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Leia

Leah:   In the book of Genesis 29:15-35, Leah's dad, Laban, was so concerned about marrying off his elder, but not necessarily more attractive, daughter (Leah) that he tricks Jacob into marrying her by covering up her face. Then he extorts another 7 years of hard labour from Jacob for the looker of the family, Rachel.

According to Perchick in the classic musical "Fiddler on the Roof", in this story "the Bible clearly teaches us you can never trust an employer." Quite so!

Genesis records that Leah is "hated" by Jacob and that she had to bribe Rachel with mandrake (an ancient equivalent of herbal Viagra) just to spend time with him. God was pretty ticked off by Jacob's behaviour and rewarded Leah with a number of important kids (Reuban, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun and Dinah) most of whom went on to star in Joseph and his Amazing Technicoloured Dreamcoat whereas Rachel only managed Benjamin and Joseph (admittedly the title role). Thanks to this large clutch of offspring, Leah was called a matriarch of Israel [Ruth 4:11] - a substantial improvement on "Leah", which means "cow". Not to be confused with a certain Princess Organa from Alderaan - no, that was a long time ago ...



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