Bilhah

Upon My Knees

When Rachel could not have children, she gave Bilhah to Yaakov, and the sons Bilhah bore became Rachel's answer to years of prayer.

Year after year Rachel watched her sister Leah give birth while she herself remained childless. At last she turned to Yaakov in anguish: give me children, or I am as good as dead. Yaakov answered that he was not in the place of God, Who had withheld children from her. The Midrash relates that Hashem was displeased with that answer, for this is not how one speaks to someone in pain.

Rachel did not give up. Your grandfather Avraham, she said, davened for Sarah. Yaakov answered that Sarah had done something more: she brought another wife into her own home. Then, said Rachel, here is my maid Bilhah. Let her bear upon my knees, so that I too may be built up through her. Onkelos explains that Bilhah would give birth and Rachel would raise the children as her own. Targum Yonasan relates that Rachel first set Bilhah free, and only then gave her to Yaakov as a wife.

Bilhah bore a son, and Rachel named him Dan, for God had judged her. The Midrash explains that at first He judged her and found her wanting, and now He judged her again and found her worthy. Bilhah bore a second son, and Rachel named him Naftali, for she had wrestled in prayer until she prevailed. Rashi explains that she had pleaded again and again, and Onkelos says simply that her prayer was accepted. Two of the tribes of Israel were born, and Rachel's longing found its first answer through the maid who stood beside her.

Source: Bereishis 30:1–8; Midrash Bereishis Rabbah 71:7–8; Rashi on Bereishis 30:3, 30:6, 30:8; Targum Onkelos on Bereishis 30:3, 30:8; Targum Yonasan on Bereishis 30:4. English: The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah (2022); Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary (Rosenbaum and Silbermann, 1929–1934); Metsudah Chumash with Onkelos (2009); The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel (Etheridge, London 1862).

The Bed in Bilhah's Tent

After Rachel's passing, Reuven's zeal for his mother's honor led him to disturb his father's bed in Bilhah's tent, and Chazal show how far he was from sin.

Rachel had passed away on the road to Beis Lechem, and the family of Yaakov was grieving. Chazal relate that Yaakov's bed had always stood in Rachel's tent, and now he moved it to the tent of Bilhah, Rachel's maid. His eldest son Reuven could not bear it. While Rachel lived, he thought, my mother Leah had to share her husband with her own sister. Must she now take second place to her sister's maid as well? Standing up for his mother's honor, Reuven went and disturbed his father's bed.

The Torah describes the episode in words so harsh that they seem to speak of a terrible sin. Rav Shmuel bar Nachmani taught in the name of Rebbi Yonasan that whoever says Reuven sinned is simply mistaken. Right after the episode the Torah says that the sons of Yaakov were twelve, to teach that all of them, Reuven too, remained equal in righteousness. Rebbi Shimon ben Elazar added that Reuven's own descendants would one day stand on Har Eival and pronounce the curse upon exactly such a sin. Could that tzaddik have done the very thing his children would curse? He was saved from it, and it never came into his hands.

Targum Yonasan says that Yaakov was deeply pained when he heard of it, and feared that one of his sons had turned out unworthy, as Yishmael had come from Avraham and Esav from Yitzchak. Then the spirit of holiness answered him: do not fear, for all of them are righteous. Yet because Reuven had disturbed his father's bed, the verse counts it against him as though he had done the deed itself. Yaakov's blessing later names his fault as haste, the rush of anger that runs like water.

Source: Bereishis 35:21–22, 49:4; Gemara, Shabbos 55b (Talmud Bavli); Rashi on Bereishis 35:22, 49:4; Targum Yonasan on Bereishis 35:22. English: The William Davidson Talmud (Koren–Steinsaltz); Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary (Rosenbaum and Silbermann, 1929–1934); The Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel (Etheridge, London 1862).

The Moon Who Raised Yosef

Yaakov thought Yosef's dream could not come true, for his mother was gone, but the Midrash teaches that the moon in the dream was Bilhah, who had raised him.

