The Talmud emphatically declares that one may not call anyone other than Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, by the title patriarch. Similarly, one may not call anyone matriarch other than Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel.[1]Berahot 16b, Semachot 1,12 These extraordinary women struggled to bear and raise the children who bore the promise of Israel. We have chosen to call these women – women of destiny insofar as in their quotidian lives, recorded in the narratives of the Book of Genesis, they successfully transformed their personal fate into the destiny of a nation. Their stories serve to teach and inspire us regarding faith, family and the triumph of the spirit. One important arena in which their actions left an indelible imprint is the world of prayer. 

The lives of the founding mothers of Israel: Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel were fraught with challenges. As wives and mothers it is likely that they sought little more than self-actualization in the family realm. However, in the course of time and events they learned that their destinies involved becoming instrumental in transforming their families into the Family of Israel. Consequently, arduous journeys, relational conflicts and the cloud of barrenness visited the homes of these women, confronting them with major difficulties. 

One would expect their biblical narratives to be punctuated with prayers and supplications. However, prayer as we later come to know it, does not feature prominently in the lives of the Matriarchs. The Rabbis declared that their struggles with barrenness were deliberately intended to place them on a trajectory of prayer; implying that prayer accompanied their trials even though it is not explicitly mentioned.

“Why were the matriarchs barren? Rabbi Levi in the name of R. Shila of Kefar Tamrata and R. Helbo in the name of R. Yohanan said that the Holy One Blessed be He is desirous of their prayers and their dialogue as it says, ‘O my dove, in the cranny of the rocks, Hidden by the cliff, Let me see your face, Let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet and your face is comely.’ Why did I make you (imahot) barren so that you would show me your face and let me hear your voice.'”

(Genesis Rabbah 45:4)

Shalom Carmy explains why the problem of barrenness seems to have plagued the matriarchs and patriarchs:

I would submit that the avot [and imahot] were specifically required to articulate their dependence upon God and their perception of their needs with respect to bearing children. Prayer so intensifies their God-relationship that they become the individuals whom God’s will ordains to be the parents of their children.

Thus it is not accidental that the prayer-inducing crisis that runs through our forefathers’ lives like a hereditary trait pertains to the central theme of their lives: the creation of the people of Israel. But this awareness of the essential role of parenthood in the biographies of the avot and the immahot reminds us of a remarkable feature of their prayers. They are, in fact, praying not only for the satisfaction of a valid human need or vision, but for the fulfillment of a promise which God has already given.[2]Carmy, Shalom, “Destiny, Freedom, and the Logic of Petition.” Tradition 24(2) (Winter 1989): p 25

Carmy calls these prayers — ‘prayers of destiny’ “because the focus is the fulfillment of a destiny that is already known, rather than the formulation of a destiny yet to be discovered.” Notably, in the case of the matriarchs, these prayers were largely left unvoiced in the biblical text. And yet, the very substrate of prayer, avoda shebalev (service of the heart), which permeated the souls of these great women finds expression in their actions. Questions and complaints, pleas and supplications, confessions, thanksgiving, and praise surface spontaneously from their narratives. All of these elements represent the foundations of what later becomes formalized prayer. Indeed, to quote David Wolpe, if “The history of human heartache can also be read as a history of unheeded prayers” (In Speech and in Silence NY 1992 p. 151) then prayers in the raw can be mined in the heartache of our foremothers.  Let us consider them one by one beginning with Sarah.