Reflections on the Death of Deborah, Rebekah's Nurse
Once Jacob leaves Uncle Laban, he seems to age rapidly. No doubt his aging is spurred by the misfortunes he suffers upon his return. His only daughter, Dinah, is abducted and degraded by Shechem, son of Hamor. Levi and Simeon vengefully launch a murderous rampage and his other sons pillage and despoil, causing Jacob to fear clan warfare. Later his beloved Rachel dies, giving birth to their youngest child, a son whom Rachel in her death throes would name Benoni, son of my sorrow, but whom Jacob renames Benjamin, son of my right hand, a name brimming with irony. Very soon afterwards, Reuben wounds Jacob by bedding Jacob's concubine and Rachel's handmaid, Bilhah. Worse yet, Joseph, Rachel's eldest, is taken from Jacob, who imagines Joseph torn to death by an evil beast. Among all these calamities, when Jacob arrives at Beth-El, Gen. 35:8 relates: "And Deborah Rebekah's nurse died, and she was buried below Beth-El under the oak; and the name of it was called Allon-bacuth," that is, "the Oak of Weeping." We should not overlook the misfortune for Jacob that lies buried in this verse. Jacob returned to Beth-El at God's behest and immediately after this verse has arguably his most intense encounter with God. However, Jacob quickly leaves Beth-El. Why? Gen. 35:8 hints at an answer.
Gen. 35:8's sparse report forces us to supply details. Who buried Deborah, herself a stranger to Beth-El? Who named the tree? Who else but Jacob? Why does the Torah now tell us that Rebekah's nurse is named "Deborah," a name withheld before (24:59)? It is because the name has special meaning only here.
It is unlikely that Jacob simply found Deborah lying dead at Beth-El. No, he met her alive and she dies afterwards. He buries her beneath a tree he names "the Oak of Weeping." Why this extravagant display of grief?
The Torah never tells us when Rebekah died but because Jacob never again sees her alive after he leaves home, one infers she must have died before he returned. If so, then true to her name, "bee," Deborah stings Jacob with terrible news when they meet - Rebekah, Jacob's mother who loved him, has died. Then like every other bee, having inflicted her sting, Deborah dies. Jacob must bury her but his naming the tree Allon-bacuth reveals not only his sorrow upon the death of the aged nurse but surely also his overwhelming grief at the news of his mother's death. Just as he is absent when his mother died and was buried, so too he is absent from verse Gen. 35:8 when Deborah dies and is buried, but we can see him in this verse and his loss and grief. Even though HaShem, like a good Jew, visits the mourning Jacob, the pain from the loss is so great, Jacob decides on his own to leave Beth-El. For Jacob, the Oak of Weeping overshadows the pillar he has erected to God.
Though not excusing Jacob, Gen. 35:8 helps frame Jacob's later treatment of Joseph. Benjamin, whose mother Rachel died giving birth to him, never knew his mother and very likely had a surrogate, perhaps Bilhah. Jacob's others sons have both a father and a mother, all save Joseph. When Jacob looks at young Joseph, his inherited beauty (39:6) a constant, bittersweet reminder to Jacob of Rachel (29:17) and Rebekah (24:16), he sees a boy who alone among his sons knows what it means to lose a devoted mother. In Joseph's pain, Jacob sees his own. With tragic consequences, Jacob, battered by grief into old age, dotes on Joseph, in part, we can reason, to comfort Joseph for his loss but perhaps also to ease his own suffering. And so we read in Gen. 37:3, "Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a coat of many colours." Given their father's sufferings for which they are partly to blame, could not the sons, as adults, have forgiven Jacob an old man's foibles? Could not the brothers have suffered their younger brother Joseph, a motherless child, his cries for attention and his fancy coat?
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