Who doesn't yearn for "Eureka" moments, events that unaccountably yield revelatory insights. Take how Jacob meets Rachel.

He finds a well, its opening blocked by a boulder that he somehow moves aside, releasing the passageway to water. Then, seeing Rebecca there, he kisses her and is overcome by tears.

Our sages see the story metaphorically — the Malbim thinks it points ahead to the Temple cult, for example. That might not be the only meaning; but it serves as a suggestion for how much leeway we have to find significance beyond the obvious. As the Talmud puts it: Unblocking the well was like "uncorking a bottle" — like releasing a genie, we might say. Talk about a Eureka opportunity! But what genie was it? What insight did Jacob have?

Rashi thinks the holy spirit revealed the moment of Rachel's death. Remembering the need for metaphor, however, we might push Rashi's suggestion further. Perhaps Jacob's insight into death included visions of what it means to live as if we ourselves are dead. Four people live that way, says the Talmud: "the poor; those suffering from tsara'at, (usually translated as "leprosy"), the blind, and the childless." What if it was the secret of avoiding a living death that captured Jacob's attention?

The examples given are bad enough in and of themselves, as those who suffer from them will attest, but suppose we extend the metaphor even further, wondering what more general warning Jacob perceived. As for poverty, the Mishna asks, "Who are rich?" and answers, "Those who are satisfied with what they have." Even the wealthy are poor if their lust for wealth is insatiable. Valuing nothing so much as possessions, they cut themselves off from anyone who does not further their ambition. They become loners.

As for tsara'at — why specify that disease? It cannot be because it is fatal, since what is at stake is living as if we were dead, not death itself. Tsara'at is a living death because it requires being quarantined — again, being cut off from others.

The other two examples also entail enforced solitude. Jewish law takes "blindness" to mean giving in to stumbling blocks that prevent us from perceiving proper ethical behavior, a condition that puts us beyond the moral pale, shunned for the evil we do. And childlessness is interpreted as having no one to influence, not necessarily children of one's one, but no one at all to emulate us and pass on what we stand for. Talk about being cut off — knowing that all we do and learn goes no farther than ourselves.

At our core, we need the presence of others. What is the point of it all, if we alone are all there is?

Now we understand the conclusion of the story before this one: Jacob's dream. At its end, Jacob concludes, "If Adonai stays with me, protects me…gives me bread to eat and clothes to wear, and if I return safely… Adonai will be my God."

We should wonder about the first clause, "If Adonai stays with me." Wasn't it enough to stipulate protection, food, clothes, and safety? Who cares about God's presence, if God grants everything else we might possibly need.

The point is that if we are all alone, "everything else" is insufficient. Until now, Jacob has lived a selfish life, valuing only his stolen birthright and the blessing he connived to get. But alone in the desert, Jacob realizes how little these matter if he has no palpable presence to accompany him. So he dreams of more than the gifts that the birthright and blessing guarantee. He implores God first and foremost to "stay with him."

At the well, Jacob expands that discovery: He needs not just God, but other people too. We become human when, as we say, "we are there for each other."

That is why the story ends with Jacob kissing Rachel and then weeping. He kissed her in anticipation of the happiness they would share, and he wept because "being there" includes sharing tears also. If he is to avoid a life that is virtual death, he needs God, and he needs others, for good times and for bad.

The Bible knows a rhetorical device whereby stipulating two opposite ends of the spectrum implies all the positions in between as well. Kisses and tears are just the bookends of human relationship. Jacob and Rachel will not just kiss and cry together; they will also face pedestrian days of their lives at each other's side.

Jacob's Eureka! moment was the knowledge that no one gets through life alone, not a life that is better than death, anyway. We need kisses and tears and everyday moments in between. And we need not just God, but ordinary friends and family to share them with us.