ראובן בן יעקב

Reuben, Jacob's firstborn, is the brother who fell and rose, and whom the Torah sets as a model of repentance. The firstborn, holder of the rights, 'Reuben, you are my firstborn, my strength and the beginning of my might' (Genesis 49:3), but in the affair of confusing his father's bed he lost his birthright, 'unstable as water, you shall not excel.' The great firstborn lost his place through impetuousness.

Yet it is precisely Reuben who teaches the secret of repair. When his brothers sought to kill Joseph, it was Reuben who saved him: 'and Reuben heard and saved him from their hand' (Genesis 37:21), proposing to throw him into the pit in order to return him afterward to his father. He tried to repair, and according to the Sages engaged in repentance for his deed, and was the first to open the way of repentance.

Tradition teaches 'Reuben was the first to sin and to repent': one who stumbled and rose and opened the path for the penitent. The tribe of Reuben received a portion in the Transjordan, among the first to settle, but also among the first to be exiled, as in his life he was quick and then regretted.

What do we learn from him? That even a fallen firstborn can be first in repentance, and that a fall does not seal a person. Reuben teaches that greatness is not in never falling but in rising, and that one who first opens the way of repentance lights the path for all who repent after him.