Do we know what age Leah and Rachel were when yakove married them?
If yes what is it? Source please.
Are there any midrashim on the subject?
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No we do not know. The Torah doesn't tell us. That doesn't stop Midrashim from speculating.– mevaqeshApr 14, 2017 at 2:52
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Related judaism.stackexchange.com/q/22576/5120– hazorizApr 14, 2017 at 4:27
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2 Answers
The Seder Olam Rabba (ed. Leiner) states (ch. 2) that they were twins and were both 22 when they got married:
נמצאו רחל ולאה נשאו בנות כ"ב כ"ב, שהיו תאומות
Thus, Rachel and Leah were both married at age 22, for they were twins.
According to Rav Chaim Kanievsky's sefer Lamechsa Atik, which gives names and dates and other unspecified details for the Chumash, the Vilna Gaon's version of Seder Olam Rabbah has it that they were both 21.
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Note that although this is stated in the Midrash, that doesn't mean we know it to be true.– mevaqeshApr 14, 2017 at 3:02
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2@hazoriz He was 63 when he got the Brachos, spent 14 years at Shem V'ever, and married them seven years after arriving in Charan, which makes him 84.– DonielFApr 14, 2017 at 3:45
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3@mevaqesh - Although what you have stated concerning midrashim is correct, they do give us an age-old tradition from various Talmudic Sages. That no one can deny.– ezraApr 14, 2017 at 5:48
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1@DonielF If Yaakov was 84 and they were 22, modern day marriages that have a gap of 20, 30, even 40 years don't look so bad after all...– YehoshuaMay 11, 2017 at 11:52
Seder Olam Rabbah 2 calculates that they were twins and married Yaakov at 22.
I don’t follow the math, myself. It seems to just throw out there that Rachel was 36 when she died; since Yaakov married her after 7 years working for Lavan, and he left Charan after another 7 years after they got married, plus 6 years after all but Binyamin were born, and Rachel died at the end of the two-year journey back to Yitzchak, they were married for 15 years (I guess she wasn’t exactly 36 when she died).
