B’rucheh Ateh Yah, Elot’heinu shomereh ha’olam, asher kidash’tanu be’mitzvoteh’eh ve’tziv’tanu la’asok b’divrei torah.

Verse 11: This is the first occurrence of the betrothal type-scene. The conventionally fixed sequence of motifs of this type-scene is: travel to a foreign land, encounter there with the future bride (almost always referred to as na'arah, "young woman") at a well, drawing of water, "hurrying" or "running" to bring the news of the stranger's arrival, a feast at which a betrothal agreement is concluded. As a social institution, the well was probably a plausible place to encounter nubile maidens, though the well in a foreign land also has an archetypal look, suggesting fertility and the nuptial encounter with the otherness of the female. This version is the most elaborate and leisurely of the betrothal type-scenes, rich in detail, full of stately repetition. It is also the only version in which the bridegroom himself is not present but rather a surrogate, and in which the young woman, not the man, draws the water, with the verb of hurrying that is linked with the bringing of the news amply describing her actions at the well. There is surely some intimation in all this of the subsequent course of the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah—he in most respects the most passive of all the patriarchs, she forceful and enterprising.

Verse 20: This is the closest anyone comes in Genesis to a feat of "Homeric" heroism (though the success of Rebekah's son Jacob in his betrothal scene in rolling off the huge stone from the well invites comparison). A camel after a long desert journey drinks many gallons of water, and there are ten camels here to water, so Rebekah hurrying down the steps of the well would have had to be a nonstop blur of motion in order to carry up all this water in her single jug.

Verse 67: The proposal of some textual critics to delete "Sarah his mother" as a scribal error should be resisted. Rebekah fills the emotional gap left by Sarah's death, as the end of the verse indicates, and with the first matriarch deceased, Rebekah also takes up the role of matriarch in the family. It is thus exactly right that Isaac should bring her into his mother's tent. Interestingly, no mention whatever is made of Abraham at the end of the story. Many have construed his charging of the servant at the beginning of the story as a deathbed action: it would not be unreasonable to surmise that he is already deceased when the servant returns (the genealogical notation concerning Abraham in the next chapter would be out of chronological order—a kind of pluperfect that ends by placing Isaac around Beer-Lahai-Roi, where in fact we find him upon Rebekah's arrival). The conclusion of the betrothal tale in this way creates a curious symmetry between the household of the bride and the household of the groom. She, evidently, is fatherless, living in "her mother's household." It is quite likely that he, too, is fatherless; and though he was bereaved of his mother still earlier, it is to "his mother's tent" that he brings his bride.

This story also reflects the seemingly dual (even contradictory) positions that women hold throughout the Tanach: at times as passive characters, and at others as decision makers who assert their will on others. The text introduces Rebekah to the reader through a narrative account (24:15-16); but Rebekah introduces herself to the servant using her own words (24:24) At first, Rebekah's brother and father, Laban and Bethuel, give Rebekah to the servant so that she might marry Isaac (24:51). However, Rebekah is the one whose consent is needed before the caravan can depart (24:58). When Isaac wanders into the vicinity of Rebekah's camels the story again focuses on Rebekah. At this point, she acts of her own volition.

This chapter, with 67 verses, is the longest in the book of Genesis. Its length is a direct result of the artistic use of repetition. Verses I5-20 report how all that the servant prayed for in vv. 13-14 actually transpired, and vv. 35-48 reiterate all that happened to the servant in vv. 2-26. The repetitions are not verbatim; rather, they display considerable alterations that shed light on the character of the servant, Rebekah, and the members of her family.

“In the Bible, women are rarely born, they almost never die and when they give birth it is usually to a boy.” — Yair Zakovitch

Even though Rebekah, who is introduced in Parashat Chayei Sarah, is one of the Bible’s most celebrated female figures, she seems to qualify under Zakovitch’s rubric. Consider: When Abraham is sent an updated family tree from his brother Nahor’s branch of the family (Gen. 22:20–24), Rebekah’s name appears under that of Nahor’s son, Betuel. As a character, she first shows up to accept a marriage proposal, then gives birth to two boys (at once!), and her ultimate demise goes unrecorded. However, in the interim, the scenes that make up her narrative distinguish her as one of the stronger Biblical characters and—for a 21st-century queer, feminist reader—one of the most compelling.

