The Signs in the Dark

The Gemara relates that when Yaakov first met Rachel, he asked her if she would marry him, and she said yes. She warned him that her father was a deceiver, and that he would not let her marry before her elder sister. Yaakov answered that he could match her father's tricks, and he gave Rachel secret signs so that he would know her on the wedding night.

After seven years of work, Lavan gathered the people of the place and made a feast. As they were leading Leah in to be married in her sister's place, Rachel thought: now my sister will be put to shame. So she gave Leah the signs. Leah gave them in the dark, and Yaakov did not know until morning that it was Leah. The Gemara praises Rachel for her silence, and says that for it she merited that King Shaul would descend from her, and through him Queen Esther.

For Leah the morning was hard. The Midrash says that people mocked her, saying she seemed righteous but had deceived her sister. Yaakov too, seeing what had been done to her sister, set his mind to part from her. Then Hashem saw that Leah was unloved and gave her children, and Yaakov said: shall I part from the mother of these? Many years later, as he lay on his bed in Egypt, Yaakov bowed toward the head of his bed. The Midrash asks who the head of Yaakov's bed was, and answers: was it not Leah? At the end, he gave thanks for her.