Tears at the Crossroads

In Charan, Chazal relate, people spoke of the match as if it were already settled. Rivkah had two sons in Eretz Canaan, and her brother Lavan had two daughters. So the people said: the elder daughter for the elder son, and the younger daughter for the younger son. By their reckoning, Leah, the elder, was meant for Eisav.

Leah did not accept this as her fate. The Gemara tells that she would sit at the crossroads and ask the travelers coming from Canaan what kind of man the elder son was. They told her that he was wicked and that he robbed people. Then she asked about the younger son, and they told her that he was a wholesome man who sat in tents. Leah wept and davened that she should not fall into the hands of the wicked one. She cried so much that her eyelashes fell out, and so the Torah says that her eyes were tender.

Chazal say that the Torah would not speak lightly even of an impure animal, so it surely did not mean to shame a tzaddekes. Her weak eyes are her praise. The Midrash adds what came of her tears. Rav Huna said: tefillah is great, for it cancelled the decree, and she even married Yaakov before her sister. The Gemara says that through her tefillah her son Reuven was born first and received the rights of the firstborn, until they passed to Yosef.