Reconsidering Rebekah: Struggles with Faith and Jewish Tradition

Abstract

In this essay, the author, raised a secular Jew who is returning to Judaism, rereads the biblical story of the matriarch Rebekah and finds in her story a new hermeneutics of the meaning of Judaism as struggle. Rather than associate Jacob, Rebekah's younger son, with "struggle" (the meaning of the name Israel he is given by the angel), she urges consideration of Rebekah to be the inspiration for what it means to be Jewish, to wrestle with others and with G-d.