The Torah column is supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.
Vayeitzei
Genesis 28:10−32:3
One of the first years many of us learned about in elementary school was 1492 when “Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”
Those of us who grew up in schools in the United States generally learned that Christopher Columbus first set out in the Niña, the Pinta and the Santa María in 1492 and landed in the Caribbean. We learned about his confusion about his location, his assertion that the Indigenous people he encountered were “Indians” and his eventual idea that he had discovered “The New World.”
Many of us have been on a journey of relearning this history. In his many visits to the Caribbean, Columbus treated the people he encountered brutally. But more than his individual actions, many of us have come to rethink the significance of the so-called “discovery” of the New World. Given the subsequent genocide of Indigenous peoples in the Americas, many have been skeptical of celebrating Columbus. Many localities have taken down statues of Columbus. In many places “Columbus Day” has been reconceived as “Indigenous People’s Day.”
This has been part of a larger reckoning with history. For many of us, the narratives we learned when we were young require revision. Responding fully to the original story many of us were told of 1492 asks us to be open to new information and even to use our imaginations.
Columbus’ journey wasn’t the only significant historical event that year. This was also the year Christians completely conquered what is now Spain from Muslim rule. Once the Christians gained complete rule over Spain in 1492, they wanted to create a Christian country and decided to expel the Jews from Spain in the same year.
Many of the Jews who had been part of this cultural flourishing fled to what is today the State of Israel. These refugees reinvigorated Jewish life in places like Tsfat.
These people were traumatized, but they were also full of imagination. They and their descendants continued the development of Jewish mysticism. As part of this, they invented much of the Kabbalat Shabbat service that Jews from all backgrounds observe to this day. It is remarkable that these displaced people who had endured so much suffering also invented some of the most well-known and beautiful prayers in our tradition, such as Lecha Dodi.
As we continue to grapple with responding to history, as we continue to relearn about years like 1492, perhaps we can learn from this example of responding to historical tragedy with our imaginations.
It is remarkable that these displaced people who had endured so much suffering also invented some of the most well-known and beautiful prayers in our tradition.
One way to respond with creativity is to turn to midrash, the ancient practice of filling in the gaps in Torah with imagination.
In Vayetzei, our Torah portion this week, we read about Bilhah and Zilpah. Bilhah and Zilpah are often referred to as “maidservants” in English translations of the Torah. They are subordinate to Jacob’s wives Rachel and Leah, and the text states that Bilhah and Zilpah are each “given” to Jacob by Rachel and Leah, respectively. Bilhah and Zilpah then each conceive children with Jacob.
The Biblical scholar and midrashist Wilda Gafney reads the story of Bilhah and Zilpah and asserts that readers should “let themselves be disturbed by the text.”
She therefore decides to translate the word “shefachot,” which is often translated as “maidservants” in a different way. Gafney explains that she renders “shefachot” as “womb slaves” rather than “maidservants” to “emphasize that these persons were bought and sold for sex.”
Gafney is a Black American, and she descended from people who were enslaved here. She believes that we should see Bilhah and Zilpah not as “maidservants” but as enslaved people who were abused.
“Bilhah’s sexual subordination to Rachel evokes the sexual abuse of enslaved Africans in the United States, the Caribbean, and other places,” Gafney writes.
She ultimately offers a hint of redemption for Bilhah. Gafney notices that there is a town mentioned later in the Tanach called “Bilhah” (I Chronicles 4:29). This town is also referred to in Joshua 15:29 as Ba’alah. “Ba’alah” means a woman of nobility. Gafney writes, “Perhaps Bilhah is the Ba’alah (“ lady” or “mistress”) for whom the town is named, regaining the dignity that had been stripped from her.”
Reckoning with the trauma of 1492 — and the subsequent stories we were taught about that year — will require both openness to new narratives and to creativity. It seems that Gafney’s type of reimagining is a good place to start.