Ari Levisohn: Welcome to Into the Verse, where we share new and unexpected insights about the parsha … diving deep into the verses to uncover the Torah’s own commentary on itself.

This is Ari Levisohn. What is justice? Is justice all about the harm someone does to another person? Or does it also care about our intentions, whether we were deliberately trying to injure somebody? Parshat Mishpatim is full of examples where people get hurt because of someone else's actions – fighting, stealing, keeping dangerous animals around the house. But what's interesting is that the Torah doesn't just talk about the penalty for hurting others in those ways. Over and over again, we see that the exact same harm can have very different penalties, depending on the person's intentions – whether they were actually planning to cause injury, or not.

In this week's episode, Rabbi Fohrman and I dive into one of those examples, but we take a kind of roundabout route. You see, Rabbi Fohrman noticed a law in Mishpatim that looked like it just might be a clue to something that he’d always wondered about... a mysterious, unsolved death back in Bereshit. Now, I love a good mystery. So we opened up the cold case and dug into the files. And when our investigation brought us full circle, back to Mishpatim, I was amazed at how closely these two parts of the Torah seem to be connected. It's one of those times when there are so many parallels, it's like the text is waving a flag at us to say, "Pay attention! There's something going on here!" And it can be hard to know exactly what that something is, but we do our best to figure it out. So this week, we're going to share our case file with you, along with a theory about how all this evidence fits together. Come with us, as Rabbi Fohrman uses his detective skills to explore a curious case of divine justice.

All right, Rabbi Fohrman!

Rabbi David Fohrman: It's a delight to be here with you, Ari. 

Deliberate vs. Inadvertent Harm

I wanted to talk to you about something towards the beginning of Parshat Mishpatim. It's in chapter 21 of the book of Exodus, starting from verse 12. מַכֵּה אִישׁ וָמֵת מוֹת יוּמָת – If a person strikes someone and kills them, they shall die. But it depends. The next verse qualifies it. וַאֲשֶׁר לֹא צָדָה – Imagine that the perpetrator didn't really hunt him down, וְהָאֱלֹקים אִנָּה לְיָדוֹ – it's just that God put one person and another person together in the wrong place in the wrong time, and it was a kind of inadvertent murder. So in that case, וְשַׂמְתִּי לְךָ מָקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יָנוּס שָׁמָּה – I'll give you a place that you can run to and that you can find refuge, God says. 

However, וְכִי־יָזִד אִישׁ עַל־רֵעֵהוּ לְהׇרְגוֹ בְעׇרְמָה – suppose somebody plotted with malice aforethought to sneak up on his fellow and kill them in stealth. Well, in such a case, מֵעִם מִזְבְּחִי תִּקָּחֶנּוּ לָמוּת – even if that perpetrator would take refuge on My altar itself, you should take him away from the altar kicking and screaming to die. 

Okay, so these are the verses. Now, these verses are the antecedents for the laws that we know so well later on in the Torah of the arei miklat, the cities of refuge that are there for inadvertent murderers. And we're told that they're there only for inadvertent murderers. If somebody else tries to take refuge there, if they're a killer who kills with intent to carry out a grudge, then they don't get to take refuge there. But this is the first whisper that the Torah ever has for such an idea.

So what I wanted to do is kind of dive into these verses and explore them with you, and I want to share with you something which I think is speculative, but the possibilities are kind of fascinating. And it is an attempt on the basis of these verses to solve an unsolved crime in the Book of Genesis, with the intriguing… 

Ari: I am on the edge of my seat, Rabbi Fohrman!

Rabbi Fohrman:  …with the intriguing and unsolved death of one of the minor characters in the book of Genesis. And I'm thinking of Deborah, Rebecca's nursemaid. 

The Death of Deborah

Now, it's strange that we never hear about Deborah except to hear about her death. There's this verse in the middle of the Jacob story that, oh, and by the way, Deborah, the nursemaid of Rebecca, died, and she was buried under a tree. It's like one verse and that's it. 

Ari: Blink and you miss it.

Rabbi Fohrman: Blink and you miss it. And it's like: Who's Deborah? I don't remember hearing about her. And why is her death significant? If we hadn't heard about her at all, no one would've said, “And what about Deborah?” 

