throughout history. One can’t assume that an image featuring the focused community is representative. Consideration of why the image was created and messaging motive should be considered. Yet, images do capture certain realities of the moments they are created in. And, sometimes, in the background, reality is unintentionally immortalized in ways that support future excavating.
This approach can be applied to the Torah. In essence we learn that Zilpah and Bilhah appear to be sharing a tent while Leah and Rachel occupy their own tent. Does this relate to the status of Bilhah and Zilpah in this moment of the story? Where and how are other enslaved women housed, or unhoused? There is a potential reading that Bilhah’s and Zilpah’s secondary status, whether as wives or enslaved women, warranted second class housing. However, one empowered reading brought in during a previous Bilhah Zilpah Project session was consideration that Bilhah and Zilpah might choose co-housing as a way to increase safety for each other. While each woman navigated her own reality in a challenging realm, there is opportunity for midrashic insight into potential sisterhood between Zilpah and Bilhah with Leah over Rachel in that Leah felt unloved and may have found solidarity in some semblance of second-wife status despite being the first one married to Yaakov.
The second line invoking Bilhah and Zilpah in this year’s triennial reading is the line that Rashi bases his attribution of Zilpah and Bilhah being daughter of Lavan through another enslaved woman, noting that Breishit 31:50 uses ‘my daughters’ twice. Four sisters navigating marriage to the same man offers an interesting framework for considering the interpersonal dynamics of this narrative. Sisters given as wedding gifts brings in additional historical examples endured by enslaved women in other periods as an invitation to bridge the power of the Torah throughout time.
A lingering question remains of how Lavan used Bilhah and Zilpah as enslaved women before giving them to Rachel and Leah. Assuming Lavan was sexually involved with their mother does not preclude Lavan potentially interacting sexually with Zilpah and Bilhah in a narrative where Yaakov has been sent to marry his cousin. Here too, historical examples can shed light on what humanity is capable of and therefore, what we may encounter within the Torah. One historic examples with the similarity of one man married to two enslaved sisters is recorded in an entry of the Underground Railroad Records by William Still: Slave-Holder in Maryland With Three Colored Wives.
While Zilpah and Bilhah are present during the next five consecutive parshiot, they are completely voiceless. We need the Torah and the Torah needs us to continually seek to connect and make meaning that bridges the Torah to today. We are each represented there, in part or in whole representations of characterizations. Tapping into ubiquitous wisdom from history and our personal lives is a powerful way to listen for Bilhah and Zilpah whispering to us, an ever-present invitation to support ongoing efforts in surviving marginalization, realizing abolition, and finding sisterhood.
May we listen for and hear their voices.
There is more Bilhah Zilpah Homecoming to experience! Register and join us for Witnessing Biblical Matriarchs on Sunday December 8, when we will connect with unexplored relationships between named and unnamed women in the story through creative midrash and set the foundation for ritual development; Witnessing Modern Matriarchs on Sunday December 22, which will link biblical matriarchs with historic and modern women and issues; and Weaving Matriarchal Legacies on Sunday December 29, where we will look to the generations and stories continuing to be woven together and return to ritual opportunities. We would love to study with you!
Shavua tov and welcome back into what I now think of as Bilhah Zilpah season. This is the first weekly email of this Bilhah Zilpah Project event which will serve both as some recap of our sweet five-year anniversary celebration and juicy text study.
That said, we each have experienced a year of life that has brought us to the moment and place where we stand today. Figuratively new people, even if not cellularly. This is one of the things I love about studying the Torah. It remains ever-alive, receiving us as we grow and change. Revealing more along our journey through lines that never change.
The bible is split into sections that are read at the same time each year. These biblical sections, called parasha (singular) / parshiot (plural), are named by their first word. Parashat Vayeitzei, which will be read community-wide this coming Shabbat, is named after it’s opening word וַיֵּצֵ֥א (Vayeitzei) He went out…, and is the story of Yaakov leaving home and starting a family.
Toldot, the parasha before Vayeitzei, read this past Shabbat, ends with Yaakov stealing his brother’s (Esav) birthright. Fearing that Esav will kill him, Yaakov is sent from his father’s home in Be’er Sheva to his maternal grandfather’s (Nahor) house in Harran, a city in Padan Aram, with instructions to choose a wife from his maternal uncle’s (Lavan) daughters. A lot of this drama is orchestrated by his mother.
