ועיני לאה רכות אמוראי דר' יוחנן תרגם קודמוי ועיני לאה הוו רכיכין א"ל עינוהי דאימך הוו רכיכין ומהו רכות רכות מבכיה
"And Leah's eyes were 'rakot'" - one of R' Yochanan's interpreters translated this [to Aramaic] before him as "And Leah's eyes were [naturally] weak".
He [R' Yochanan] said to him: "Your mother's eyes were naturally weak. And what does 'rakot' mean? They were weak from crying [out of unhappiness that she was expected to marry Esav]."
(From Breishit Rabbah)
2 comments:
You know what's funny, just a few days ago I stumbled across Sotah 42b and was going to make a post with the exact same title. Frankly I think the ones in Sotah are better.
http://www.come-and-hear.com/sotah/sotah_42.html
There is a gemara (I think near the end of Kiddushin but I couldn't find it) observing that when people want to insult women, they insult their character ("you're a whore"). But when they want to insult men, they insult their ancestry ("you're a son of a whore").
Sotah 42b is a fine example of the latter category, but I think my quote is a better example of the particular "your mom" genre described here...
Post a Comment