Yosef was seventeen, and he spent his days with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah. Rashi explains why: the other brothers slighted them as the sons of maids, so Yosef made a point of being their companion. Midrash Tanchuma adds that he told his father how the others treated them like servants, while he treated them as brothers.

Then Yosef dreamed a second dream. The sun, the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to him. He told it to his father in front of his brothers, and Yaakov rebuked him: what is this dream you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers come and bow to the ground before you? The Midrash explains Yaakov's question. Is your mother not dead? How then can the moon bow down to you? Rashi adds that Yaakov meant to show the dream could not be fulfilled, so that his sons would forget it and not envy Yosef.

Yet the next verse says that his father kept the matter in mind. The Midrash teaches that Yaakov did not realize that the dream spoke of Bilhah, Rachel's maid, who had raised Yosef as though she were his own mother. Rachel had given birth to him, but it was Bilhah who brought him up, and in the dream she stood in a mother's place.

Source: Bereishis 37:2, 37:9–11; Midrash Bereishis Rabbah 84:11; Rashi on Bereishis 37:2, 37:10; Midrash Tanchuma, Vayeshev 7. English: The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah (2022); Pentateuch with Rashi's Commentary (Rosenbaum and Silbermann, 1929–1934); Midrash Tanhuma-Yelammedenu (trans. Samuel A. Berman).

The Maid's Sons and the Tzaddik

The Noam Elimelech teaches that the Imahos knew twelve tribes would come from them, and that the names of the tribes would hint at every level in the Jewish people. Leah's first four sons stood for four levels of tzaddikim. Rachel knew that opposite them there would be lower levels too, and she feared that the names hinting at them would fall to her own sons. So she gave her maid Bilhah to Yaakov. Bilhah's first son she called Dan, from din, judgment, for people whose mouths are full of harsh words; the second Naftali, read as nofes li, "the honey is mine", for those who keep the world's sweetness for themselves. Then she named her own son Yosef: he would gather away that disgrace. When the Torah says that Yosef was a lad with the sons of Bilhah, it means that the tzaddik brings these lowly people back to the good and leads them into holiness.

Noam Elimelech, Bereishis, Vayeishev (on Bereishis 30:3–8, 30:23–24 and 37:2)

Two Wives and Two Maidservants

On the night Yaakov crossed the Yabbok, the Torah says, he took his two wives and his two maidservants and his eleven children. The Noam Elimelech teaches that every person has two wives: the wife Hashem commanded him to marry, and his holy neshamah, whose whole longing is to rise to its root. He also has two maidservants: the animal soul and the yetzer hara, which hold him back from serving the Creator. But when a person sanctifies and purifies himself and breaks his physical cravings, everything comes to help him. The yetzer hara itself turns to good, so that he serves Hashem with both inclinations. The animal soul helps him too, for he makes even what is permitted holy, in his eating, his drinking and all his movements. That, says the Rebbe, is how Yaakov took his wives and his maidservants with him and raised everything to holiness.

Noam Elimelech, Bereishis, Vayishlach (on Bereishis 32:23)

Counted Among the Mothers

When the Mishkan was set up, the princes of the twelve tribes brought six covered wagons and twelve oxen to carry it, a wagon for every two princes and an ox for each one. The Midrash finds many meanings in the number six: the six days of Creation, the six orders of the Mishnah, the six steps of Shlomo's throne. Among them it sees six mothers of the nation: Sarah and Rivkah, Rachel and Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah. Bilhah and Zilpah had come into Yaakov's house as maids, and their sons were once slighted as the sons of maids. Yet when the tribes brought the wagons that would carry the dwelling place of the Shechinah through the wilderness, the Midrash sees in them the two maids standing beside the four Matriarchs, mothers of the whole nation.

Midrash Bamidbar Rabbah 12:17 (on Bamidbar 7:3)