R. Tali Adler on Parashat Toldot: Rivkah, The Ambivalent Matriarch

Ta Shma

We all know the story we are supposed to tell about our matriarchs and their journeys to motherhood.

The story structure is simple, even if the journey is not. Woman wants to be a mother. Woman cannot become a mother. Woman waits, prays, and, if necessary, enlists help to conceive. Woman becomes pregnant, finally gives birth to a child, and thanks God. It’s a tidy story, and it expresses most of what we want to think about mothers—that more than anything, that state is what they’ve dreamed for, longed for; that all their lives they have dreamed of holding a baby in their arms; that they are willing to endure any suffering, face any obstacle, endure any humiliation, to reach that moment.

But we know that that is not the story for all mothers. We know that motherhood, for many women, is a much more fraught, complicated, even ambivalent journey. And we know that some women, some mothers, never wanted children at all.