Reuben – Unstable Like Water

Before he died, Jacob blessed his sons. He began with his firstborn: “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength and my first vigor, foremost in rank and foremost in power. Unstable like water – you can not excel, because you went up on your father’s bed and defiled Him who ascended my couch” (Genesis 49:3-4). In the midst of ostensibly blessing Reuben, Jacob criticizes him harshly informing him that because he rashly moved Jacob’s bed from Bilhah’s tent to Leah’s tent after Rachel died, he would lose the rights of the firstborn.

The Sages explain that although Reuben acted impetuously, his motives were pure as he was defending his mother’s honor; he felt that Jacob’s decision to move his bed to Bilhah’s tent (the tent of Rachel’s handmaiden), instead of to his mother Leah’s was an affront to her. Although Reuben sincerely repented this misdeed, Jacob deemed him “unstable like water,” exhibiting poor leadership material, and took away his position of the firstborn.

Jacob seems to be right about Reuben’s instability as the Torah records two other incidents in which Reuben fails as a leader because he seems to act either impetuously or in an indecisive manner. Firstly, when the brothers wanted to kill Joseph, Reuben convinced them to cast him into a pit. He planned to come back later and save Joseph, but failed to do so, for when he returned from attending to his father, Joseph had already been sold. Secondly, when Benjamin needed to be taken to Egypt to ransom Simon, whom Pharaoh had detained, Reuben rashly guaranteed Benjamin’s safety by proposing that Jacob kill his own sons if anything happened to Benjamin. Would Jacob really have been happy with such a guarantee?

Reuben’s failure presents us with a test case for examining why such a gifted individual fell so short of his potential. Throughout the book of Bereishit we have discussed the Talmudic statement, “the actions of the fathers are a sign to the children” (Sotah 34a). We have repeated time and again that our forefathers are not only figures for emulation, their archetypal deeds actually engrave themselves upon the Jewish psyche and determine the path of Jewish history. In the case of Reuben, this notion attains new profundity as we will suggest that not only Jacob’s actions but even his thoughts affected his offspring’s persona.

Reuben was conceived on Jacob’s wedding night and according to tradition was literally the product of his first seed. Jacob’s blessing even explicitly alludes to this: “You are my firstborn, my strength and my first vigor.” On the one hand, Reuben’s potential was very great, but, on the other hand, we know that Laban switched his daughters that night and although Jacob thought he was having relations with Rachel, he was actually having relations with Leah.

This switch may be the key to Reuben’s instability, for tradition teaches that we are forbidden to think of someone other than our partners during intimate marital relations. Furthermore, the tradition teaches that the thoughts we have during marital relations impact significantly on the soul conceived. In Reuben’s case, his very conception was surrounded by confusion, a logical portent for future instability. Indeed, Reuben’s decision to move his father’s bed was quite likely rooted deeply in his subconscious, tied to his being conceived in what should have been Rachel’s bed when Jacob slept with Leah on his wedding night.

This analysis of Reuben’s condition provides us with a crucial lesson. We simply have no idea how far-reaching the consequences of our actions, speech, and even thoughts can be. The greater the person, the greater care he or she must take with regard to action, speech, and thought. While this is true in general, when it comes to our own children the responsibility is even greater, for children are deeply affected by their parent’s personality traits, habits, and attitudes. Children in great measure replicate, compensate, reject, or rectify their parents’ histories; they are always, to some degree, a response to their parents’ thoughts, speech, and actions. Knowing this should give us reason to pause and think twice before speaking, acting, or even thinking.