Balance between Personal Efforts and Trust in Hashem

 Many a reason is given for Rachel's premature death. The presumption in the Torah is that were one of the foremothers or fathers to die because of anything other than old age, the deceased, or those in his or her party acted in a less than becoming way. 

Rachel is often blamed for bringing about her own death. "If you don't give me children," she tells Jacob, "I shall die." Likewise, she steals her father's idols, Jacob promising that the one with whom the idols are found "shall surely die." 

Very rarely, though, is the blame placed on the man. Even when Rachel trades her night with Leah, Rashi relates that her actions were worthy of distaste because she didn't adequately appreciate "her night in bed with the tzadik." This latter example I find most odd, because Rachel, in essence was willing to give up something so dear to her, i.e. relations with her husband, in the hope of having a child from him, bespeaking her righteousness, perhaps, and not the opposite. 

When Jacob goes to meet his brother, Eisau, it could very well be that he - Jacob - was partly responsible for the premature death of his beloved wife. For he, Jacob, placed Rachel last in the entourage, hiding her away, so that Eisau would not know she was his primary wife, his true love. Rather, instead of relying on Hashem's divine protection, a theme or current that courses through Jewish history, and all the more so through the annals of our forefathers, Jacob hid Rachel away thinking that it was his human intervention that could protect her; shortly, thereafter, she dies in childbirth, bespeaking the lack of certainty we can have over our own destiny. 

Though what I said I did not see brought down elsewhere, this is my humble reading. Jacob was punished for bowing down to Eisau, Joseph for remaining silent when his brothers called their father the former's servant. 

Each and every action has a ripple effect. I once heard a story about a Jewish family who left Israel for fear of terrorist attacks, only to meet their untimely end abroad in an act of terror in America. The bottom line is that we don't understand God's hand, but we have to act genuinely, the same way we would were we sure that everything will work out perfectly, without a hitch.