For me, the greatest love story is the story of Yaacov and Rachel. It’s on my mind because this is the Torah portion of the week. When you read the story, you get a feel for how much Yaacov loved Rachel. It was a love so deep he was willing to give his life for it. He worked 7 years for her hand in marriage and the Torah records in a moving expression that “they seemed to him but a few days, for the love he had for her.”
After 7 years of hard working in conditions of scorching heat and freezing cold, he was deceived and his father-in-law, Lavan, forced him to work an additional 7 years. And another 7 years he worked in his love for her.
His story begs the question – why was it necessary for Yaakov to suffer so much in order to win his beloved Rachel as a wife? It’s a mystery. Maybe what we can learn is the process of finding your soulmate isn’t meant to be easy. It can be, and for some people it is. But for a lot of other people, it’s not and that’s natural. Even our Rabbis teach us that finding a mate is as difficult as “the splitting of the Red Sea.”
A message we can take from the story is one of perseverance and hope. That the process of finding a spouse can be long and hard and it can hurt in so many different ways. But it’s a journey that’s worth giving your entire being to. And one who decides to embark on the journey should never lose hope.
2021