Ari: If I submitted this section of the Torah to one of our editors, they would be like, “Ari, delete that line! It doesn't have anything to do with anything else.”

Rabbi Fohrman: So I wanted to go and just look at that line in the Torah with you for a moment. 

Ari: Okay. So where is this? 

Rabbi Fohrman: Chapter 35 of the Book of Genesis. So 35, verse one. וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹקים אֶל־יַעֲקֹב קוּם עֲלֵה בֵית־אֵל – So God says to Jacob – and this is after Jacob has finally left the house of Laban, his father-in-law, after he's finally reconciled, more or less, with his long-estranged brother Esau – God comes to him and says: I want you to go back to Beit El,  וַעֲשֵׂה־שָׁם מִזְבֵּחַ לָקל הַנִּרְאֶה אֵלֶיךָ – and I want you to make an altar to celebrate the God who saved you, who appeared to you when you ran away from Esau, your brother.

Now remember, Beit El was the place that Jacob first encountered as he left his homeland, on the lam fleeing his angry brother. He comes to Beit El, and that's where he has that famous dream with the ladder and the angels going up and down. So it's now more than two decades after that, and God basically says, I made you a promise back then that I would return you safely to your father's house. In essence, this is the moment when that promise is coming true. 

So if we skip down a few verses, we hear that he actually builds that altar. And then all of a sudden, out of the blue, וַתָּמׇת דְּבֹרָה מֵינֶקֶת רִבְקָה – here's where Deborah dies, the meineket of Rebecca (35:8). Unclear, by the way, exactly what meineket Rivkah means, right? On the one hand, it could mean the woman who nursed Rebecca herself. Or it could mean the woman who was in Rebecca's employ, right? 

Ari: Which would mean that she nursed, she was a nursemaid for Jacob. 

Rabbi Fohrman: For Jacob himself, right. Now we do know, interestingly enough, that Rebecca did have a nursemaid who nursed her. We actually hear about her when Rebecca, as a young bride, leaves Laban's house. She leaves with her meineket. However, our sages seem to feel that the meineket Rivkah here was not that same person. She would've been very old by this time. 

Ari: If she was the one who nursed Rebecca. 

Rabbi Fohrman: If she was the one who nursed Rebecca. So chronologically it doesn't seem to work out to be the same person. Chazal, in fact, assume that Rebecca had a nursemaid in her employ who nursed Jacob and presumably Esau themselves. What you see is that the culture of Laban's house was: You had nursemaids. And the nursemaids were important figures. Why would you take your nursemaid along with you, if you were the bride? Seemingly, you were an important enough figure that even years later you mattered, right? And it sort of makes sense, if you think about it. What is a nursemaid? It's your first caregiver. And so presumably the children continued to have a strong relationship to the person who nursed them, and they seem to continue to be a significant person in their life. 

So maybe that's why we hear about her death here, because we're hearing about the story of Jacob, and this is possibly someone who is important to Jacob. וַתָּמׇת דְּבֹרָה מֵינֶקֶת רִבְקָה וַתִּקָּבֵר מִתַּחַת לְבֵית־אֵל תַּחַת הָאַלּוֹן וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ אַלּוֹן בָּכוּת. It seems that Jacob mourned her, because they called the tree that she was buried under the “tree of crying,” the “tree of tears.” 

So this is the strange story of the death of meineket Rivkah, the death of Deborah. And the question is: Why does she die, and why is it important that she dies?

So the rabbis say two interesting things here. The first thing they say is that Deborah wasn't the only person who died and was mourned at this tree, alon bachut. She's only the most visible one. But behind the scenes, the sages say, Rebecca also died, and this is the moment that Jacob hears about the death of his mother, in addition to the death of his nursemaid – both of his caregivers – and therefore alon bachut, as he's crying about the loss of both of these important women to him.

Two Losses at the Same Time

So if that's true, the question is: Was it a coincidence that his mother and his nursemaid died at the same time, or was there a link in these deaths? And here again, it's a murder mystery, right? Who done it? Why is Deborah dying and why is she dying now? And how, if at all, is this connected to the death of Rebecca? 

Ari: Do you suspect foul play?

Rabbi Fohrman: I suspect foul play. So we'll talk about that. So that's one strange statement of the Sages. Another strange statement of the Sages, Rashi says, is מה עניין דבורה בבית יעקב – What was Deborah doing anyway in the house of Jacob at the time? Because remember, Jacob is fleeing Laban's house now, right? He hasn't been home for a long, long time. So what's his nursemaid, who presumably lives all the way back in Canaan, doing with Jacob when Jacob hadn't been home for 20 years? 

So Rashi says: You'll recall that when all those years ago Jacob ran away from his brother, his mother Rebecca had said to him וְשָׁלַחְתִּי וּלְקַחְתִּיךָ מִשָּׁם – that ultimately I will send for you and I will bring you back when it's safe for you to come home (Genesis 27:45). Who was the one that Rebecca ultimately sent to tell Jacob that it was safe to come home? It was Deborah. And that's what she was doing there. 

Ari: So they must have made this slow journey back to Israel together. She was still with him. 

Rabbi Fohrman: She was still with him. But now the question is: Okay, that's a very nice point of trivia. Thank you for telling me what Deborah happened to be doing there. why her game piece was at this place on the board. But the question is: Is there any larger significance to that? 

Well, put yourself in Rebecca's shoes. Imagine you couldn't go yourself, you were an older woman and couldn't make the trip, but you wanted to get word to your son that it was safe. Why might you choose someone like Deborah for this mission? 

Ari: Who does Jacob trust more than Deborah?

Rabbi Fohrman: Exactly. His life is at stake here. If somebody comes and is telling him lies...

Ari: It's just some random messenger, you know? You would be like, How do I know that Esau didn't send you? Because you know, he wants to…  

Rabbi Fohrman:  … to lure me out of hiding, exactly. Who would you trust more than your early childhood caregiver, the one who literally nursed you? So what this midrash does is, it establishes Deborah as a person of ultimate trust. 

So let's keep these midrashim in the background as we continue to fill in the story of Deborah as best we can. Now, we don't know anything about Deborah explicitly in the text, other than her death, right? But imagine that were different. Imagine that the Torah would have told us something about Deborah, or maybe there would be a hint in the Torah, to Deborah. Around when, chronologically, would you expect to find mention of Deborah?

Ari: Around at the time that Jacob was being nursed. So shortly after their birth. 

A Hint About Deborah’s Role

Rabbi Fohrman: So let's go back to the birth of these two children and see if we can find any hint to Deborah in those verses. Genesis 25, let's look at verses 26 and 27. This would be the moment when you would expect to find Deborah, except you don't, right? But there might be a single word that alludes to her presence. Let's see if we can identify it.

We're here at the birth of the children. וַיֵּצֵא הָרִאשׁוֹן אַדְמוֹנִי כֻּלּוֹ כְּאַדֶּרֶת שֵׂעָר – The first one came out all ruddy, completely full of hair, and they called him Esau. וְאַחֲרֵי־כֵן יָצָא אָחִיו – Afterwards came out his brother, וְיָדוֹ אֹחֶזֶת בַּעֲקֵב עֵשָׂו – his hand was grasping the heel of Esau, וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ יַעֲקֹב – and he called his name Jacob.

וַיִּגְדְּלוּ הַנְּעָרִים – And the children grew up,  וַיְהִי עֵשָׂו אִישׁ יֹדֵעַ צַיִד אִישׁ שָׂדֶה וְיַעֲקֹב אִישׁ תָּם יֹשֵׁב אֹהָלִים – and as time went on, Esau, he became a hunter, and Jacob just hung around the tents. וַיֶּאֱהַב יִצְחָק אֶת־עֵשָׂו – But Isaac loved Esau, כִּי־צַיִד בְּפִיו – because he's got game and he liked eating his game, וְרִבְקָה אֹהֶבֶת אֶת־יַעֲקֹב – and Rebecca loved Jacob. 

And then once, וַיָּזֶד יַעֲקֹב נָזִיד –  Jacob was making some porridge, some red lentils, and Esau came from the field and he was really tired. So Esau said to Jacob: הַלְעִיטֵנִי נָא – Could you shovel some of this red stuff into my mouth? I'm so exhausted. So Jacob said: Well, מִכְרָה כַיּוֹם אֶת־בְּכֹרָתְךָ לִי – Maybe you'd sell your “firstborn-ness” to me. And Esau said, הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי הוֹלֵךְ לָמוּת – I'm going to die anyway, why should I have this bechorah (birthright, “firstborn-ness”) anyway?  So he sold his bechorah to Jacob (Genesis 25-33). 

Ari: So we went back to the birth of Jacob and Esau, because that seemed like a good place to find some kind of hint about Deborah's role. But now we're already up to the part where Jacob makes the lentils and Esau comes back from the field. Did we miss that hint about Deborah? Don't worry, we'll come back to that clue in a little bit. But in order to get there, we need to ask some questions about this business of Esau selling his birthright, or as the Hebrew seems to call it, his “firstborn-ness.” For example: If he really did sell it to Jacob, how does that fit in with the story later on, where Jacob tries to get the firstborn blessing from their father Isaac?

Rabbi Fohrman: By the way, it's sort of interesting that Jacob never references this. If this was really a good sale, why can't Jacob, who really wants the blessing, say: “Look, fair and square, Dad, he sold his birthright to me.” Why didn't he do that? 

Ari: Maybe he knows it's illegitimate. He was taking advantage of Esau. 

Rabbi Fohrman: It could have been illegitimate for all sorts of reasons. A, you can't just sort of set up a lemonade stand, take advantage of his vulnerability, and consider that a good sale.  Also, what are you selling exactly? מִכְרָה כַיּוֹם אֶת־בְּכֹרָתְךָ לִי – translate those words literally. Sell your… 

Ari: “Firstborn-ness.”

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah. Okay, what does that mean? 

Ari: Right. You have to sell something tangible. You have to sell a specific, quantifiable thing. 

Rabbi Fohrman: “Sell me the fact that you were born first. I don't like that I came in second holding your heel. Let's rewrite history. Sell me your firstborn-ness so that I will have been the one who retroactively came out first.” That seems to be what he's asking to be sold. 

Ari:  So you're saying it's like an impossible sale. You can't rewrite history. 

Rabbi Fohrman: It's an impossible sale, it's preposterous. Which makes you wonder how old they were when this happened. If they were little kids, it would make sense. You could imagine a six-year-old saying, “sell your firstborn-ness to me,” as if in earnest they think it could be something that could be bought and sold. And obviously they're not going to refer to that later in life. That was ridiculous. It's a whole different story if it's Esau with his little toy bow and arrow, one day he actually manages to kill a rabbit and to bring it to his father, and his father thinks it's so cute. 

Ari: Rabbi Fohrman, I almost want to challenge you, because the pasuk (verse) does say in 27, וַיִּגְדְּלוּ הַנְּעָרִים – that the children grew up. It says they grew up, and וַיְהִי עֵשָׂו אִישׁ יֹדֵעַ צַיִד – Esau becomes this man who knows how to hunt. So that to me sounds like they're adults. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Perhaps. Because you're using וַיִּגְדְּלוּ הַנְּעָרִים. So let me challenge you back. 

Ari: Okay. 

Rabbi Fohrman: When's the last time you have וַיִּגְדַּל connected with a child? Do you remember what it says when Isaac grew up? וַיִּגְדַּל הַיֶּלֶד  – What's the next word? וַיִּגָּמַל. 

Ari: And he was weaned (Genesis 21:8). 

Rabbi Fohrman: And he was weaned. Oh, so the Torah uses growing up for being weaned. Now a generation later, וַיִּגְדְּלוּ הַנְּעָרִים – there's at least the possibility that this is the moment they were weaned. But who nursed them? 

Ari: Oh, that would've been Deborah. 

Rabbi Fohrman: That's the word I was talking about. The one word that would've been an implicit recognition of Deborah's role. This is the moment when Deborah makes that transition. as she gives over the children to parents. 

Ari: So the possibility is certainly open that וַיִּגְדְּלוּ doesn't actually mean they, they grew up as we generally think of that word, but that they were weaned. 

Rabbi Fohrman: They reached the first milestone. They grew up in the sense of this new milestone. They're newly independent little kids running around. And maybe that's the story of the lemonade stand. 

Ari: So we found the word that might be a hidden reference to Deborah, וַיִּגְדְּלוּ. And if we go with Rabbi Fohrman's idea about וַיִּגְדְּלוּ meaning they were weaned, that could mean this lentil story happens around the time when Jacob and Esau aren't so dependent on Deborah any more. The kids are big enough to do more things on their own, and they start to show their personalities to their parents. Esau is close to Isaac, because Isaac loves that Esau brings him the game he's hunted. And Jacob is the one who stays in the tents, he's closer to Rebecca. But we're not done finding clues in their early life. There's more to learn from the story of their birth.

The Story of Jacob’s Name

Rabbi Fohrman: I want you to take a look at the naming story of Jacob and Esau and notice a difference in verbs. וַיִּקְרְאוּ שְׁמוֹ עֵשָׂו – And they called his name Esau. “They” is plural, which means, who are the ones who called him Esau?

Ari: This means Rebecca and Isaac together. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Presumably. Then Jacob comes out holding onto the heel of Esau, וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ יַעֲקֹב – he called his name Jacob (Genesis 25:25-6). Notice the singular. Who does that have to be, “and he called his name Jacob”? 

Ari: Well, it's in the masculine, so it has to be Isaac, which means, what was Rebecca doing? 

Rabbi Fohrman: Exactly, which means Rebecca was silent. Now you have to ask, what was Rebecca’s perspective? Why would Rebecca have been silent about the calling of the name Jacob? Why can't she bring her voice together with that of Isaac? 

Ari: The name Jacob, it's a little demeaning, because it recalls the time when he grabbed onto Esau’s ankle trying to come out first. So it's kind of like rubbing it in his face that he's a second-born.

Rabbi Fohrman: Exactly. So if you're Rebecca, you do not want to name him Jacob. You don't even think that's a nice name. So you're silent, but what are you thinking to yourself when you look at this little boy, and he has to have this dastardly name Jacob, which always memorializes that he came in second, and you love this kid. What are you thinking for yourself? If I'm Rebecca, I would submit, I'm waiting for the day that I can change his name. 

As a matter of fact, one might even view Rebecca's motivation in chapter 27, to the extent that she helps Jacob in the pilfering of these blessings, as an attempt to change his name. I made an argument in my book, the Parsha Companion on Genesis – and it's also a series on Aleph Beta, a series of videos – that Rebecca actually never intended for Jacob to deceive Esau and to deceive his father. If anything, her intent was the opposite. She says: I overheard your father telling your brother that he's supposed to get some game so that your father can bless him. You go and get some game so he can bless you! And Jacob was like, No, I don't really think so. And she's like, Well, you know, what if I cooked it for you? 

But she's never thinking deceive. She never says deceiving. It’s just – Jacob was thrust out there without being ready. The words just come out of his mouth, אָנֹכִי עֵשָׂו בְּכֹרֶךָ (I am Esau your firstborn, Genesis 27:19).

Ari: So she wants Jacob to basically create a new name for himself, but what ends up happening is that instead of making a new name for himself through action – and then maybe Isaac would've been like, “You know what? I'm not going to call you Jacob anymore. I'm going to give you a new name” – instead Jacob ends up taking Esau's name, and he says “I am Esau.” 

Rabbi Fohrman: That's right. That was never the plan. Exactly. This is the argument that I made there, that it was almost an accident. It was inadvertent. But Rebecca was pushing this agenda, that you need a different name. And ironically, she ends up confirming the name that he once had. Remember what Esau says, הֲכִי קָרָא שְׁמוֹ יַעֲקֹב וַיַּעְקְבֵנִי זֶה פַעֲמַיִם – He "heeled" me twice, came after me twice (27:36). But the tragedy is, it was an attempt for Jacob to just be straightforward. Come on, just get out there. Just look your father in the eyes, and you say: Look Dad, I can bring you some game too. You should give me the blessing. Be strong. Be Esau-like. You can make a run for this too. 

Ari: If you're listening and you aren't convinced, we'll put a link in the description to the full course. It's a really cool theory. 

Rabbi Fohrman: I haven't done justice to it, and you really should listen to it. It messes with the way we normally think of the story. But I do have some evidence there, it's not just a theory that comes out of thin air. But let's just accept that theory for the time being, that possibility. 

Ari: So now we have a clear picture of Rebecca's motive. She wasn't happy that Jacob was kind of tagged for life with this "latecomer" name and identity. And when Isaac was going to give the blessing, she wanted Jacob to step up and make a case for himself. So Jacob takes the food to his father, but when he gets in there, he actually says he's Esau – even though, according to Rabbi Fohrman's theory, he never planned it that way. So now that we have that in mind, we're going to go back and take another look at the lentils story, which, according to Esau, was the first time that Jacob deceived him. And this time, we'll find the clue that leads us to an explanation for Deborah's death... by way of a surprising connection with Parshat Mishpatim.

An Intentional Act

Rabbi Fohrman: Let me also suggest one other possibility to you. Jacob might have been  small and young. Let's say he's even as young as five or six. But think about his state of mind there as he is building this lemonade stand. Does he just happen to have this lemonade stand with this porridge? Or was that sort of planned? My brother's going out hunting, he's going to be exhausted. I wonder – if I have some nice refreshing lemonade and a nice hot bowl of porridge – I wonder if I could get him to sell his firstborn-ness to me.

And take a look at the first words of verse 29. What a strange verb, וַיָּזֶד יַעֲקֹב נָזִיד. What a strange way to talk about making porridge, “and Jacob porridged some porridge” (25:29). But what other word does וַיָּזֶד (vayazed) remind you of as a verb? 

Ari: That reminds me of mezid, which is when you do something intentionally, especially when you kill someone intentionally.

Rabbi Fohrman: That's right, when you kill someone intentionally. And by the way, if you were to take someone's firstborn-ness, literally his firstborn-ness, what would you be doing? 

Ari: You'd be killing him. 

Rabbi Fohrman: You'd be killing him. As I take your firstborn-ness, I take your birth order. That means you weren't born, I was born there instead of you. So who are you? You're dead. 

Ari: I'm looking back at Shemot now. יָזִד (yazid) is the exact word that it uses to describe murder. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Isn't it interesting that יָזִד is the same word that describes murder? So come with me back to Mishpatim for a minute and let's read these words again.

מַכֵּה אִישׁ וָמֵת מוֹת יוּמָת – A man who strikes his fellow and kills him should die. But what if it's not so simple? וַאֲשֶׁר לֹא צָדָה – Now what does וַאֲשֶׁר לֹא צָדָה remind you of? He wasn't hunting. Does hunting remind you of anybody? 

Ari: Well, hunting reminds us of Esau! Esau is called אִישׁ יֹדֵעַ צַיִד – someone who knows how to hunt, and his father Isaac loves Esau כִּי־צַיִד בְּפִיו – because of the game that Esau brings him to eat. And what's fascinating is that both of the Jacob stories we've been talking about – the lentils story and the blessings story – they both involve hunting. So now Rabbi Fohrman's going to zoom in on that idea. He goes back to read each story through the lens of the law in Mishpatim, starting with the story of the blessings.

Rabbi Fohrman: There were two deceptions that Jacob perpetrates upon Esau. In both, hunting plays a role, right? But in one, Father had actually said, I want you to go out and hunt. But what happened is that the non-hunter came with food that looked like it was hunted. 

Ari: So this language that the Torah says, וַאֲשֶׁר לֹא צָדָה – which literally just means that this murderer, he wasn't hunting this other guy, he wasn't intentionally trying to kill him, but it also describes the exact situation of Jacob where he was לֹא צָדָה – he was not hunting, but this food actually just came from Mom's kitchen. 

Rabbi Fohrman: That's right. So in other words, there's a double entendre here. There are two respects in which Jacob is לֹא צָדָה. He's not the hunter in one sense: He is impersonating the hunter, who is Esau. And he is also not actually hunting anyone. He didn't go around trying to trap someone, trying to trap his father, trying to trap his brother. He was just hanging out in the tent, when this just sort of happened to him. וְהָאֱלֹקים אִנָּה לְיָדוֹ – God just made it happen. But he didn't plan it. 

