Genesis Rabbah 72:5
Zohar I:241b-242a
The World to Come in This World
From Sedra Vayetze
Genesis 30:14-20
During the wheat harvest, Reuben finds love-mandrakes in the field and brings them to Leah, his mother. Rachel asks Leah for some of them. “Was it not enough for you to take my husband,” replies Leah, “that you would also take my son’s love-mandrakes?” Rachel offers Jacob to Leah, to “sleep with you tonight in return for your son’s love-mandrakes.” So, as Jacob is returning from the field in the evening, Leah goes out to meet him: “You are coming to me, because I have hired you with my son’s love-mandrakes.” He sleeps with her that night, and God pays heed to Leah:
Leah conceives and bears a fifth son to Jacob. She names him Issachar (“He provides a reward”), thinking, “God has rewarded me for giving my maidservant to my husband.”
Leah conceives again and bears a sixth son to Jacob. She names him Zebulun (“Honor”), thinking, “God has bestowed a wonderful gift upon me; now my husband will honor me for having borne six sons to him.”
Said Rabbi Yehudah: Issachar and Zebulun entered into an agreement between them. One would sit and engage in Torah, and the other would go out and engage in trade. The trader would support the scholar, as is written, “Its supporters are blessed” (Proverbs 3:18; cf. 3:13 for “wisdom” and “understanding” as antecedents of “its,” which Rabbi Yehudah identifies as “Torah”)!
Rabbi Levi observed: “How pleasing was the role of the love-mandrakes before the One-Who-Spoke-and-the-World-was-Created, for through the agency of the love-mandrakes two tribes arose in Israel: Issachar and Zebulun! Issachar sits and occupies himself in the study of Torah. Zebulun travels upon the seas and returns to provide Issachar food in his mouth. Thereby is Torah made great in Israel, as was said, “The mandrakes yield a fragrance” (Song of Songs 7:14)!
Issachar was the fifth son, and Zebulun was the sixth.
Yet, when Jacob blessed them, he put Zebulun first:
“Zebulun shall dwell
by the shore of the seas…”
(Genesis 49:13)
“Issachar…stays at home…”
(Genesis 49:14)
In the same order did Moses bless them:
“Be happy, O Zebulun,
in your going out,
and Issachar,
in your tents!”
(Deuteronomy 33:18)
Rabbi Bun wondered why both Jacob and Moses blessed Zebulun before Issachar, especially considering that Issachar engaged in Torah, and Torah always comes first! This is how he answered the question: Zebulun deserved to be mentioned first because he took food out of his own mouth, as it were, and put it into the mouth of Issachar.
Then Moses continued:
“They invite their fellow tribes to the mountain,
where they offer sacrifices of righteousness,
enjoying:
the seas’ abundance
and
those that are hidden in the sand.”
(Deuteronomy 33:19)
From this we learn that whoever supports a Torah scholar receives blessings from above and from below!
And he earns the merit of two tables, unlike any other type of person: He merits the wealth with which he is blessed in this world, and at the same time he earns a portion in the world to come. That is the meaning of his father’s blessing:
“Zebulun shall dwell
by the shore of the seas,
a port for ships…”
(Genesis 49:13)
Since he already said,
“by the shore of the seas,”
what need is there to add,
“a port for ships?”
“Zebulun shall dwell
by the shore of the seas”
refers to this world.
To say that his dwelling
shall also be
“a port for ships”
is the Torah’s esoteric way (sod)
of referring to the world to come.
Applying the otherwise redundant clause that Zebulun shall dwell as “a port for ships” to the world to come is based upon Psalms 104:25-26, “There is the sea, great and wide, there are its innumerable creatures, both small and large—there go ships and Leviathan whom You made to play with,” which reflects such other-worldly abundance as exists in the world to come!
