Jewish tradition recognizes that life throws curveballs. But it also offers a comforting perspective: time can be a healer.
Our story today comes from Bereshit Rabbah (Genesis Rabbah), a classic collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Book of Genesis. It's found in Bereshit Rabbah 64, and it centers on a verse from Genesis 26:8: "It was when the time he was there was extended, Avimelekh king of the Philistines looked through the window, and behold, he saw Isaac playing with Rebecca his wife."
What does it mean, "when the time he was there was extended?" Rabbi Yoḥanan takes this phrase as a starting point for a powerful idea: that the passage of time can nullify certain negative forces. He says, "A bad dream, a harsh prophecy, and disproportionate mourning are nullified by the passage of extended time." Think about that for a moment. Time's relentless march forward can actually diminish the sting of misfortune.
Where do we see this idea of a harsh prophecy being voided by time? Rabbi Yochanan points to Ezekiel 12:22, where the people of Israel say to the prophet, "The days will lengthen, and every vision will be void." It's a cynical statement, sure, but it reflects a belief that prophecies, especially unpleasant ones, lose their power as time goes on.
And what about mourning? The text connects the idea of time healing grief directly to Isaac, the very man in our opening verse. Isaac had been mourning the loss of his father, Abraham. But "when the time he was there was extended," the verse tells us, "behold…Isaac was playing." The implication is clear: time had softened the blow of grief, allowing Isaac to return to a state of joy and intimacy with his wife, Rebecca.
But hold on. Here comes Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba with a slightly different take. He seems a little…disapproving. He asks, "Because extended time had passed, you began engaging in this matter?" The "matter" he’s referring to is conjugal relations, which the midrash interprets as the "playing" between Isaac and Rebecca.
Why the disapproval? Well, Rabbi Yoḥanan himself (the same one who said time heals all!) apparently taught that engaging in conjugal relations during the day is indecent. He believed such intimacy should be reserved for the night, referencing Esther 2:14: "In the evening she would come and in the morning she would return." So is Isaac doing something wrong here?
The text then delves into further examples of the association of night with conception and the disapproval of daytime intimacy. Job, in his misery, curses the night of his conception, as we see in Job 3:3: "Perish the day I was born, and the night it was said: [A man has been conceived [hora gaver]]." Rabbi Marinos bar Hoshaya interprets Job as wishing his mother had been menstruating at the time of conception, using hora gaver to mean "this is not the time to be impregnated [hora] by a man [gaver]."
Jeremiah, too, curses the day of his birth, as it says in Jeremiah 20:14: "Cursed be the day on which I was born…the day on which my mother bore me." The text notes that the first "day" refers to the day of birth, while the second "day" refers to the day of conception.
So, how do we reconcile all of this? Was Isaac wrong to "play" with Rebecca during the day? Was Hilkiyahu, the father of Jeremiah, a sinner? The answer, the text suggests, lies in the circumstances. It explains that Jezebel was killing prophets, and Hilkiyahu "came and engaged in conjugal relations during the day, and fled." In other words, desperate times call for desperate measures. Perhaps Isaac's situation warranted a similar exception.
Ultimately, this passage from Bereshit Rabbah offers a complex and nuanced view of time, mourning, intimacy, and even prophecy. It reminds us that while time can indeed heal, it also presents us with moral and ethical dilemmas. And sometimes, just sometimes, the rules need to be bent to accommodate the realities of life. What do you think? Is time always a healer? Or are there some wounds that never truly fade, regardless of how much time passes?