Ambivalence and Shrinking Oneself - Milcah

 

“You are ambivalent.” This statement was said to me decades ago, but it still stings. It seems to me that we are all expected to be decisive and certain, all the time. Sometimes, I am. Yet there are days when I worry about getting it wrong. 

This week I came across a woman in the Torah I had never noticed before, a woman whose example holds some lessons about ambivalence. Her name was Milcah. 

In the Torah, people are often introduced as the son or daughter of their fathers. Generally, their mothers and certainly their grandmothers are not mentioned. There is one exception. When Rebecca, one of the greatest characters in the Torah, was asked about her identity and family, she replied: ““I am the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milcah” (1). It has been suggested that Rebecca was influenced by her grandmother (2).  

Milcah being mentioned as part of Rebecca’s identity made me curious about her character and personality. Nowhere in the Torah do we hear Milcah’s voice; all we are given are clues about her based on her family members, including her father, her sons, her granddaughter Rebecca, and, according to the Midrash (3), her beautiful and at times vocal sister Sarah, the wife of Abraham. 

Milcah’s father was Haran, the brother of Abraham. According to the Midrash (4), both brothers were confronted by the dictator Nimrod, who demanded conformity of belief. Abraham was certain in his faith in one invisible God, which deviated from Nimrod’s edict. Nimrod declared that Abraham would be thrown into a fiery furnace, and Haran was asked to take a side. Was he with his brother Abraham or with Nimrod?

His initial answer was that he was neither. Instead, he sat on the fence to see what would happen to Abraham. If Abraham would survive being thrown into a furnace, he would commit to Abraham’s faith, but Haran would not commit before he had all the evidence. 

Milcah, according to one interpretation (5), was like her father Haran in that she was also ambivalent. Milcah was judged harshly for this, similar to the judgments that are made about people who are ambivalent about some difficult issues in their lives. She was also not beautiful like her sister Sarah- which shouldn’t matter at all, but so it is written. 

Despite Milcah’s ambivalence, she is credited with being the mother of all non-Jewish prophets, particularly Job, Balaam and the somewhat obscure Elihu (6). These three people - Milcah’s sons – have had an enormous impact on people over the last three thousand years.

The book of Job is one of the most important books about suffering. Job’s response to tragedy: “Naked, I emerged from my mother’s womb and naked I will return [or leave the world]. God gave. God took. May his name be blessed” (7). His words might not provide much comfort to the modern sufferer, but they help some people with faith grapple with the challenge of living with suffering.

Elihu was not a particularly expansive person. He listened to Job’s friends talk to him about his (Job’s) suffering, waiting for them to speak first because they were older (8) before offering his insights. I see a link between decisiveness and expansiveness on the one hand, and ambivalence and shrinking oneself, or holding back in a group, on the other, as Elihu did.

Rebecca, Milcah’s granddaughter, does not come across as ambivalent, yet she also took a step back. When meeting her future husband, Isaac, Rebecca fell off the camel (9), creating space (10) for her future husband. Rebecca also took a veil and covered herself, another self-effacing stance.   

They say fortune favours the bold. Yet there is a place for those of us who sometimes feel less sure. As Yeats wrote: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” I am not convinced that Yeats is always right, but the case of Milcah is a lesson about valuing those of us - including ourselves, if it applies- who are less beautiful and bold but might have massive contributions to make.  

 

Notes

1)     Genesis 24:24

2)     Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch on Genesis 24:15

3)     Bereshit Rabbah, cited in Rashi on Genesis 11:28

4)     Bereshit Rabbah 38:13

5)     Be'er Basadeh on Genesis 11:29 (Meir Benjamin Menahem Danon (c. 1770 – 1854, chief rabbi of Sarajevo)

6)     Yalkut Shimoni on the Torah 761:3

7)     Job, 1:21

8)     Job 32:4-7

9)     Genesis 24:64-65

10)  Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch on Genesis 24:15, Netziv.