Along the journey Yaakov has a vision of generations as numerous as dust, inheriting land, and becoming a blessing to his people. Arriving at the town well, Yaakov kisses and falls in love with Rachel and works seven years to marry her. Lavan marries Yaakov to Leah instead because she is older and well, Lavan is… let’s say crafty (directing the drama, like his sister). Yaakov is angry but agrees to work another seven years for Rachel.
Breishit (Genesis) 29:22-23 reveal that Lavan hosted a wedding party, where a lot of drinking was enjoyed, before taking Leah in the evening to the bridal tent and Yaakov came in to her. This is the framing of how we meet, first Zilpah, and then Bilhah. Although, it’s unclear if another party was gathered to celebrate the marriage to Rachel, the bride price of labor was exchanged.
Was Zilpah escorted over alongside Leah? Did Bilhah accompany Rachel? Or was this presentation of wedding gifts delivered separately? Was this a ritualized way of giving gifts? How do these lines relate to the custom of fathers walking daughters down wedding aisles or the custom of חֶדֶר יִיחוּד (cheder yichud) room of privacy where a newly married couple spends several minutes alone together.
I have long nurtured the reading that Zilpah and Bilhah being introduced in this way is foreshadowing of their becoming wives. A trace of ceremony in the absence of dowry or consent. Breishit 29:24 and 29:29 tell us that Lavan was giving his own slaves to his daughters. However, by the end of both verses, the second mention of בִתּ֖וֹ שִׁפְחָֽה (veto shifkha) his daughter as a slave / לָ֖הּ לְשִׁפְחָֽה (la l’isha) to heras a slave, could refer to Zilpah and Bilhah or Leah and Rachel. This treatment of women, including his daughters, could be in line with how Lavan is characterized. This is potentially reinforced in Breishit 31:14-15 when Rachel and Leah wonder if their worth has been used up or whether they are still valuable in the eyes of their father, as well as when Lavan catches up to the departing family when he declares ownership of everything in Breishit 31:43.
My years of scholarship has cultivated deep curiosity about the effective difference in status between Bilhah or Zilpah and Rachel or Leah. Given shifts in their role/status and owner, the nature of Bilhah’s and Zilpah’s enslavement is also a question. What was the nature of their service to Lavan? This is compounded through the usage of וַיִּתֵּ֤ן (vayitain) gave, a word I understand as gift, conflated in a transactional framework.
Vayeitzei, the parasha when Bilhah and Zilpah return to the narrative each year, is the where the central lines that evoke them consecutively reside: Breishit 30:3-30:13. While wealth is named elsewhere as cattle, slaves, and silver or gold, these lines highlight the currency of children. A commodity that left Leah feeling unvalued despite providing six valued sons and a lone named daughter. The lack of which made Rachel feel unfulfilled despite having Yaakov’s heart. Amidst the war raging between Rachel and Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah find ways to navigate their shifting status between slave, wife, and concubine AND maintain relationships with their children who are always attributed to them.
We are more than our circumstances. Bilhah and Zilpah were more than enslaved people, used as a sexual trade to be stripped of the wealth created through their bodies. We can read Bilhah and Zilpah as multidimensional characters who found ways to navigate the realities of their lives. As women who existed within relationships and left a wealth of legacies behind that help us navigate and enrich our lives today.
As Vayeitzei closes, Bilhah and Zilpah go out into the world—at least encountering the world between Padan Aram and Hakhanim in their traveling, dwelling, and working… and that is where we will dive into next…
How do you see the story…?
After our reading of Torat Bilhah v’Zilpah, we journaled on one of the following prompts:
Why and how are Bilhah or Zilpah meaningful for you or what is a lesson they help you learn?
What has going out meant for you in your life?
What homecomings have you experienced?
What makes a homecoming special/meaningful?
Imagine elements to welcome Bilhah and Zilpah grounded in your understanding of the text?
Where would Bilhah and Zilpah return to and who would welcome them?
NOTE: the last prompt came from a participant through chevruta and group conversation.
There is more Bilhah Zilpah Homecoming to experience! Register and join us for Witnessing Biblical Matriarchs on Sunday December 8, when we will connect with unexplored relationships between named and unnamed women in the story through creative midrash and set the foundation for ritual development; Witnessing Modern Matriarchs on Sunday December 22, which will link biblical matriarchs with historic and modern women and issues; and Weaving Matriarchal Legacies on Sunday December 29, where we will look to the generations and stories continuing to be woven together and return to ritual opportunities. We would love to study with you!
Welcome Home Bilhah & Zilpah!
