Ya'akov's Simanim and the Establishment of the Kehunah
How to Have Holy, Righteous Children:
One of the vital steps necessary to sanctify Aharon and his sons for the kehunah is described in Parashat Tetzaveh (Shemot 29:20): וְשָׁחַטְתָּ אֶת־הָאַיִל וְלָקַחְתָּ מִדָּמוֹ וְנָתַתָּה עַל־תְּנוּךְ אֹזֶן אַהֲרֹן וְעַל־תְּנוּךְ אֹזֶן בָּנָיו הַיְמָנִית וְעַל־בֹּהֶן יָדָם הַיְמָנִית וְעַל־בֹּהֶן רַגְלָם הַיְמָנִית וְזָרַקְתָּ אֶת־הַדָּם עַל־הַמִּזְבֵּחַ סָבִיב (And you shall slaughter the ram and take from its blood, and place it on the right earlobe of Aharon and his sons, and on the thumb of their right hand, and on the big toe of their right foot, and you shall sprinkle the blood around the altar). As the Torah never reveals the meaning behind this strange procedure, we turn to our great commentators for insights. The problem is that almost all of them are silent. We cannot find anything in the Gemara, Midrash or Zohar ha-Kadosh about this either. Nevertheless, there is one story in Sefer Bereshit where these three body parts played a central role. Maybe by examining this story we'll find an explanation for this strange procedure.
After Leah had already given birth to four children, Reuven found duda'im in the field and brought them to his mother. Rachel had found out about this and asked Leah for the duda'im. What was Leah's response? She said (Bereshit 30:15): הַמְעַט קַחְתֵּךְ אֶת־אִישִׁי וְלָקַחַת גַּם אֶת־דּוּדָאֵי בְּנִי (Was it a small matter than you took my husband? And you also [want] to take my son's duda'aim!). Not only is her response perplexing, it is completely incredulous. How could Leah accuse Rachel of taking her husband? Didn't Leah know that Rachel was the intended wife, and that Ya'akov worked seven years to marry her, and that it was only at the last minute that Lavan swapped out Leah for Rachel? If so, how could Leah accuse Rachel of taking her husband? To understand what was going on here, we need a deeper appreciation of the attribute of modesty [צְנִיעוּת, tz'niut].
Two accounts in the Gemara extol Rachel's level of tz'niut. The first one is in Megillah 13b: בִּשְׂכַר צְנִיעוּת שֶׁהָיְתָה בָּהּ בְּרָחֵל זָכְתָה וְיָצָא מִמֶּנָּה שָׁאוּל, וּבִשְׂכַר צְנִיעוּת שֶׁהָיָה בּוֹ בְּשָׁאוּל זָכָה וְיָצָאת מִמֶּנּוּ אֶסְתֵּר (As reward for Rachel's tz'niut, she merited to have [King] Shaul descend from her, and as reward for Shaul's tz'niut, he merited to have Esther descend from him). The second one is in Baba Batra 123a: וּמִתּוֹךְ צְנִיעוּת שֶׁהָיְתָה בָּהּ בְּרָחֵל, הֶחְזִירָהּ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא לָהּ (Because of Rachel's tz'niut, Ha-Kadosh, baruch Hu, returned it to her). Returned what to her? Returned the 'firstborn' to her. Even though Leah merited, through prayer and supplication, to bear Ya'akov's firstborn son, i.e. Reuven, Hashem returned the status of the firstborn to Rachel, i.e. to her son Yosef. Two incredible rewards from one character trait – tz'niut. The Gemara asks in both places: וּמַאי צְנִיעוּת הָיְתָה בָּהּ בְּרָחֵל (What was the tz'niut of Rachel?).
Knowing that her father was deceptive and wicked, Rachel warned Ya'akov that Lavan might try to swap her out for Leah at the last minute. In an attempt to expose any last minute deceit, Ya'akov gave over certain signs [סִימָנִים, simanim] to Rachel for her to use on the wedding night to indicate to Ya'akov that she was actually Rachel and not Leah. If Lavan replaced Rachel with Leah, Leah wouldn't know the simanim and Lavan's plot would be exposed. At least that was the plan.
