In this week’s Torah reading, we are introduced to Devorah, the maidservant of Rivkah. Unfortunately, our acquaintance with her is fleeting, because we only meet her to learn of her death. According to 13th century French commentator Rav Chizkiyahu ben Manoach, in his Torah commentary Chizkuni, she not only helped raise Yaakov, but she was also the maidservant for Rivkah herself when she was a young girl:

 "זאת מינקתה. בנעוריה, והזכירה עכשיו שלא תתמה לכשתגיע לפרשת מיתתה לומר מאין באה".

So it should not be surprising that her passing engendered a feeling of grief in Yaakov- one strong enough that he did not just bury her, but enshrined her passing in a toponym.

"וַתָּמָת דְּבֹרָה מֵינֶקֶת רִבְקָה וַתִּקָּבֵר מִתַּחַת לְבֵית-אֵל תַּחַת הָאַלּוֹן וַיִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ אַלּוֹן בָּכוּת" (פרק ל"ה, פסוק ח')

Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and was buried under the oak below Bethel; so it was named Allon-bachut.

Why does the Torah interrupt the narrative to tell us about the passing of a beloved maidservant? This question is especially strong when you consider that we never encountered her previously, and midrashim struggle to identify who she really was.

The first explanation is that Devorah is important because of what she represented to Yaakov. There are objects and symbols in our lives whose loss may evoke a strong emotional reaction out of proportion to their significance in our lives. That’s why some of us cried when the car was taken away; It was the repository of a decade and a half of memories. It was in this car that my youngest brother came home from the hospital after his birth; this car drove us on so many trips to our grandparents in Connecticut that it could probably drive itself; and it was in this  car that two of us learned to drive. There are people who serve similar roles, whose passing is tragic even more for what they represented than for who they were. For example, Gedaliah Ben Achikam was appointed governor of the Yehud province by Nebuchadnezzar after the destruction of the first Beit Hamikdash. No doubt he was a wonderful family man who was honest, kind, God-fearing and meticulous in his observance of mitzvot. But the reason we fast in his memory on the day following Rosh Hashanah is not due to any of his manifold positive character traits. It is that his murder, at the hands of Yishmael Ben Netanya, represented the death knell of any hopes of post-Temple Jewish sovereignty. Gedaliah was a symbol of something larger, in the same way that Devorah, the maidservant of Rivkah, was too. She represented the life Yaakov once led, reminding  him of his innocent youth before he had to deal with  Esav and Lavan, of the mother who always fought for him whom he missed dearly.

But is Devorah’s only role that of an emotional placeholder? Was she merely a proxy for someone else who was more important?

Perhaps there is another layer to the identity of Devorah. Consider that the sum total of our knowledge of her is three pieces of information: her profession, her death and the location of her burial. Surely, there were those for whom she was independently important, who loved her for who she was and not who she served.  Nonetheless, the text only shares with us who she was in relation to another person- and this might be the answer. Shows like “Upstairs Downstairs” and, more recently, Downton Abbey, deal with the contrast between the landed gentry and their servants. A running theme developed by such programs is that there is prestige in serving the elites, and a rigid hierarchy in place based on one’s level of closeness to those being served. Serving greatness is itself a form of greatness, and it is in serving and fostering greatness that Devorah saw her role in life.  Consider that one of the most authoritative and respected biographies about the founders of the modern State of Israel- Yehuda Avner’s “The Prime Ministers”- was written by someone who served them as a career. At many key moments in Israel’s history, it was the words of Yehuda Avner that set the tone, and his advice that guided the actions of Israel’s leaders, yet he worked quietly and in the background.  Serving in this role may be viewed by some as playing “second fiddle,” but the Torah tells us that it most certainly is not. Devorah is no different than the teacher who identifies a talent in a student, whose presence and encouragement inspired greatness before anyone noticed.

Last week, someone passed away who should, by all rights, have been much better known and whose life exemplified this attribute. Cantor Daniel Gildar, Z"L,  was the Chazzan for many years at Philadelphia’s Congregation Shaarei Shamayim. During his tenure there he taught hundreds of Bar Mitzvah students, many of whom became observant due to his influence. He taught voice lessons to dozens of up-and-coming Cantorial talents and led a beautiful and carefully planned davening weekly in his mellifluous tenor voice. But even though he was an outstanding Chazzan in his own right, people outside his community rarely heard him sing. Instead, he was best known for several decades as the top piano accompanist in the world for other Chazzanim. If there was a Cantorial concert anywhere in the United States or Canada, Cantor Gildar was likely at the piano, there to help his Cantorial colleagues look and sound their best.  The only acknowledgement he ever received, or ever allowed himself,  was the quick and self-conscious bow he would take at the end of a cantorial piece- never alone, always alongside the Chazzan he accompanied. At his graveside funeral, many of those Chazzanim came to return their respects and sing chapters of Tehillim, to accompany to the next world the man who accompanied them in this one. Perhaps this is why the Torah interrupts its narrative to tell us about the death of an unknown woman named Devorah.  She is worthy of our attention because she serviced greatness and she helped build the patriarchal family into what it had become. The Torah wants us to know that helping another person attain greatness is not  a diminished role, and not to be viewed as playing second fiddle. If only more teachers understood that their primary responsibility is not to be rock stars in their classrooms, but to enable their students to achieve stardom, our Jewish future would be even brighter. Our society rewards charisma, natural charm and communication ability- which have certain real risks associated with them. We should also reward the silent individuals who, time and time again, build other people up while never seeking a name for themselves. This is an important lesson to teach our children as well, as they seek to carve out their own identities in their formative years. They will never lose when they build others up, and they should always be thinking about ways to do so. We have lost so many leaders since COVID began, that it is a cliche to lament them, and almost as much of a cliche to wring our hands about who will replace them. In addition to crying over their loss, we need to get to work on building the next generation- of Torah scholars, of spokespersons for Judaism, of communal activists and philanthropists, and of competent and frum Jews, who can and do share words of Torah at their Shabbos tables, read Jewish texts in Hebrew, lead services properly in accordance with the laws of nussach and can run a Jewish home. Yes, we need to create Yaakovs- but we can only do that if we create many Devorahs as well.

Rabbi Rackovsky is the Rabbi at Congregation Shaare Tefilla in Dallas, TX.