ויהי בבקר והנה הוא לאה AND IT CAME TO PASS, THAT IN THE MORNING, BEHOLD, IT WAS LEAH —But at night it was not Leah (i. e. he failed to recognise that it was Leah) because Jacob had given Rachel certain secret signs by which they could at all times recognise one another, and when Rachel saw that they were about to bring Leah to him for the marriage ceremony, she thought, “My sister may now be put to shame”, and she therefore readily transmitted these signs to her (Megillah 13b).
1) What is the question that the Talmud is asking here?
2) What is the Talmud's answer?
3) How does this commentary portray Rachel?
29:25 We are told the following in B’reshit Rabbah 70,19: all night long people were singing what sounded like the praises of Leah, sort of hinting to Yaakov that he was being swindled. Yaakov, who had no reason to fear that the town’s people wished him ill, did not suspect being tricked when Leah always answered when he addressed her as Rachel. In the morning when he found out that he had been tricked by Leah, and he complained to her, she responded that she had learned from him to do this, as when Yitzchok had asked him if he was his firstborn son Esau, he had answered in the affirmative. This is when Yaakov began to hate her as is reported in verse 31, where G–d is reported as taking note of that. Yitzchok himself had told Esau that his brother had tricked him.
-Daat Zkenim
-Daat Zkenim
4) What about the text is "bothering" Bereshit Rabbah that it feels the need to write such a long comment?
5) What position does this commentary take on Jacob's deception? What connections is it making?
29:26 ולא יעשה כן במקומנו, the people of this place would not allow me to marry off my younger daughter first just in order for me to honour my word. - Sforno
6) How does the above comment portray Lavan?
7) Do you agree or disagree with this portrayal?
ויאמר...לא יעשה כן במקומנו, even though you asked for the hand of my younger daughter in marriage, seeing that apparently where you come from it does not matter if the younger sister gets married before the older one, in our place that is not a permissible procedure. I will therefore give you both of them with the proviso that the nuptials of the older one must precede those of the younger one. - Radak
8) What conversation is Radak imagining here? Who is talking? What was said?