Our learning was dedicated to:
Johanna Bromberg who attended this event last year; comments shared during Johanna’s funeral showed how much she supported Jewish learning
Ruth Meeron, an elder in our community
I usually think of my dad when I study Torah, because it was so important to him
Friday evening is erev Sigd; 29 Cheshvan 5785 in the Jewish calendar begining on November 29 in the 2024 Gregorian calendar. This holiday, preserved in the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jewish) tradition, became a national Israeli holiday in 2008. Despite celebrating many Israeli holidays in the United States of America, Sigd was not among them. I learned of Sigd as my insistence on bringing my full self into my Judaism grew beyond the confines of Ashkenormative settings with too many moments conveying that I am not enough. Sigd was one small way to hold my Jewishness with threads towards other cultural identities, including an African-ness historically severed from everyday familial consciousness, like many affected by the transatlantic slave trade.
So, when Jews of Color Sanctuary launched in 2019, it happened during a small community event celebrating Sigd. The following year I was living in Israel and excited to celebrate Sigd again. The large gathering typically planned for the Tayelet promenade overlooking Jerusalem was affected by the coronavirus pandemic. It was challenging to find revised events as a visitor who is not a member of the Beta Israel community. I thought all of Israel would be celebrating, but found no outward signs. If you didn’t know it was Sigd, you wouldn’t know it was a holiday. Asking folks at my yeshiva revealed a belief that the holiday was cancelled. I was shocked because we had just gone through the high holy days which were changed, but not cancelled. I had even heard many stories of events like weddings, b-mitzvot, brit milot still happening. Why was it easy to believe that Sigd would just be skipped?
I thought of how some are happy to have a Martin Luther King Day off of work but don’t hold any part of the day in observance. Sigd appeared to be a national holiday in name with more to the story. Researching for the Jews of Color Sanctuary launch revealed a desire of Beta Israelim for all Jews to celebrate Sigd. I sensed a pride in having preserved this history for Judaism. That invitation made me feel brave in my previous observance. Now, far away from home, when I thought I would attend events out of many scheduled throughout Israel, I couldn’t find one. I was heartbroken and angry.
I took the day off of school and dedicated myself to figuring out something! Before traveling to Israel, I had found a North American Beta Israel organization. Through those attempts to connect with Jewish people of color in Israel before I arrived, I met a person who invited me into celebration and later became a friend. As with many things in life, despite the tragedy in the moment, I am grateful for gifts acquired through the journey.
I think of Sigd as a holiday of return. During Rosh Hashanah this year, I thought a lot about where I am returning to? More and more, my sense of return is less about a physical journey than an internal one, something I may spend a lifetime figuring out. In thinking about all of the things that had to come together to make me into the person I am today and bring me to the moment and place where I am at this very moment, gives me a lot of gratitude about the interrelationship between things. Without the events that caused my parents to meet, I would not be here. My reaching for Sigd as a way to hold my full self within Judaism happened along a trajectory that continues to reveal itself… or maybe, is my path of return. I am grateful that I have company along the way as I continue to figure it out.
I invite you to join me. One exciting opportunity is the Bilhah Zilpah Homecoming this Sunday December 1. We will prepare to welcome Bilhah and Zilpah for their return to the Torah during parashat Vayeitzei (anda little celebration of Sigd / JoC Sanctuary anniversary). Bilhah and Zilpah offer a rich lens to explore biblical experiences that remain a reality today, such as surviving marginalization, being in sisterhood, and striving towards abolition.
Wishing you a meaningful Sigd with engaged learning about the holiday and the Beta Israel. The image opening this post is by Hirut Yosef who emigrated from Ethiopia to Israel and has also lived in Turkey, the USA, and elsewhere. Hirut uses her art to explore the relationship between Ethiopia, Israel, and other places she has lived, as well as return in a variety of ways. May your return take you where you need to be.
Welcome Bilhah and Zilpah as they enter the Torah in Parashat Vayeitzei. Each year we re-read the Torah, as the people we have become since last year. There is always more to discover and Bilhah and Zilpah have more to teach us too. This year’s homecoming activities will include study of Torah and midrash around these characters, deeper dives into ritual creation, and creative ways to bridge matriarchal ancient wisdom with modern living.
One example of connecting Torah to today is during the United Nations Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence from November 25 through December 10. This is an opportunity to link biblical stories to current issues connecting global communities. How might Bilhah and Zilpah see the gender-based violence of today where you live? How might they support their great+grand-daughters in surviving, healing, and thriving?