The Rebekah that emerges from a close reading of the narrative in this chapter of Genesis is a complex amalgam of traits. As seen from the perspective of Eliezer, Rebekah is physically very attractive (24:16). She is also strong and muscular, capable of drawing hundreds of gallons of water for all of Eliezer’s camels in a short time (24:20), thus confirming Eliezer’s hope that the right woman for Isaac will be she who shows great hospitality to him and his camels. She is socially capable of acting forwardly and independently (talking to Eliezer—a stranger—as he waits by the well; accepting the gifts he lavishes on her after confirming to himself that she will be Isaac’s bride; and issuing an invitation to host him as a guest at her family home). In addition, Eliezer’s test—to see if she would water his camels in addition to serving him—seems designed to reveal certain character traits: Rebekah proves to be hospitable and sensitive to the needs of animals, but her behavior also indicates a willingness to be servile and to put the needs of others, even complete strangers, first. From Eliezer’s perspective, this is a miraculous combination, one only God could have created (24:27).

Of course, Rebekah is not a typical woman of the Bible, partly because of her “masculine” traits (physical strength, stamina, bold social behavior, and independence). Through the eyes of Eliezer the servant, the Biblical text itself seems to approve of the blending of stereotypically masculine and feminine traits. Might the character of Rebekah afford a more nuanced view of gender—one that extends beyond biological and social conventions? Perhaps, though a far more radical view of Rebekah and gender emerges from a close reading of Genesis 24, not in the narrative per se but on the page itself.

Five times in this chapter, the text refers to Rebekah using a word made up of three Hebrew letters: nun-ayin-reysh (verses 14, 16, 28, 55, 57). Na’ar (the three-letter word formed by these letters) refers to a young man. In printed versions of the Hebrew Bible, that word is printed in a smaller font and without vowels. Next to it, in the margins, is a “correction”—those same three letters but with the letter hay appended at the end. The significance? Add a hay, to make it na’ar’ah, and you get a word that means young woman. In these particular verses, it would mean that the character—a young man? a young woman?—would be the following:

(v. 14) The one who would reply, “Drink, and I will also water your camels.”

(v. 16) Very delightful to look upon, a virgin, not sexually intimate with a man.

(v. 28) Running, telling all that had occurred to those in mother’s home.

(v. 55) Asked: “stay ten more days and then go.”

(v. 57) Called and consulted about the decision to stay or go.

One type of marginal note [added in the Masoretic text] is called the kere u’ketiv (literally, “read and written”)—it is a note that means “the text says A, but when you read it aloud, read it as (substitute) B.” This particular case of kere u’ketiv involves substituting the term for a young woman (na’ar’ah) for the word that is actually written in the text: na’ar (young man). There are some perfectly reasonable explanations offered for its existence, such as that it is not so much a kere u’ketiv as a spelling convention, and no letter hay was required, since the context made it obvious that it was referring to a female.

Before trying to make sense of the Masoretic tradition, we need to unpack what it means to be considered a na’ar’ah. The term is used to refer to a girl who is pubescent, still living under her father’s care but eligible for marriage. In this liminal state, she is especially vulnerable to unwanted sexual attention and should therefore remain close to home.

Rebekah’s un-na’ar’ah-like behavior is actually rewarded. As a result of being out and about, taking risks, transgressing social conventions, and defying rigid gender identification, she is even treated in a manner—rare for a woman in the Bible—that befits a person with agency (she gets to decide when to leave her home to journey to meet Isaac; verses 57–59), and her future is blessed (verse 60).

Is that why she is referred to as na’ar, a young man? If it were only a question of pointing out her nonstereotypical female behavior, we would not have needed this additional proof. That much we had already gleaned from the narrative itself. What does the na’ar/ah correction add?

There is also a long tradition of deriving additional meaning from a kere u’ketiv. The Malbim (19th-century Russian Bible scholar) understood the kere to be the interpretation (drash) on the word and the ketiv as its literal meaning (pshat). Using the na’ar/ah example, this might mean that an individual’s physiology (the literal/pshat) might point to one end of the gender continuum, but that person’s lived experience (the interpretive/drash) is elsewhere on it. The assertion (only radical when applied to gender?) that the way people appear and the way they are inside might not be aligned is directly reflected in Rav Soloveitchik’s (20th-century American Orthodox Talmudist) understanding of kere u’ketiv. He associates the kere with a person’s exterior, public self, whereas the ketiv is more the interior, emotional life.

Combining these two perspectives, Rebekah may have been physiologically and emotionally more of a na’ar, while presenting to the world the image of (making people “read” her as) a na’ar’ah. Indeed, that seems to be how the servant sees her and exactly what he is looking for in an ideal partner for Isaac: a human manifestation of the divine gift of gender that is given to each of us in full spectrum.