Facing His Wife: Answered in His Own Merit

5“Yitzchak entreated Hashem facing his wife.” It would seem that the verse turns on how male and female are opposites, each facing the other: he gives and she receives. When are they complete opposites? When they are not barren, for then the female receives from the male and gives birth. When they are barren, they are not truly opposites, since she brings forth no offspring from him.¹ This is what the verse means by “Yitzchak entreated Hashem lenochach.” Notice the word: he prayed to be nochach, her counterpart facing her, which here means truly the opposite of his wife, so that through her giving birth he and she would be complete opposites. That is why the verse goes on, “and Hashem accepted his entreaty,” using the word atirah, which speaks of hipuch, turning over, the root of hefech, “opposite,” as Chazal expounded when they compared it to the eser, the pitchfork that turns over the grain.² In other words, the Holy One, blessed be He, granted Yitzchak's request that he become the complete opposite of her.

6Or it may be explained this way. Yitzchak prayed in his wife's merit, for he thought he was not worthy to be answered in his own merit, only in Rivkah's. That is “Yitzchak entreated Hashem facing his wife.” This also explains Rashi's comment on “and Hashem accepted his entreaty”: his and not hers, for the prayer of a tzaddik who is the son of a tzaddik is not like the prayer of a tzaddik who is the son of a rasha, a wicked man, “therefore his and not hers.”³ At first glance, those closing words, “therefore his and not hers,” are superfluous. It seems Rashi means to teach us this. As we said, Yitzchak asked in Rivkah's merit and not his own. So when Hashem, blessed be He, heard his prayer, as it says, “and Hashem accepted his entreaty,” one might have thought that He answered him as he had asked, in Rivkah's merit. Rashi therefore gives the reason, that Yitzchak was a tzaddik the son of a tzaddik, and concludes, “therefore his and not hers”: when Hashem accepted his entreaty, it was all in Yitzchak's own merit, and not, as he had intended, in hers.