Bilhah’s and Zilpah’s entry happens a full and partial week after Sigd which is November 29. We’ll save a little celebration for this Beit Israel (Ethiopian Jewish) national holiday of return, which also marks the anniversary of Jews of Color Sanctuary!
Register for the Bilhah Zilpah Homecoming series on Sundays in December between 12-2pmET.
December 1: Bilhah Zilpah Enter & Sigd/JoC Sanctuary Anniversary
December 8: Witnessing Biblical Matriarchs
December 22: Witnessing Modern Matriarchs
December 29: Leaving Matriarchal Legacies
Homecoming events are open to all. Email danserica@gmail.com with questions.
I served as staff at Kirva’s recent Spiritual Immersive and was invited to share a short practice during the lead-up to Rosh Hashanah. Kirva’s social justice approach to mussar, an ancient Jewish ethical practice, is a valued collaborative partner with Jews of Color Sanctuary. The five days we spent together at Pearlstone strengthened our practice, reinforced bonds, and built community as we used mussar to align our actions with our values. Learn how to bring Dismantling Racism from the Inside Out into your community. Meanwhile, I hope this practice enriches your preparations for the High Holy Days.
Teshuvah Across the Waters (TAW) is an exciting opportunity to bridge African diasporic Jews/Hebrews with African Jewish/Hebrew communities.
As a Jewish person of unknown African and Indian heritage, I have deep yearnings to experience ancestral Jewish traditions that have been severed through colonization, enslavement, and assimilation. Supporting the connections that will be forged through this project will enhance global Jewry’s collective efforts of Teshuvah, aligning values and relationships with ourselves, God, and the world.
TAW seeks to strengthen bonds across the Jewish Diaspora by lifting up the traditions and histories of African Jewry within the global Jewish community needed for an holistic and thriving Jewish peoplehood on our path toward spiritual redemption. Please join the incredible support for this project to increase connection our collective Jewish ancestry. A financial contribution of any amount can help us bridge these waters.
Jews of Color Sanctuary is honored to have conducted research on Jewish end-of-life practices and rituals among Jewish people of color released in March 2024. The report, contracted by Kavod v’Nichum with the support of the Jews of Color Initiative (JOCI), is an invitation to center the voices and experiences of Jewish people of color in ways that honor connection to and strengthen a Judaism reflecting the richness of Jewish diasporic traditions.
I am proud to have served as the editor for the 5785 Dreaming the World to Come. The planner will begin shipping around Tu b’Av (August 19). I am delighted to offer a friend’s of the editor 18% off discount code TUBAV5785 that is good between August 18 through September 1.
FUN FACT: All three of the editor staff are born in the month of September!
The planner will be a beautiful place to keep your appointments on track during both the Gregorian and Jewish lunar calendar and nourish your spirit with ritual offering from 12 AMAZING contributors! One of the reasons I said yes to shepherding this project was the commitment to feature Jewish people of color, among many other identities, whose creative voices comprise 8 of the 12 contributors.
If you are new to this project, here is a description:
Dreaming the World to Come planner weaves ritual offerings from diverse fonts of wisdom through our Jewish year. It is our attempt to create something beautiful and defiant that shows we are here, fighting to keep Jewishness anchored in resistance, justice, and mystical tradition.
The planner cover invokes the Jewish sea monster Leviathan, who offers medicine needed in these times. Moving through darkness, unperceived; the fugitivity practiced by those whose existence has been criminalized and controlled. The Leviathan is a friend, lover, and protector of those escaping enslavement and incarceration, those whose perspectives are intentionally buried, whose inherent rights have been denied, who are forced underground for survival.
guest blog by Tamar Ghidalia & Jill Housen, 3W Consulting
3W Consulting‘s work is anti racist and anti-oppression work and uses liberatory practice at its core. Since the work is significantly grounded in Jewish life, tradition, texts and values, it enriches the spiritual life of the participants and allows them to claim their Jewish identities.
We have served 20 organizations over the last 3 years: congregations, communal organizations, schools,camps, and presented at national conferences. We intentionally support and center JoC’ leadership.
We created JoC Journey Toward Healing because of the need of JoC to have places to just be and share their identities in a safe space. We believe that JoC are deserving of care and joy, feeling seen, heard and understood, feeling empowered and not alone…
By tapping into the wisdom of Jewish tradition and texts, we can find ways of healing from the traumas that we have faced and be able to bring forth all of our identities. Together we can build our sacred space through prayer, poetry, music, storytelling, meditation, comparing the BIPOC and Jewish oppression and liberation narratives, and sharing our dreams of liberation.
