PatriarchsBethlehem; Paddan Aram (Haran); the Land of Canaan
Rachel Our Matriarch
Mothers of Israel, prayer and pleading for mercy
- Jacob our father
- Leah our mother
- Laban
- Joseph
- Benjamin
- The tribes of Israel
- Rachel's Tomb
- Bethlehem
- Prayer
- Women
Mothers of Israel, prayer and pleading for mercy
Podcast episode · Rachel Our Matriarch
Rachel Our Matriarch
Rachel Our Matriarch - The Woman Who Remained Silent for Her Sister, Yet Whose Cry Moved Heaven
In Jeremiah’s prophecy she is the mother weeping for her children: “Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, for they are not”, and the next verse says: “Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for there is reward for your work”. According to Rashi, Jacob buried her on the road “by the divine word”, so that she would be “a help to her children” when Nebuzaradan exiled them: “Rachel goes out upon her grave, weeping and pleading for mercy for them”. And in the blessing of the people and the elders at the gate, in the Book of Ruth, she is mentioned beside Leah: “like Rachel and like Leah, who both built the house of Israel”.
One of the four matriarchs of the people of Israel: the younger daughter of Laban, the sister of Leah and the beloved wife of Jacob. She was barren; God remembered her and opened her womb, and she bore Joseph. On the way to Ephrath she gave birth to Benjamin and died in childbirth; she is buried “on the road to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem”. The Sages related that she gave her sister Leah the signs that Jacob had given her, so that her sister would not be put to shame, and Rashi explains, among other things, “God remembered Rachel” in this way: “He remembered in her favour that she had given her signs to her sister”.
Sefaria gathers on one page the sources in which Rachel appears: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash and commentary.
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Rachel Our Matriarch belongs to the age of the patriarchs, before the Torah was given at Sinai, where the chain of transmission begins.