Mother Rachel. Rahel's tomb: history and traditions Where is the tomb of the foremother Rahel
Biography of Rachel
Jacob met Rachel when he arrived in Haran, fleeing the wrath of his brother Esau; Jacob fell in love with her at first sight and agreed to work for Laban for her for seven years. When the term expired, Laban went to the trick and replaced Rachel with Leah on their wedding night. When Yaakov discovered the change the next morning, Laban explained that he was obliged to marry the eldest daughter before the youngest, and agreed to give Rachel to him if Jacob agreed to work for him for another seven years (Gen. 29:4-30).
In the end, Rachel became pregnant and gave birth to a son, saying: “God removed (asaf) my shame. And she called his name Yosef, saying: The Lord will give (Joseph) me another son” (Genesis 30:23-24).
Circumstances of Rachel's death
Various commentators draw attention to the details of the marriage of Yaakov and Rachel.
During the Jordanian occupation (1948–67), the area around Rachel's grave was turned into a Muslim cemetery. After the Six Day War, the building was restored by the Israeli
Being. Chapter 48
7. When I was on my way from Mesopotamia, Rachel died with me in the land of Canaan, on the way, a little short of Ephrath, and I buried her there on the road to Ephrath, which is now Bethlehem.
Rachel's Tomb is a site revered as the burial place of the Jewish matriarch Rachel. The tomb, located at the northern entrance to Bethlehem, is considered sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims. Since the mid-1990s, the tomb has been referred to by Palestinians as the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque (Arabic: مسجد بلال بن رباح). The burial place of the matriarch Rachel, mentioned in the Jewish Tanakh and the Christian Old Testament, however, is disputed in Muslim literature between this site and several others in the north. Despite this, the Tomb of Rachel is the most recognized candidate for the resting place of the Jewish matriarch. Rachel's Tomb is the third holy site in Judaism and has become one of the cornerstones of Jewish-Israeli identity.
The earliest extra-biblical records describing this tomb as the burial place of Rachel date back to the first century of the 4th century CE. The building of Rachel's Tomb in its current form dates from the Ottoman period and is located in the Muslim cemetery of the Ottoman Empire. When Sir Moses Montefiore renovated the site in 1841 and received the keys to the Jewish community, he also added an antechamber, including a mihrab for Muslim prayer, to alleviate Muslim problems.
This site is believed to be the burial place of the biblical matriarch Rachel, Jacob's wife and mother of two of his twelve sons. She died giving birth to Benjamin, and "Jacob set up a pillar on her grave" (Genesis 35:19). For Jews, Rachel's Tomb is the third holiest site after the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Also, women who want to get pregnant often come here.
In Jewish tradition, it is believed that Rachel weeps for all her descendants. As the Jews were taken into Babylonian slavery, she wept as they passed her grave on the road to Babylon (Jeremiah 31:11-16).
The building was built around 1620 by the Ottoman Turks in the shape of a cube topped with a dome. It was enlarged in 1860 by Sir Moses Montefiore. Following a 1929 British memorandum in 1949, the UN ruled that Rachel's Tomb was subject to the status quo, an agreement approved by the 1878 Treaty of Berlin on Rights, Privileges and Customs in Holy Places.
According to the 1947 United Nations Palestinian Separation Plan, the tomb was supposed to be part of the Jerusalem Administration Zone, but the area was occupied by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, which prohibited Jews from entering the area. After the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the site came under the control of the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs. In the 1990s, due to the deteriorating security situation, the original domed structure of Rachel's Tomb was strengthened. In 2005, following Israel's assertion on September 11, 2002, an Israeli fence in the West Bank was built around the tomb, effectively annexing it from Palestine. In a 2005 report, OHCHR Special Rapporteur John Dugard said that: "While Rachel's Tomb is a holy site for Jews, Muslims and Christians, it was effectively closed to Muslims and Christians." On October 21, 2015, UNESCO passed a controversial resolution confirming the 2010 claim that Rachel's Tomb was "an integral part of Palestine". On October 22, 2015, the tomb was separated from the rest of Bethlehem by a series of cement block barriers.
What to see in Rachel's tomb
The site consists of a rock with eleven stones around it, one for each of Jacob's eleven sons who were alive when Rachel died in childbirth. For centuries, the rock has been covered by a dome supported by four arches. The large tomb is now covered with velvet drapery.
Today Rachel's Tomb is very close to the checkpoint from the Palestinian territories to Israel. The original tomb, rectangular in design with a white dome, was surrounded by a wall, complete with a guard tower, soldiers, and barbed wire.