However, when the wedding night arrived, Rachel changed her mind (Megillah 13b): כִּי מְטָא לֵילְיָא אֲמַרָה הַשְׁתָּא מִיכַּסְפָא אֲחָתַאי. מְסַרְתִּינְהוּ נִיהֲלַהּ (When the [wedding] night arrived, she [Rachel] said [to herself], 'Now, my sister will be humiliated.' Therefore, she gave them [i.e. the simanim] over to her [Leah]). The account in Baba Batra adds an important detail: כִּי קָא מְעַיְּילֵי לַהּ לְלֵאָה סָבְרָה הַשְׁתָּא מִיכַּסְפָא אֲחָתַאי. מְסַרְתִּינְהוּ נִיהֲלַהּ (When they were bringing Leah up [to the chuppah], she [Rachel] thought, 'Now, my sister will be humiliated.' She gave them over to her).
Let's back up a little bit to understand the context. The wedding preparations were in full swing. Invitations had gone out: 'By the grace of G d, join us as we celebrate the wedding of bat Lavan with Ya'akov ben Yitzchak. All the locals understood that the 'bat Lavan' in the invitation was Leah. After all, she was the firstborn and it was the local custom to marry off the firstborn daughter first. Nobody thought that they were going to the wedding of Ya'akov and Rachel. Nobody, that is, except Ya'akov and Rachel. So as Leah was being dressed in her wedding garments, Rachel realized that what she had suspected was unfolding before her eyes. Her pain was unbearable, yet she remained silent. But beyond her personal pain, she was experiencing another pain. She would never be able to live with herself if she and Ya'akov were to expose Lavan's plot, thereby bringing public shame and humiliation to her sister. Therefore, at the last moment, as Rachel saw the joyful Leah being led to the chuppah, she gave over the secret simanim to her. How she did it is not revealed. Whether it was through a shaliach or done directly by her is unknown. Either way, she made sure that Leah didn't suspect anything. As far as Leah was concerned, Rachel was merely giving her last minute instructions that she needed to know for their wedding night.
That was Rachel's tz'niut. Nobody else knew that she was the daughter that Ya'akov had arranged to marry seven years prior to that. And if we read the account of Ya'akov's discussion with Lavan (Bereshit 29:15-20), we can see that the Torah doesn't say that anybody else knew the details of their arrangement. Of course, Rachel knew, but there is no indication that anyone else knew. It was only after the seven years had elapsed, when the wedding plans were made public, that everybody thought that Ya'akov had arranged with Lavan to marry Leah.
This explains Leah's incongruous accusation to Rachel: הַמְעַט קַחְתֵּךְ אֶת־אִישִׁי וְלָקַחַת גַּם אֶת־דּוּדָאֵי בְּנִי (Was it a small matter than you took my husband? And you also [want] to take my son's duda'aim!). Now we can understand her words. After all, what happened only one week after Ya'akov married her? Unexpectedly (as far as everyone was concerned, including Leah and Rachel), Lavan gave Rachel to Ya'akov in marriage (Bereshit 29:27-28). One week later! We need to put ourselves in Leah's shoes. She went from the supernal joy of believing that she was the love of Ya'akov's life, to the realization that something was seriously messed up. She felt so betrayed. And yet, when she lashed out at Rachel, Rachel remained silent. She still didn't explain herself. Even when falsely accused by her sister, Rachel did not explain herself nor answer back. In fact, nobody knew the true story behind any of this until Moshe wrote it down in the Torah, hundreds of years later! That's the level of her tz'niut.
So what were the simanim? We have found only two legitimate explanations. The first comes from the Da'at Zekenim, a compilation of writings from the French and German Tosafists who lived in the 12th and 13th centuries. They state that there were three simanim – the laws relating to niddah, challah and hadlakat ha-ner – the three mitzvot that were given over to [married] women as tikkun for Chavah's part in the sin of Adam ha-Rishon. These halachot are so important that when the Mishnah brings them down in Shabbat 2:6, it says that women can die during childbirth for being negligent about them. This would explain why Leah didn't suspect anything when Rachel conveyed these simanim to her. She would have had no particular need for knowing them prior to this, but now that she was becoming a kallah, it was important for her to learn them. That being said, it is very difficult to picture how Rachel would have been able to convey the intricacies of all of these halachot to Leah as she was being led to the chuppah.
