Vayeitzei: 5783 - Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld with a wonderful insight for the parsha: Rochel asks Yaakov for children, and Yaakov becomes angry with her. Why does Yaakov get angry - Rochel is making a legitimate request, she wants…

00:00 A question arises. Yaakov was the choicest of the Patriarchs. His attribute was Tiferes, which is associated with compassion. All his work for Lavan was for Rachel’s sake alone. Now she comes to him without children, asking for a blessing. Say a kind word to her! What is this: “Yaakov became angry with Rachel”? Nowhere else does it say that Yaakov got angry with his wife Rachel when she asked him for something so close to her heart. Something here doesn’t add up. The explanation is that Rachel was very wise; she knew how to learn. She knew that three keys are held only by Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and one of them is the key to children. So when she had no children, only Hakadosh Boruch Hu could help. But she also knew that the Torah says, when Yaakov built the altar, “And He called him E-l, the G-d of Israel.” Rashi explains there: Who called whom “E-l, the G-d of Israel”? Hakadosh Boruch Hu called Yaakov E-l. That is one interpretation. So if Hakadosh Boruch Hu called Yaakov E-l, he could bring about children. Her coming to Yaakov and asking, “Give me children,” was entirely reasonable, because Yaakov was on the level of E-l and could give her children. What made Yaakov angry with Rachel? She went on to say, “And if not, I am dead.” What do you mean, “if not”? You have a doubt whether I can give you children? “Am I in G-d’s place?” I’m not on the level of E-l—so why come ask me at all? That is what made Yaakov angry. Not the request itself, but her saying, “And if not, I am dead.” You have a doubt about it? And he went on to tell of someone who—he had been going to doctors a lot. He had problems with his legs, and in the end they told him he had to

02:16 have surgery. There were two top doctors. He came to the Rebbe and asked which one should perform the surgery, the first doctor or the second. The Rebbe asked him, “You’re not asking whether you need surgery at all?” He immediately caught on and said yes—he was asking the Rebbe whether he needed surgery. But now it was too late. “When you entered this room, if you had believed that from here it was possible to bring about a situation in which you wouldn’t need surgery, it could have been done. Now you’re saying it only because I said it to you. It’s too late.”