Long barren, Yitzchak and Rivkah pray for a child, and they are finally answered. But the pregnancy — of twins, as it turns out — is difficult. Rivkah looks for an explanation of her suffering, and she receives predictions:

And the children struggled inside her, and she said, “If so, why am I thus?” (Bereishit 25:22)
Hashem doesn’t answer her immediately, so
And she went to seek (VA’TELECH LIDROSH) Hashem (ibid.).
Where does she go?
And Hashem said to her (VA’YOMER HASHEM LAH);
“Two nations are in your belly, and two peoples will be separated from your insides. One people will be mightier than the other, and the greater shall serve the younger” (25:23).
How does Hashem answer her?

Ramban argues that the verb root D-R-SH used with “Hashem” means prayer, as in:
I sought (DARASHTI) Hashem and He answered me (Tehillim 34:5).
Seek me (DIRSHUNI) and live (Amos 5:4).
As I live, I will not be sought (IDDARESH) by you (Yechezkel 20:3).
So here, Rivkah prays for relief from her travails.

However, this approach is problematical, as Mizrachi (R. Eliyahu Mizrachi, c. 1450-1526) points out. The above verses need not necessarily be read as references to prayer. Moreover, the following verses suggest prophecy, rather than prayer:
• So would a man say when he would go to seek (LIDROSH) G-d, “Come, let us go until the seer,” for today’s prophet would in earlier times be called the seer (Shmuel I 9:9).
• And the king said to Chazael, “Take in your hand a gift and go to meet the man of G-d and you shall seek (V’DARASHTA) Hashem from him, saying, ‘Will I survive this disease?’” (Melachim II 8:8).
The primary example of seeking Hashem via a prophet comes from Moshe:
When the people come to me to seek (LIDROSH) G-d (Shemot 18:15),
which the Targum translates “to request teaching from before Hashem.”

Mizrachi therefore defends Rashi’s explanation, that Rivkah seeks an answer through prophecy:
And she went to seek (VA’TELECH LIDROSH): To the academy of Shem [son of Noach; Shem is still alive at this time, and the yeshivah he established in Jerusalem, and continued by his great-grandson Ever, was a center for prophecy (see Bereishit Rabba 36:8, 85:12 and Seder Eliyahu Rabba 141)].

Rashi continues:
And she went to seek (VA’TELECH LIDROSH) Hashem: So that He will tell her what will be in her end.
And Hashem said to her (VA’YOMER HASHEM LAH): By means of an agent; it was said to Shem through divine inspiration (ruach ha’kodesh), and he told her.

Haamek Davar (R. Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin, 1817-1893) also unreservedly supports Rashi over Ramban. He adds that, if Rivkah’s desire is to pray, she does not need to go (VA’TELECH) anywhere. After all, Yitzchak’s prayer (verse 21) was answered while praying at home! [We might also return to the texts cited above:
Shemot: come to seek (LIDROSH) G-d
Shmuel: go to seek (LIDROSH) G-d
Melachim: go to meet the man of G-d and you shall seek (V’DARASHTA) Hashem.
In each case, seeking an answer from Hashem through a prophet might well require traveling great distances.]

Rashi insists that Hashem responds to Rivkah indirectly, through Shem. R. Yisrael Isserlein (1390-1460), in his commentary on Rashi, explains that this is indicated by the order of the words. Placing the preposition after the subject (VA’YOMER HASHEM LAH) indicates indirect speech, whereas the more common order (VA’YOMER LAH HASHEM; cf. Bereishit 16:10; Rut 2:14) would have indicated direct communication. Furthermore, Rivkah was not a prophet: in the Sages’ list of the seven prophetesses (Megillah 14a), Rivkah is not mentioned.

Nachalat Yaakov (commentary on Rashi by Yaakov ben Binyamin Aharon Selnik, 17th century) however contends this second point. Even if Hashem had spoken to her one time, he argues, that would not have made her a prophetess. After all, when we read later that Rivkah was told of Esav’s intentions to kill Yaakov (27:42), Rashi says that she learned this through ruach ha’kodesh! Furthermore, Hashem spoke to Chavah, the snake, and Yonah’s fish, yet none of these are considered prophets! Prophecy, concludes Nachalat Yaakov, is far more than Hashem speaking to someone, answering prayers, or even communicating future events. Rather it is when the prophet, through his own prophetic powers, foretells the future.

In a similar vein, Haamek Davar distinguishes between two types of prophets: a) one to whom Hashem speaks for the moment; and b) one who sees concealed matters through ruach ha’kodesh. This is clear in the case of Shmuel:
for today’s prophet would in earlier times be called the seer.
Avraham only attained the first level, but Rivkah seeks knowledge from Hashem that is concealed from all but those who can foretell the future.

Haamek Davar’s approach helps to answer a well-known question: if indeed Rivkah must go to a prophet for answers, why not go to Avraham, who was also alive? (Indeed, Radak [R. David Kimchi, c. 1160-c. 1235] argues that the prophet could have been Avraham!) But Haamek Davar says that Avraham was unsuited to this task. Rivkah must seek Hashem through the oldest living prophet, Shem.

This episode gives us insight into prayer and prophecy. Both are ways to seek (LIDROSH) answers that come from Hashem. What is more, says R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik in “Worship of the Heart” (p. 10.), both are part of a continuum:
“Both prayer and prophecy are basically dialogues between finitude and infinity. They differ only as to the respective roles assigned to creature and Creator. In prophecy God is the active partner of the dialogue community and man is happy being just a listener, an onlooker, watchful and vigilant; in prayer the roles are reversed. God is the listener and man is the speaker.”

Our Matriarch Rivkah, at this critical juncture in her life and in our people’s history, seeks to bridge the yawning chasm that seems to exist between G-d and mankind. She teaches us to take the initiative, and to seek out answers from the Creator.