Little else seems to have published about this until R' Avraham ben Mordechai Azulai wrote his famous Kabbalistic work Chesed L'Avraham while living in Gaza sometime in the early 1600s. In this monumental work, he reveals an extraordinary secret about these simanim and ties it together with the perplexing ceremony regarding the inauguration of Aharon and his sons that we began with (Even Shetiya, Maayan 2, Nahar 61): דע כי יש ג' שרים גדולים מסטרא דשמאלא והם המתעוררים את האדם לרדוף אחר תאות גופניו. אחד משכנו על תנוך אוזן הימנית והוא הגדול, והבינוני על בוהן יד הימנית, והקטן על בוהן רגל הימנית (Know that there are three great [Heavenly] Ministers from the 'left side' [i.e. the Sitra Achra], and they arouse a man to chase after bodily lusts. One dwells on the right earlobe, and he is the great one. And the medium one is on the thumb of the right hand. And the least one is on the big toe of the right foot).
The Chesed L'Avraham explains that when Moshe placed the blood of the ram on these three body parts, these three Ministers departed. He compares this to how a person who had been contaminated with corpse tumah became ritually pure after being sprinkled with the מֵי חַטָּאת [mei chatat, i.e. water that had the ashes of the parah adumah mixed in]. Just as corpse tumah, which is literally a Spirit of Tumah from the 'left side', which had come to rest upon a person who came into contact with a corpse, departs after the sprinkling of the mei chatat, so too did these three Ministers from the 'left side' leave after Moshe placed the blood of the ram on Aharon and his sons.
But what does it have to do with the simanim that Ya'akov conveyed to Rachel? Generally speaking, it is the way of the world that it is impossible for a man to have intimate relations with a woman without some form of physical arousal. Nevertheless, an אשה כשרה [ishah kasherah, a kosher Jewish wife] has tremendous power at her disposal. If she has the intent to arouse her husband in purity and holiness – rather than the other way around, i.e. him trying to arouse her to satisfy his lust – and she grabs hold of her husband's right big toe, then his right thumb, and finally his right earlobe, what happens? If she has the kavanah that the three Ministers depart from him, then they leave him. Just like that. And as a result, he is able to have relations with his wife purely l'shem Shemayim. (See the Kaf ha-Chayim who brings these things down as halachah on the Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 240:9.)
After explaining all of this, the Chesed L'Avraham adds an amazing tidbit: וכאשר יתכוון הוא לקיים מצות עונה לבד ולא לשום תענוג כלל, אז אפשר לאותו עובר לצאת מהול ממעי אמו (And when [after she initiated everything and did what we described above] he intends to fulfill the mitzvah of onah [i.e. having marital relations] only, and not for the sake of pleasure at all, then it is possible for that fetus [that will be conceived] to emerge circumcised from her womb). Isn't that astonishing? He then ends with these holy words: ואלו הסימנים שמסר יעקב לרחל, ואמנם האשה צריכה להתחיל מהבהן הרגל שהוא הסימן התחתון, ואח"כ מבהן היד שהוא האמצעי, ואח"כ בתנוך אזן בעלה שהוא העליון, ובדרך זה מסרן יעקב לרחל (And these were the simanim that Ya'akov gave over to Rachel. And indeed, a wife needs to begin from the big toe, which is the first siman, and after that, the right thumb, which is the middle [siman], and after that, the earlobe of her husband, which is the upper [siman], and in this way Ya'akov gave them over to Rachel).
This was Ya'akov's intent. His whole purpose in life was to bring 12 sons into the world, all of whom would be holy tzaddikim. And he succeeded – in part, by making sure that he engaged in marital relations only l'shem Shemayim. And to give us all an appreciation of just how extraordinary he was in this matter, the very first time that he ever experienced a seminal discharge was at the age of 84 when he had marital relations for the very first time (see Rashi on Bereshit 49:3).
To conclude, it could be that the Tosafists who indicated that the three simanim were the halachot of niddah, challah and hadlakat ha-ner may have been hinting at this same thing. If so, they spoke in hidden language so as not to reveal secrets before their time. Niddah would correspond to the lower siman, for such laws deal not only with a woman, but also demand a certain restraint from the husband. The reason they correspond to the lowest siman is because a man's brit is between his feet, i.e. his legs. Challah would correspond to the middle siman, for one's mouth, which is the source of one's lust for eating lies literally between his hands. And finally, hadlakat ha-ner would correspond to the upper siman, for one must also have pure thoughts, a mind that is truly alight with the flame of Torah as opposed to alight with bodily desires.
Whether the Da'at Zekenim and the Chesed L'Avraham were describing the same thing or not, the connection to the inauguration of the kohanim is the same. In order to serve Hashem in this high and elevated manner, the kohanim needed to remove from themselves all bodily lusts and impure thoughts. This was facilitated by the application of the blood of the ram for it removed the three Ministers of the Sitra Achra from resting upon them.
