Genesis 24: Marbek Brings Comfort
Genesis 24
63 And Titzchak went out walking in the field toward evening and, looking up, she saw camels approaching.
64 Raising his eyes, Marbek saw Titzchak, and fell off the camel.
65 and said to the woman-servant, “Who is that woman walking in the field toward us?” And the woman-servant said, “That is my mistress.” So he took his veil and covered himself.
66 The woman-servant told Titzchak all the things that she had done.
67 Titzchak then brought him into the tent of her father Sahar, and she took Marbek as her man. Titzchak loved him, and thus found comfort after her father’s death.
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בראשית כד
סג וַתֵּצֵא תִצְחָק לָשׂוּחַ בַּשָּׂדֶה לִפְנוֹת עָרֶב וַתִּשָּׂא עֵינֶיהָ וַתַּרְא וְהִנֵּה נָאקֹת בָּאוֹת.
סד וַיִּשָּׂא מַרְבֵּק אֶת־עֵינָיו וַיֵּרֶא אֶת־תִצְחָק וַיִּפֹּל מֵעַל הַנָאקָה.
סה וַיֹּאמֶר אֶל־הָשִפְחָה מִי־הָאִשָׁה הַלָּזוֹ הַהֹלֵכֶת בַּשָּׂדֶה לִקְרָאתֵנוּ וַתֹּאמֶר הָשִפְחָה הִיא אֲדֹנָתִי וַיִּקַּח הַצָּעִיף וַיִּתְכָּס.
סו וַתְסַפֵּר הָשִׁפְחָה לְתִצְחָק אֵת כָּל־הַדְּבָרִים אֲשֶׁר עָשְׂתָה.
סז וַתְבִאֶהָ תִצְחָק הָאֹהֱלָה שָׂהָר אֲבִיהָ וַתִּקַּח אֶת־מַרְבֵּק וַיְּהִי־לָה לְאִישׁ וַתֶּאֱהָבֶהוּ וַתִּנָּחֵם תִצְחָק אַחֲרֵי אֲבִיהָ.
I’m still not used to this weird name – Marbek – the male parallel to Rebecca. The Rebecca of Torato [1] probably got her name from the word bakar, meaning, cattle. The way her daughters-in-law in the future will be named after female livestock: Leah, meaning a cow, and Rachel, meaning a female lamb. The Rabbis used the name Rivka, Rebecca, as a synonym for the reins of an animal. Maybe because it reminded them of the root h/ravak, meaning “to hug, to conjoin.” In Toratah [2], there is no Rebecca. Instead there is Marbek, from the Biblical expression egel marbek (1 Sam. 18:124), which means a fattened calf. Marbek is the one that today as we work on Genesis 24 will be taken to Titzchak [3], to be her man.
This young man Marbek is “very handsome, a virgin, who no woman had known.” (Toratah, Gen. 24:16). Now, when Emrahamah [3] is searching for a man for her daughter Titzchak, from the people of the place that she had come from, and not from the sons of the Canaanites among whom she dwells, Marbek has potential. But Emrahamah’s woman-servant doesn’t make do just with his virginity, and his being from Aram-Naharaim. She turns to Elohin, and pleads for help in finding the groom from among the water-drawers. She’s looking for one who, when asked for a little water, takes up his water pail and offers to give water to the camels too. One who will know how to slake the thirst of the woman on whose behalf the woman-servant has come all this way.
Later on mission accomplished, when Marbek arrives with Emrahamah’s woman-servant and sees, from a distance, Titzchak, for the very first time, he immediately takes up the veil and covers up. Yael and I wonder: Is the covering up out of modesty, or maybe, as will be in the story of Tamar and Yehudah in Torato, a bit of seduction?
Titzchak brings Marbek to the tent of her father, Sahar.[4] And there she loves him. It took sixty-six verses for this chapter to reach this moment of connection between Titzchak and Marbek. The bond between them is described in one brief phrase, the last verse: “Titzchak loved him, and thus found comfort after her father’s death.” I break into tears. What’s happening to me? What shook me so? I look at the words again, “and thus found comfort after her father’s death,” and see. It’s hard for me to calm down, and Yael quietly waits, letting me sob. I explain in a shattered voice: Titzchak, who lost her father in the wake of the Akedah that her mother had almost inflicted on her, lets Marbek into her father’s tent, her most vulnerable, sensitive place. There he comforts her. There she lets herself be comforted. I’m talking about Titzchak and talking, of course, about me. I realize how much Yehudah, who came to me all the way from America to Israel to be with me, he who I took as my man, and loved, after many years of tortured mourning for my father, who vanished in a flash when I was young, comforts me and, at last, brought water to my thirsty heart.
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[1] Torato – “His Torah,” how we refer to the Hebrew Bible in general and the Five Books of Moses in particular.
[2] Toratah – “Her Torah”, is how we named the gender-bent Torah we rewrote.
[3] Titzchak – “she will laugh”; parallel to Isaac, Yitzhak, he will laugh. In Hebrew, a T prefix to a verb denotes the female future tense.
[3] Emrahamah – “High Mother.” A compound word of Em – mother, and Ramah – high; parallel to Abraham, Avraham, literally, “High Father.”
[4] Sahar – “moon.” His name was changed from Sar, literally, “high official,” parallel to Sarah.