Robert received a bill from the hospital for his recent surgery, and was astonished to see a $900 charge for the anesthesiologist. He called his office to demand an explanation. "Is this some kind of mistake?" he asked when he got the doctor on the phone.
"No, not at all," the doctor said calmly. "Well," said Robert, "That's awfully costly for just knocking someone out!" "Not at all," replied the doctor. I knock you out for free. The $900 is for bringing you back around.
In our portion Vayetze Rachel has been married for thirteen years and remained childless. The Torah relates that she told Jacob: "Give me children, and if not, I am dead." Finally, she becomes pregnant and gives birth, and she said, "God has taken away my shame.
But what type of shame was she referring to? What shame is there in an infertile woman who cannot have a child? Pain, anguish, jealousy are sentiments we can understand in this context. But shame? Why was Rachel ashamed?
The Aggadah explains it thus: As long as a woman has no child, she has no one to blame for her faults. As soon as she has a child, she blames him. “Who broke this dish?” “Your child!” “Who ate these figs?” “Your child!”
Why did Rachel want a child? So that she has somebody to blame for breaking the glass cup?! Our mother Rachel, barren and infertile, was yearning for a child—to the point of her telling Jacob: “If I don’t have children I am dead”—why? So that she will not have shame anymore as she can blame all her mistakes on her child?
In essence, Rachel was conveying an eternal message for her descendents over millennia. The formula of how to begin every day to develop an attitude of gratitude, and appreciation—this is what Rachel taught us 3,600 years ago.
In all of our lives there is a gap between what we have, and what we want. We all have our dreams – from children, wealth, professional success, spiritual stature, intellectual or artistic or creative accomplishment, leadership, and so on. The hardest fact of life is that no one gets everything. To each of us some things are given, and some are denied. What is more, even when we do get something we want it is never perfect. You are blessed with children but raising them can be very difficult. You have your own company as you always dreamt of, but maintaining steady revenue is nerve racking. This is simple but powerful value of Rachel’s message:
Your child broke the beautiful, expensive flower vase or dropped your new top of the line laptop or I-phone —instead of saying and thinking: Ach! What a waste of money, say to yourself: Thank G-d I have a child! I have a child who can walk, and pick things up, and drop them and break them!
And when your mother calls you for help in her home, instead of saying to yourself: I hate this, she is getting so old, and my entire life must now revolve around her needs, say instead: Thank G-d I have a mother. I have a father. How many people in the world do not have parents living?
And when your wife rebukes you for your mistakes, instead of thinking, why do I need someone who criticized me? Say to yourself: Thank G-d I have a wife who cares about me so deeply and is so disturbed by my behavior and loves me.
This is why Rachel said after the birth of Joseph, “G-d has removed my shame” and gave him the name Joseph. Rachel yearned to have a baby. But she went one step further: She knew human nature that when we receive a blessing and something is imperfect with it, we tend to focus on the imperfection rather than on the blessing.
Someone ones shared story: I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels.
My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, "This is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to G-d said in prayer are received."
I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world. Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.
The angel then said to me, "This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them."
I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth.
Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, idly doing nothing. "This is the Acknowledgment Section," my angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed. "How is it that? There's no work going on here?" I asked.
"So sad," the angel sighed. "After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back acknowledgments.
It is the Jewish custom that when a glass breaks we scream: Mazal Tov! Why? Why don’t we say: Oy, 20 dollars down the drain. Well this is Rachel’s gift: when the plate breaks, say: Mazal tov! This means I have a home, I own dishes, and I have a child who is alive and breaks dishes. We always put the problem into perspective.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky