After watching painfully as her co-wives have children for Yaakov, Rochel has a first child by the name of Yosef. One reason given for this name is that ‘for HaShem has hidden my disgace’ (30;23). Rashi brings a midrash which explains that Rochel was pleased that if a pot broke at home, she could now have someone to blame it on, whereas previously she didn’t have any children to blame it on. What is going on; blaming breakage of a vase is THE thing that Rochel picks out to be pleased about – are there not more important things to be grateful about eg the fact that she’s finally been blessed with a child? And wouldn’t blaming her breakage on her child be a lie anyway?
The answer is that Rochel is teaching us a message in what grattitude means. It’s not that she was ONLY pleased because of the breaking pot thing, but on the contarary, her trait of grattitude went as far as to EVEN have grattitude for the smallest result of an act of kindness like this. Thus, she realised that she should even be grateful for the ability (even if she wasn’t going to use this and lie) to excuse herself from the blame of breaking a pot at home.
The message here for us is to try and notice the full extent of kindness done for us by people, and how much more so when it comes to HaShem’s Kindness..
Previous Article
By The Light of The Moon
Next Article
