This sheet on Genesis 31 was written by Rachael Pass for 929 and can also be found here
In Genesis 31, we read the story of Rachel stealing her father’s teraphim while escaping from Laban with Jacob, Leah, and their whole family. When Laban realizes both Jacob and his teraphim are gone, he chases after them and searches their whole caravan for the teraphim. Rachel cleverly hides them in a cushion and sits on them; when Laban comes to search her tent, she claims she is menstruating and cannot rise, successfully concealing the teraphim from her father.
Many classic commentators focus on Rachel’s reason for stealing the teraphim, concerned that the text could be read to understand that Rachel was worshipping idols. Rashi’s classic claim is that she was attempting to wean Laban from idol worship, committing an act of “honoring one’s father and mother” while simultaneously fleeing from him.
Radak’s reading claims that the teraphim were objects that could have been useful to Laban in tracking the caravan as they fled; thus, Rachel stole the teraphim to protect the whereabouts of Jacob.
Modern feminist readers (myself included) love to see Rachel using her menstruation as a way to subvert her father’s authority by not rising when he enters the room and by hiding his possessions from him.
The exclusively male classic commentators focus on why Rachel stole the teraphim, incorporating her actions into the acceptable roles for women of their time. The modern scholars focus on how she concealed the teraphim: she uses her menstruation, the ultimate symbol of her femininity (and therefore her powerlessness among men), as a way to subvert male authority.
Rachel stealing the idols represents her keeping a piece of her religious life from before her marriage. Whether or not she plans to use the teraphim, having them is a way to hold onto her identity as separate from her husband. In hiding the teraphim under the guise of her period, the story hints to us that a piece of Rachel’s way of life, continues throughout the generations of her descendants. In fact, the only two other times the teraphim appear in the possession of an Israelite throughout the rest of Tanach, is in association with Rachel’s descendants: Michal, a Benjaminite, keeps teraphim in her home, and Micah from Ephraim makes teraphim in his. Rachel ensures that a piece of her life and her identity - separate from her relationship to Jacob - remains throughout the generations of her descendants. Her using her period as the way to hide the teraphim hints to us, the readers, to look at her descendants’ connection to the teraphim.
Her success in maintaining a remnant of her identity in her children is clear. From Chazal, we hear of a tradition that baneha shel Rachel will be the ones to defeat the descendants of Esau, that is, Amalek. It is also the children of Rachel who share her unique beauty, with the repetition of the Biblical description of beauty - y’fat to’ar v’yifat mar’eh - appearing among several of her descendants. Perhaps, the appearance of the teraphim among her descendants serve as a physical symbol of the inheritance of Rachel, a rare occurance of a woman’s legacy among our ancient ancestors.
Many classic commentators focus on Rachel’s reason for stealing the teraphim, concerned that the text could be read to understand that Rachel was worshipping idols. Rashi’s classic claim is that she was attempting to wean Laban from idol worship, committing an act of “honoring one’s father and mother” while simultaneously fleeing from him.
Radak’s reading claims that the teraphim were objects that could have been useful to Laban in tracking the caravan as they fled; thus, Rachel stole the teraphim to protect the whereabouts of Jacob.
Modern feminist readers (myself included) love to see Rachel using her menstruation as a way to subvert her father’s authority by not rising when he enters the room and by hiding his possessions from him.
The exclusively male classic commentators focus on why Rachel stole the teraphim, incorporating her actions into the acceptable roles for women of their time. The modern scholars focus on how she concealed the teraphim: she uses her menstruation, the ultimate symbol of her femininity (and therefore her powerlessness among men), as a way to subvert male authority.
Rachel stealing the idols represents her keeping a piece of her religious life from before her marriage. Whether or not she plans to use the teraphim, having them is a way to hold onto her identity as separate from her husband. In hiding the teraphim under the guise of her period, the story hints to us that a piece of Rachel’s way of life, continues throughout the generations of her descendants. In fact, the only two other times the teraphim appear in the possession of an Israelite throughout the rest of Tanach, is in association with Rachel’s descendants: Michal, a Benjaminite, keeps teraphim in her home, and Micah from Ephraim makes teraphim in his. Rachel ensures that a piece of her life and her identity - separate from her relationship to Jacob - remains throughout the generations of her descendants. Her using her period as the way to hide the teraphim hints to us, the readers, to look at her descendants’ connection to the teraphim.
Her success in maintaining a remnant of her identity in her children is clear. From Chazal, we hear of a tradition that baneha shel Rachel will be the ones to defeat the descendants of Esau, that is, Amalek. It is also the children of Rachel who share her unique beauty, with the repetition of the Biblical description of beauty - y’fat to’ar v’yifat mar’eh - appearing among several of her descendants. Perhaps, the appearance of the teraphim among her descendants serve as a physical symbol of the inheritance of Rachel, a rare occurance of a woman’s legacy among our ancient ancestors.
Rachael Pass is a fourth-year rabbinical student at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in New York.
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