One of the most bitter events in the month of Cheshvan is the death of Foremother Rachel, Yaakov's wife. Jacob met Rachel when he visited his mother's brother, Rebekah, whose name was Laban. The Torah says that they met at the well where Rachel went to water the sheep. Rachel was beautiful in herself, and, according to the haggadah, Jacob wept at the sight of Rachel, because he did not bring her a gift, and also because he saw with a prophetic eye that they would be buried separately. Yaakov fell in love with Rachel and, by agreement with Laban, had to serve seven years for her in order to get her as his wife. But after this period, on the wedding night, Laban replaced Rachel with his eldest daughter, Leah. When Jacob saw this deception in the morning, Laban gave him Rachel as well, again for the obligation to serve another seven years. After twenty years of service in Laban's house, Yaakov took his entire family and fled from Laban to his native land. And on the way there on the 11th of Marcheshvan, Rachel died in the birth of Benjamin and was buried in Beit-lehem. It so happened that Rachel did not deserve to be buried in the cave of Machpelah, along with other foremothers and forefathers, and therefore Yaakov buried her where she died. Here the question arises: “Why did our forefather, Yaakov, bury his wife Rachel on the way to Beit Lehem? For he foresaw that the descendants would pass along this road to the Babylonian exile, and Rachel would beg mercy for them, as it is said: “A voice was heard on high, a cry and a bitter sob: Rachel weeps for her children ...” (Jeremiah. 31:14) ” . The Midrash says that of all the forefathers and foremothers, only Rachel managed to soften the wrath of the Almighty on Israel.
Rachel's tomb
Rachel's tomb has long been a place of prayer. Whenever the Jewish people are in trouble, her mercy awakens, and it awakens the mercy of the Almighty. Rachel has been praying to Heaven for the salvation of her sons since the very time when they first went into exile past her grave, and will not stop praying until the ancient prophecy of Yirmiyahu comes true about the full return of the sons of Israel, scattered throughout the world, to their country. A stone building was built around the grave, where the sons of Israel came to pray at all times. Here they - caught in their own grief or in the hour of general disaster - poured out their souls before the Almighty, trying to awaken His mercy by reminding them of the merits of Rachel. Especially many people gather at her grave on the 11th Marcheshvan - on the anniversary of her death.
According to tradition, our mother Rachel died in childbirth about 3,600 years ago. Here is how this event is described in the Book of Genesis:
“And they left Beit-el, and they still had to go to Ephrata, but then the time came for Rachel to give birth, and childbirth was difficult. And it was hard for her, but the midwife said: “Do not be afraid, because you have a son again.” And when her soul departed, for she was dying, she named her son Ben-Oni, and his father named him Benjamin. And Rachel died, and they buried her on the road to Ephrata, she is Beit-Lechem. And Jacob set up a monument on her grave, and this tombstone is on the grave of Rachel to this day.” (Genesis 35, 16-21).
Description of the first meeting of Jacob and Rachel on the pages of the Torah, in a book stingy with emotions beresheet unmistakably recognizable as a love story at first sight:
“He was still talking to the shepherds when Rachel arrived with her father's flock, which she was herding. And when he saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother's brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother's brother, Jacob came up and rolled away the stone from the mouth of the well, and watered the sheep of Laban his mother's brother. And Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept” (Genesis 29, 9-11).
Between these two events there are several pages of text describing the story of love, many years of work, deceit, relationships between rival sisters, suffering from infertility and the happiness of having children. Unlike the usual fairy tale plot, this story does not end with a wedding, but only begins with it.
The Torah tells that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah, but Leah gave birth to sons, and Rachel could not give birth:
“And God saw that Leah was unloved, and opened her womb. Rachel was childless.”(Genesis 29, 31).
Finally, after years of despair, Rachel gave birth to her first child, Yosef, and then to Benjamin, for whose birth she paid with her life. As a result, out of the twelve sons of Jacob, the foremother Leah gave birth to six, four more sons were born by concubines, and only two were the sons of Rachel.
Particular emphasis in this story is placed on the birth of children and their names. All this complex family history fulfills the task of creating a national idea, consolidating the union of tribes, from which a community called “Israel” has developed. The names of the children of Yaakov, which are given to them by their mothers, are the names of the tribes (or, as we are more accustomed to, the “tribes” of Israel) that have united into a single community. This biblical story endows the united tribes with a common history and elevates them to a common ancestor at the mythological level. After the conquest of Canaan, the land of Israel will be divided between 12 tribes - tribes, whose ancestors will be the sons of Jacob. Alliances of twelve (sometimes six) tribes were common in the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor. The factor uniting them could not be a common origin, but a common devotion to one shrine. However, all these Semitic groups really had common roots and were mutually related; they may have shared memories, traditions, and revered ancestors.
The death of Leia is not described in the Torah. It is only said that Yaakov asked to be buried in the cave of Machpelah, where his ancestors and Leah were already buried. After the death of the sisters, it was as if they switched places: Leah, the unloved wife and prolific mother, lies next to Yaakov, and Rachel, the beloved wife who prayed to heaven for children for many years, is far from him, but has become in the minds of the people the main of the foremothers. The love story of Yaakov and Rachel, her desire to have children, her early death make the image of Rachel bright and tragic. The burial site of Rachel has been revered by Jews for centuries and is a center of pilgrimage for childless and unmarried women who come here to pray for a family and the birth of children.