So in that case, God says: Look, I take some responsibility for what happened around here. You were in the wrong place in the wrong time. You were caught unawares. Esau doesn't know that, Esau just thinks you did this with malice, but you didn't really. So I'm going to give you a pass on this one. I'm going to help you out, וְשַׂמְתִּי לְךָ מָקוֹם אֲשֶׁר יָנוּס שָׁמָּה – and I'll give you a place to run away to. Now where was that? 

Ari: That was Haran. 

Rabbi Fohrman: That was Haran. 

Ari: Where Jacob ran away. It was his safe haven. 

Rabbi Fohrman: That's his safe haven. Mom says “run away,” and who conspires in effect with Rebecca to make that a safe haven, but God? Because what happens immediately after he absconds? You have the beginning of Parshat Vayetze. Jacob comes to Beit El, God appears to him in a dream. And what does God promise him? 

Ari: I'm going to protect you. 

Rabbi Fohrman: I'm going to protect you, and ultimately one day you'll be able to return to your father's house, because I'm going to make sure that you have a safe place to go. 

But, וְכִי־יָזִד אִישׁ עַל־רֵעֵהוּ לְהׇרְגוֹ בְעׇרְמָה – imagine somebody who with malice aforethought planned to kill his fellow. Well, isn't that fascinating that the other time you have (the Hebrew root) yud-zayin-daled is another Jacob story, וַיָּזֶד יַעֲקֹב נָזִיד – which tells you something about little five-year-old, six-year-old Jacob's motivation. Jacob, that one you planned! Now, maybe you were only six, but what were you doing with that lemonade stand right at that convenient spot?

You made the porridge, you were all ready for when Esau, he's coming back from his hunt, he's going to be really exhausted, that's when you're going to accost him. And asking for his firstborn-ness, it might feel like a little joke, but when you take somebody's birth order, if you could really do that, you'd be, like, killing him. So here it's a little childhood prank, but it's a mean prank. Right? 

Ari: And most importantly, it was thought out and planned. 

Rabbi Fohrman: It was thought out and planned. The unplanned act is what happens later on in life when he is a full grown adult, when he deceives his brother and he didn't quite really mean to do it. But if you want to know what it means to plan with malice aforethought, look at the six-year-old version of it. Sure, it was silly. Who can buy firstborn-ness? But that level of premeditation is the kind that we wouldn't accept. God doesn't give you a safe haven, a safe pass for something like that. Now, you might have a safe pass because you were only six, right? The only thing you’ve got to ask is this. 

Who Made the Porridge?

Later on, when Jacob is full-grown, he still can't get it together to make some delicious stuff that he can bring to his father. His mom has to do it for him. Now, if six-year-old Jacob, who later on can't even get it together to come up with some food to give to his father, is going to plan to do his little lemonade stand, how does he…

Ari: Somebody had to do it for him. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Someone had to have made the pot of porridge. We know that Rebecca loved Jacob. And we know that she didn't like this idea of Jacob coming in second. She always wants to change his name. And that's what she's trying to do the second time around when she provides the food. You wonder if Rebecca was in on this too. 

Ari: We have our suspect. 

Rabbi Fohrman: The only thing is that it's וַיִּגְדְּלוּ הַנְּעָרִים. So who is the person who really has the trust of the child at this stage in life? 

Ari: It's Deborah. 

Rabbi Fohrman: It's Deborah. Deborah, who's in Rebecca's employ. So put it all together. Maybe there was a first attempt to change Jacob's name, long before the deception about the blessings. When the kids are six years old, maybe there's Mommy, like, Why are you always in second place? You could be in first place. And then it's like, Well, I could build this little lemonade stand. We could help you with that, right? Deborah, see if you can cook up some lentils for this little guy.

I think he's got a plan. It's a plan that's aided and abetted by two adults in the room. Now, the six-year-old doesn't bear responsibility because he's only six, right? But the adults in the room? What happens if you help a child conspire for the downfall of another child? The adults are responsible for that one.

Ari: They're fully responsible.

Rabbi Fohrman: וַיָּזֶד יַעֲקֹב נָזִיד – So Jacob makes this נָזִיד. And now let's come back to our verses in Shemot. 

Ari: I'm getting really excited because I'm looking at the end of this last verse, and I think I might know where you're going.

