JACOB has been sent by his father to find a wife from among his extended family. En route he has a powerful vision in which God appears to him.

Reassured, he travels on, arrives at a well, makes enquiries and ascertains that this is indeed where his kinsfolk live. Rachel (his niece) arrives with her father’s sheep. Jacob rolls the stone off the mouth of the well and in watering her flocks unstops his own emotions too — kissing Rachel and bursting into tears.

Why the tears? Is Jacob happy or sad? The traditional commentators hypothesise: Radak remarks that it’s not unusual for a person to cry tears of joy at a family reunion.

Sforno suggests that these are tears of regret, Jacob wishing he had met and married Rachel earlier so that by now they would have adult children.

Rashi, our foremost commentator, sees tears of sadness. He brings two explanations, in fact he selects two out of the three traditions relayed in the midrashic compendium Bereshit Rabbah.

First, says Bereshit Rabbah, Jacob feels bad at arriving empty-handed. He remembers how his own mother Rebecca was met at a well and greeted with jewellery. By comparison, this is a poor start.

Second, Jacob is saddened by a prophetic vision informing him that he and Rachel will not eventually be buried together, a poor end. There’s a terrible and familiar ache here: every love carries with it the shadow of its own insufficiency and its own eventual sundering.

Finally, the Midrash suggests that Jacobs weeps because of the kiss. The kiss, bestowed quite innocently, is read as inappropriately licentious by the locals, who whisper to one another. This is the explanation that Rashi chooses not to bring.

This explanation muddies the waters further with a cluster of emotions: impulsivity, misunderstanding, self-consciousness and shame. And yet of course the tears also bring relief, for Jacob is making contact with a side of his family and of himself which has been repressed. These are complicated tears of integration — joy and sadness.

Rabbi Zahavit Shalev