Recently, a special selection of photographs from the collection of the Library of Congress of the United States depicting Rachel's grave was published on the website "Picture a day"
which are listed in part below.
30 people(three minyans) from the Jerusalem Nursing Home pray at the gravestone of Foremother Rachel for the well-being of friends, sponsors and other brothers from the House of Israel in the Diaspora (Stephanie Comfort - a collection of Jewish postcards)
In 1622, the Ottoman governor of Jerusalem allowed the Jews to build walls and a dome over the tomb.
G Rachel's tomb
(c. 1890-1900) (Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Co., photochrom)
Visitors to Rachel's Tomb
(c. 1910). In the background are wagons, in front under a tree are Jewish pilgrims. (Oregon State University Collection)
For several hundred years, the local Bedouin tribe and the local Arabs demanded “protection” money from Jews visiting Rachel's grave. In the 18th and 19th century, the Arabs built a cemetery on three sides of the tomb in the hope that the proximity of the deceased to a holy grave - even a Jewish one - would bestow blessings. In the 1830s, Jews received a decree from the Ottoman authorities, which recognized the Jewish character of the place and contained an order to stop extorting Jews. In 1841, thanks to Sir Moses Montefiori, permission was obtained from the Ottoman authorities to build a building for worshipers. During the Muslim attacks on the Jews in Palestine in 1929, the Muslim religious council of the Waqf demanded that this historic site be taken under their care.
During the 19 years of Jordanian rule in the West Bank (1948-1967), Rachel's tomb was inaccessible to Jews. After the 1967 war, Israel regained control of the site. In 1996 and during the Palestinian intifada in 2000-2001, Rachel's tomb was the target of numerous attacks. The Israeli army built walls to protect the worshipers and access the tomb.
Rachel's tomb (late 19th century). Adrien Bonfils, son of pioneer photographer Felix Bonfils (George Eastman House collection)
Etz Chaim Yeshiva students praying inside Rachel's tomb (early 20th century) (Wikimedia Commons)
Visit to the Tomb of Rachel by students of Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium, the first Jewish high school in Palestine, founded in 1905 (Wikimedia Commons, early 20th century)
In October 2010, UNESCO announced that the site was also the Bilal ibn Rabah Mosque and objected to Israeli "unilateral actions" at the holy site. Bilal ibn Rabah was Muhammad's slave of Ethiopian origin, his companion and the first muezzin. He died and was buried in Damascus. The claim that there was a mosque on the site was first made in 1996.
And the beloved wife of Jacob
The first time her name appears in sacred history is on the occasion of Jacob's visit to his uncle Laban in Mesopotamia (Genesis 29:6). Rachel was "beautiful in shape and beautiful in face" (Genesis 29:17).
Jacob fell in love with Rachel and served Laban for seven years in order to marry her. However, Laban deceived Jacob and first gave him his eldest daughter Leah, and for Rachel Jacob had to serve another seven years.
When Jacob departed from Mesopotamia, Rachel took with her and hid, without the knowledge of her husband, the idols of her father, probably due to some superstition, and when Laban insisted on returning them, she cunningly avoided a search, hiding them under the saddle of a camel and saying that cannot get up from it because of the ordinary female (Genesis 31:19-35).
The memory of Rachel was preserved in her offspring in subsequent times. In the time of Boaz and Ruth, the inhabitants and elders of Bethlehem, blessing the marriage of Boaz with Ruth, wished him the same happiness and blessing from God that Rachel and Leah brought to Israel (Ruth 4:11). Prop. Jeremiah, depicting the disasters and captivity of the Jews, represents Rachel as the foremother of the Israelites, orphaned and inconsolable, weeping for her sons, for they were gone (Jer 31:15). Evangelist Matthew, pointing out in this sad event the image of Herod's beating of the Bethlehem babies, repeats the words of the prophet, applying them to the present event - the children of Bethlehem belonged to the offspring of Rachel, and she, like their mother, cries inconsolably, because they are not (Mt 2: eighteen).
The grave of Rachel near Bethlehem is mentioned by early Christian writers: Eusebius of Caesarea, blzh. Jerome of Stridon and others.
The French priest Arculf, who visited the land of Israel in 670, describes a stone gravestone without decorations. Numerous notes of travelers from the Middle Ages have been preserved, according to which one can judge how the tomb of Rachel looked and changed.
Jewish travelers, beginning with the Spanish Rabbi Benjamin of Tudel (circa 1170), speak of a monument consisting of twelve stones, eleven of which were laid by the sons of Jacob, and on them a large stone laid by Jacob himself. A dome on four columns was built over the grave.