Rabbi Fohrman: If you do that, if you're an adult and you conspire, וְכִי־יָזִד אִישׁ עַל־רֵעֵהוּ לְהׇרְגוֹ בְעׇרְמָה – and you're going to kill him or deprive him of his life, deprive him of his firstborn-ness by stealth, and you think you can get away with that even if the kids are only six, but you're the adults behind that… if you would actually do that, מֵעִם מִזְבְּחִי תִּקָּחֶנּוּ לָמוּת – you wouldn't allow them to have the refuge of an ir miklat.

Now, isn't it ironic that what do Chazal say that Deborah was doing? What was she even doing there in Laban's house? What was she telling Jacob? 

Ari: She was telling him it was all clear. 

Rabbi Fohrman: That your time in the ir miklat is over. It's the all-clear, it's safe to come home. You can come back and reconcile with Esau. But there's only one problem. In the din of shamayim, in God's heavenly court, there's some unfinished business here. Because this wasn't the only deception, the second one. There was the first deception to be accounted for also, the first deception that both Rebecca and Deborah were perpetrators of at some level, perhaps. מֵעִם מִזְבְּחִי תִּקָּחֶנּוּ לָמוּת – from My mizbeach (altar) itself you can take them to die. And what's the verse right before the death of Rebecca?

Ari: וַיִּבֶן שָׁם מִזְבֵּחַ – And Jacob built a mizbeach there. He built an altar (Genesis 35:7). 

Rabbi Fohrman: To celebrate the God who gave him refuge for his second act of deception, which he never really intended. But Rebecca and her nursemaid both die at the same moment. 

Ari: Wow. 

Rabbi Fohrman: It's almost like that mizbeach indicts them. The same mizbeach that celebrates the God who provides refuge to the inadvertent killer, condemns those with malice who allowed for a childhood prank that ultimately, in its adult version, would be akin to murder.

וַתָּמׇת דְּבֹרָה מֵינֶקֶת רִבְקָה – And so now the Torah reveals to us the existence of someone named Deborah, so that Parshat Mishpatim can build on that and tell us a lesson. A lesson about killing with malice and the fact that no compassion by God will provide refuge to a malicious killer. But in its larger sense, it's that childhood pranks are not as innocent as they may seem. They're innocent between children, but when adults get involved – for every coach on the soccer field who takes the game a little too seriously – it seems to be a chilling message about the seriousness with which God takes the adult abetting of childhood rivalries. It's as if the adult version of the rivalry is what matters to the adults in the room, even if the children are still playing what to them is a game.

So this becomes the antecedent for a story that becomes our law, right? And the laws of the arei miklat and the killing with malice aforethought is built on this. And I think this is the backstory of the mysterious death of Deborah. 

Ari: Wow. This is super cool. So I'm wondering, why does Deborah need to be part of this at all? Why couldn't the Torah have just told us that Rebecca died right when Jacob returned to Beit El and left Deborah out of the story completely?

Rabbi Fohrman: Good question. The only thing I can tell you is if the message is not only about adults aiding and abetting childhood rivalries, but if you are an adult who is sent to aid and abet a childhood rivalry, what responsibility do you have? You might say “I was just following orders.” The answer is: There is no following orders in such a case. The fact that you were sent by someone else to do it doesn't absolve you of the responsibility.

Ari: This is really cool. This one little verse in Genesis 35 and these two or three little verses in our parsha, in Mishpatim, just start to reveal this really complicated story with all these hidden clues. Mystery solved.

Rabbi Fohrman: Mystery solved, perhaps. Look, it’s still speculative. I could be wrong. But these language echoes, they do seem to take you back to Jacob and Esau in ways that can't be denied. The only question is what you make of it. So Ari, I will leave you and our listeners to kind of contemplate that.

Ari: Guys, let us know what you think. Do you like Rabbi Fohrman's theory here? Did we get the right culprit, or do you guys make something else of these parallels? We'd love to hear from you. 

Credits

This episode was recorded by our lead scholar, Rabbi David Fohrman, along with me, Ari Levisohn. 

Editing for this episode was done by Sarah Penso.

Our senior editor is Shoshana Brody.

Our audio editor is Hillary Guttman. 

Our editorial director is me, Ari Levisohn. 

Thank you so much for listening.