Vayetzei (Part 4) Genesis 28:10-32:3

Leah's Drug of Choice

Here is a tongue-in-cheek explanation of Genesis 30:14-16:

I wrote it in this way to make it easier to remember. But let's look at what I meant by "weed".

What was the "weed"

In the Torah, the term is דודאים, or the plural of דודא which has found its way into modern Hebrew as "mandrake".

But was the duadim really a mandrake?

The idea of a Mandrake was acquired because the Septuagint used it as such, perhaps based on some tradition of the time, and the Latin Vulgate continued it, and the English translations maintained it. Even Jewish texts that translate into English use "Mandrake". And as I mentioned, modern Hebrew also uses that term.

Ibn Ezra, who was quoting the Targum Onkelos, who was quoting the Talmud (see below) calls it yivruchin.

It should also be noted that if a noun ends with an aleph (א), and has an "ah" sound, it usually means that it is a feminine Aramaic word, since Hebrew would end a feminine noun with a heh (ה), which makes the same sound.

It's something to consider. (Another possibility is that, like Rephaim, the word is Canaanite and incorporated into the Hebrew text.)

Other Traditions

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 99b) quotes the supposed keepers of the oral tradition. So one would expect the answers there, right?

"What is duadim? Rav said, "yavruchei". Levi said, "siglei", Rabbi Yonatan said, "seviskei".

The Targum Onkelos was siding with the first opinion, and modern scholars consider this to be a term for Mandrake, although the Rashi on that page of the Talmud says, "It is unclear what this is". As for the other words, seglei are either "violets" or "cyprus" or "narcissus", depending on which commentator you prefer. And seviskei is :a certain kind of spice" according to Rashi.

So even the keepers of the oral traditions cannot keep it straight, nor the interpreters of the keepers' traditions. (This should give religious Jews some pause, but it doesn't).

As noted, Ibn Ezra goes along with Onkelos, and adds that it has a pleasant fragrance as this word is used in Song of Songs 7:14 and adds that it has a human form, obviously interpreting yavruchei as "Mandrake". He, the Ramban, and the Radak (all post Middle-Ages) agree that the plant does not have any special powers of inducing a pregnancy. Earlier periods believed that it could. ("Get thee pregnant on a mandrake root" - John Donne poem).

The Ramban said that Rachael simply wanted the Mandrake for their fragrance. Based on 30:15, he suggests that the root can arouse man's sexual desires. According to the Radak, Rachael was mistaken in believing that it could help her get pregnant.

The Rashbam, based on the last usage of dudaim (Jeremiah 24:1) where it speaks of them as baskets (שני דודאי תאנים - "two BASKETS of figs"), that they are figs.

I was considering that since baskets can be made of hemp, that perhaps that was the drug, the weed.

But, then again, maybe not.

Nobody seems to know.

Conclusion

Based on these few verses, nobody seems to know what the dudaim are. They have come to a consensus, based on preferences, on anything from mandrake to violets to a cypress (or figs).

The verse itself seems to indicate something special (not figs), something that can be picked in the field (not cypress), and something that an unloved wife (29:31) could use to entice her husband to desire her. Was it the false belief in it's aphrodisiac powers? What was so special that Leah's son was picking them for his mother that an infertile Rachael wanted them?

The text doesn't say. We can only conjecture, and many do.

But here's a final thought:

There is a tradition in Judaism that, "Without the Oral Torah, one cannot understand the Written Torah", and "The sages were the keepers of the Oral Torah".

Here is but one tiny example that the sages didn't know, that they were making things up based on what sounded good as part of a story, or perhaps were repeating what someone else thought sounded good. But in any case, they were not keepers of any ancient wisdom.

Like other primitive societies, they believed that certain plants could do things that they couldn't.

And THAT is probably how the LXX, echoing the views of the sages, determined that "Mandrake" was the drug of choice.