Q:
Is it true that children take after their mother’s brothers? If so, why did Yitzchak marry Rivka?
A:
Now the Gemara says when you want to consider a girl as a prospective wife, יבדק באחיה – you should examine her brothers (Bava Basra 110a).
Now that’s good advice on a number of counts.
Sometimes, if you look at her sisters, you’re pleased with all of them – you’re sorry you can’t take all of them. And therefore the sister is no criterion. The one you’re contemplating has curls like this, twisted – it takes three hours to make those curls but you don’t know it; you think she’s born with those curls – and her sisters also have the curls. And once there are curls on the head of the person then you’re not capable of being a judge.
You have to judge somebody who has no curls. So you look at her brother. If you look at her brother then you can see what her face would look like without the curls.
Now if I were an iconoclast, I would tell you even more. Look at her father to see what she is without the curls. But that would ruin everything.
And so looking at her brother is very important. Sometimes you’ll see what she really is, without the curls.
But not only for spiritual resemblance. Because mental disturbance many times runs in a family.
Now once a young man said to me, “What should you look for in a prospective bride?”
So one of the things I told him was to see if there was mental disturbance in the family. I said, “If you yourself have mental disturbance, so you can’t be too choosy. Or maybe if there are some other faults in you – let’s say you’re not a big lamdan and don’t have any career either – so if you’re in general a pretty poor customer so you can’t be choosy. But suppose you have a choice of two girls. You should take the one who doesn’t have mental disturbance in the family.”
He says, “Well there isn’t much. It’s just her mother and her mother’s sister.”
And so you have to examine the relatives too. But the brother is a very good resemblance to the sister.
Now, why did Yitzchak marry Rivka?
Because he didn’t have two Rivkas. If he had two Rivkas, one who didn’t have a brother Lavan and one who did, he would have taken the one that didn’t have. But there was only one Rivka in the entire world. She didn’t have an equal. And therefore it paid to marry her.
So if there’s a fine girl and it’s the best you can find, then you have to disregard her brother because she herself makes up for everything.
TAPE # 205 (February 1978)
