Dearest Rivka...
It’s been nearly 90 years since you left for Canaan and I still have to remind you to stay out of my business. This is why you never got married until you were 40! I don’t know why you need Yaakov to return so badly. You proudly told me at the wedding how influential you are in House Avraham and your ideas to improve in their production, if this meshuggeh idea for two entries in the bookkeeping is so successful, why do you need Yaakov?
So since you claim you’re an accomplished person of business, I’ll explain all this to you businessman to businessman, though I imagine this is a station you’ve earned completely by marriage. I’ll also explain this situation parent to parent, which you’ve obviously done an exemplary job at even if you obviously play favorites.
I don’t know why you or Yaakov think an eighty-four year old man has any business marrying a girl who’s barely 19, let alone the twelve-year-old she was when Yaakov kissed her when they first met at the well. Yaakov swore he thought she was at least ten years older, but even if she were 22, what the hell is a seventy-seven year old doing proposing to someone more than half a century his junior? I thought I was doing the right thing by separating them and that you’d support me, but please understand, this compromise is win/win for everybody.
Maybe you haven’t read the tablets for the last half century but just in case you forgot, the Sumerian Empire just collapsed and it almost killed my whole family and millions more. Let’s also not forget that the whole mess started over that dispute Avraham got mixed up in over the Valley of Siddim.
Yaakov and I just spent the last seven years moving the family out of Ur and re-establishing ourselves in Kharan, An & Enlil and Enki be praised. It’s a miracle we’re alive and we have entirely Yaakov to thank, but neither of us have made any profit by his years with the House of Terakh, and if he wants to make real money, he needs to stay another seven years.
Without whatever angels bless your son, there’d be no Terakh House anymore, so in spite of his questionable taste in women, the House of Terakh loves Yaakov. He’s a sheep broker with skill by the terracubit, and has it in him to be a visionary in our fields. Maybe a mensch like Yaakov could have found himself sooner if his mother disciplined him more, but he’s exactly the kind of trail-smart entrepreneur that’s indispensable to Terakh House’s survival.
What would Yaakov do in Canaan anyway? It took so much work to get him out of that desert where the only body of water is that dead sea which is more dehydrating than the sand. How long would Yaakov stay if he ever came back? Even a prodigy son like Yaakov would be as helpless as Esav against drought. I guarantee that either Yaakov or his kids will end up in Egypt where there are growth fields and jobs.
And you don’t even need Yaakov! In spite of how badly you speak of him, Esav is thriving. I’ve seen your financial statements. Your endowment increases an aggregate of 18% every lunar year, even from what it was when “Yitzhak” was the boss. Your livestock dividend expands every quarter and Esav diversified a whole second arm of your securities by moving House Avraham into big game, where the real money is. There’s nothing that Yaakov can do in Khevron that Esav can’t, and what would Yaakov do for House Avraham that he doesn’t do here on a larger scale?
Incidentally, it was very tactful of you to come to the wedding without your husband, since the whole party would have recognized your husband as Yishmael, who suspiciously disappeared from the House of Terakh eighty years ago, fifty years after he suspiciously came to us from the House of Avraham. It was clear from the way you spoke about “Yitzhak” that you two are having trouble.
As for Leyah, whenever you meet her again, you’ll understand. She’s lovely in every way, and will be such a better wife and mother than Rokhel. Yaakov is his grandfather’s grandson in so many ways who never stops dreaming extravagantly, but Leyah will talk him down from those heights he always sees. She’s pragmatic, she’s grounded, never makes a fuss, and OK, she has lots of pockmarks from when she had staphylococcus, but you didn’t see what she went through. Before the illness she was just as captivating as Rokhel, but for the rest of her life she’ll have boils on every parasa of her body. When she was sick she was in excruciating pain and couldn’t leave bed for a year; but she never complained, never screamed, always apologized for the inconvenience, and always reminded Rokhel about her incomplete textile weaving - not that Rokhel ever finished... It’s a miracle Leyah’s alive. She always had the most beautiful eyes in the world and no boil could ever take them away. Not once has this daughter of mine ever had a suitor, but she has a right to a family as much as Rokhel, and deserves it much more. Even if Yaakov is not in love with her, they’ve always been friendly and she clearly has feelings for him. It will be a great marriage and she will create the best family for him. Who needs to love their spouse?
Rokhel, on the other hand, is unmistakably beautiful, but she’s troublesome and reckless, has a terrible temper, bears false witness all the time, and I honestly think she’s a kleptomaniac. She told me her suitors left because they saw how in love she was with Yaakov, but she bribed multiple suitors to leave by offering them a night with her handmaid, Bilhah, who to be perfectly honest is my illegitimate daughter. It will be a scandal if people ever found out that one daughter of mine is pimping another, even an illegitimate one. Let’s hope that Rokhel will calm down, but Yaakov has no idea the whirlwind he reaps if they marry.
But here’s the real reason I had to prevent the marriage, which Yaakov doesn’t know. Hopefully my sharing this secret will convince you that I’m an honest marriage broker, because if I didn’t tell the truth until now it was best for everyone. This secret must stay between us on the pain of enmity between our houses. I’m sorry to threaten something extreme, but this secret is just that horrible.
Of course, the official record is that Rokhel is still pure, but the truth is that my furrier bondsman got her pregnant. He seduced her by making her a really tacky coat. Rokhel, thinking of no consequence, surrendered her virginity and brought shame on our house. I had no choice but to order our healer to abort the baby. He warned me that after taking the potion Rokhel wouldn’t have children for another thirty-three years. Rokhel doesn’t know, Yaakov doesn’t know, I don’t want them to ever find out, and on pain of war between our houses you can never tell them.
So instead I put Yaakov on a second, more lucrative contract. Let’s all give this another seven years. Yaakov will calm down when he has kids and realizes what a great wife Leyah is and hopefully her younger sister will stop being a korveh. If Yaakov still wants Rokhel, Rokhel will, An-willing, calm down and they can attempt that kind of romantic marriage the Jubalians always sing about. Meanwhile, Leyah will be the real wife.
Aside from everything else, the coat was a monstrosity, it has… well… it has a lot of colors.... I can’t even give it to another tribe as a gift.
An & Enlil and Enki be praised and all my love,
Lavan
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