Tomb of Rachel

TOMB of OUR MATRIARCH RACHEL

Tomb of Rachel

By Dovid Rossoff

As the Israeli government continues to hand over territory and towns to the Palestinian authorities, one little grave site outside of Bethlehem caused a political fury across Israel and almost toppled over the government. This was the Tomb of Rachel, one of the four Matriarchs.

Let us glimpse at the importance of this site in Midrashic and Talmudic lore, as well as from a historical perspective.

One thing, however, stands out. The Tomb of Rachel is not a place of military strategic importance. Its relevance is solely spiritual. The depth of such a spiritual fountain is felt by most Jews, regardless of their religious commitment and, like the Western Wall in Jerusalem, it represents in a physical sense a basic tenet of our faith.

OUR MATRIARCH RACHEL

Rachel grew up in a generation of decadence some 3,500 years ago, yet maintained her integrity, purity, and righteousness. Her father Laban is stereotyped "the wicked", an epitaph he earned as an idolater, a liar and as a ruthless person. His only redeeming factor was his lineage, which connected him to the house of Abraham. Laban's brother-in-law was Isaac, yet he never learned the path of righteousness from him, nor from his son-in-law Jacob who lived with him for several decades. The influence of these two pillars of Judaism bounced right off Laban. Somehow, Rachel and her sister, Leah, remained insulated from his influence.

The stories of Rachel's marriage to Jacob and the two children she bore him are recorded in the Bible (Genesis, chapters 29-31). She died in childbirth outside Bethlehem on the 11th of Cheshvan, 2198 (1560 BCE). She was probably thirty-six years old. Jacob buried her by the roadside, and placed a stone monument over her grave.

JOSEPH PRAYS AT HER GRAVE

Joseph, who was seven years old when his mother died, was sold into slavery ten years later. On his way to Egypt, when the caravan passed Bethlehem, he escaped and ran to his mother's grave.

"Imma! Imma! (Mother!)" he beseeched, "Please save me. I'm innocent. Please save me," he cried.

"Don't be afraid," he heard his mother's voice answer him. "Go with them, and may the L-rd be with you."

Consoled and strengthened, Joseph voluntarily returned to the caravan.

This Midrash is one of the earliest sources we have about praying at the grave of a righteous person. Joseph's behavior, however, appears questionable since it is forbidden to speak directly to the dead. However there are two permitted ways to pray by the grave of a tzaddik (a righteous person). The first way is to ask that G-d should answer our prayers in the merit of the tzaddik buried here; and the second way is that the soul of the tzaddik should intercede on our behalf before the Heavenly court. Joseph, in the midst of a great dilemma, was beseeching his mother to intercede for him in Heaven and alter the harsh decree upon him. Thus his act was permitted by Jewish Law. Rachel, from her side, was granted permission to answer his prayers to give him the courage he needed to face the future. As we know, his future in Egypt played a dramatic role in the history of our people.

THE ETERNAL MOTHER

Of all the Matriarchs, Rachel stands out as the loving mother of her children throughout the generations. The Midrash relates at length how, at the destruction of the first Temple, the Patriarchs pleaded in vain before the Heavenly court to show mercy on the wayward Jews. The ears of Heaven remained deaf until Rachel entreated on their behalf: "Master of the Universe! Be as forbearing as me. You know how I much Jacob loved me and how hard he worked to marry me. Yet on the wedding night my father switched me with Leah. I did everything in my power to help her so that she would not be discovered and ashamed forever. Now, Oh merciful King, though my children have sinned, exiled and punished, stop and have mercy on them." Immediately, G-d said: "For you, Rachel, I shall return them from exile." So the verse says, "Thus says the L-rd, A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted for her children, because they are not" (Jeremiah 31:14).

When Boaz took Ruth for a wife, the Sanhedrin blessed them with these words, "May the L-rd make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and like Leah" (Ruth 4:11). Although Boaz and the Sanhedrin were descendants of Leah, they agreed that Rachel was the mainstay of the house, and thus mentioned her name first.

THE TOMB

Over the generations, the edifice above her grave has changed numerous times. At some unknown time, an open-walled canopy type shelter was erected of stone and mortar. At other times the monument consisted of twelve stones, representing the twelve tribes.

In 1841, Sir Moses Montefiore gained permission from the Turkish authorities to restore the tomb. He built the large, two-room building that we know today. A month before he died, in Tamuz, 1885, Sir Montefiore pledged to have it renovated. It was his final gift to Eretz Yisroel.

In 1864, the Sefardi Jews of Bombay donated the sum necessary to dig a well. Even though Rachel's Tomb is only an hour and a half walk from the Old City of Jerusalem, many pilgrims found themselves very thirsty and unable to obtain fresh water. The Rishon l'Tzion, (The Chief Rabbi), Rav Chazan, wrote a warm letter of congratulations to them for their support.

In the last six months, the tomb has been expanded and fortified in keeping with the political peace process. Along the main street, a long and high stone wall buffers between the tomb and the main road. It is designed with indented arches to give it a more romantic touch. Inside, the building containing the tomb has been broken open on all four sides in the form of huge arches, and a new outer wall has been constructed. This is the first major change since Montefiore build his structure in 1841!

Into the 20th century, the tomb was locked around the clock. Anyone, however, who wished to go and pray there could get the key from the famous courtyard in the Old City called Churvas Rabbi Yehuda, and there the beadle would escort him to the tomb and open it.

Once a handful of Gentiless succeeded in stealing the heavy, flat gravestone which they needed for their new church. The next morning it had disappeared from their hands, only to be found miraculously back in its proper place.

THE SCARLET THREAD & THE SPECIAL KEY

There is an ancient tradition -- a segulah (a charm)-- to tie a scarlet thread around one's neck or wrist as a protection against all kinds of dangers, especially for pregnant women. Before the thread may be used, it must first be wound around the Tomb of Rachel. This transforms the simple thread into a special segulah whose validity has been proven over and over again. Even today, one can find women circling the tomb with a scarlet thread in their hands.

Why specially is this done only at her tomb? The answer probably lies in the fact that she is our "eternal mother," caring for us when we are ill. Also, was it not Rachel who felt the trauma of birth pangs until her last breath, and is therefore the perfect mediator for a pregnant woman, especially when she goes into the delivery room.

The key that unlocked the tomb was extraordinary. Some fifteen centimeters long, the brass key was made by Reb Zalman of Jerusalem in such a way that the lock was unbreakable. The beadle kept it with him at all times. It was not uncommon that someone would knock at his door in the middle of the night.

"Please," came the voice of someone at the door. "So-and-so is having strong labor pains. We need the key."

As soon as he would give the key, the person would dash to the bedside of the expectant mother and place the key under her pillow. Immediately the pains would subside and the delivery would take place peacefully.

PILGRIMS AND PRAYERS

Rachel's tomb has equal status with Machpelah (the Tombs of the Patriarchs) as the oldest place of prayer. Pilgrims stopped by her tomb on their way to and from Jerusalem on their way to Hebron and Egypt hundreds of years before King Solomon built the Temple. In fact, pilgrims came regularly from as far away as Damascus and the Euphrates valley to pour their hearts out to G-d at Rachel Tomb and theMachpelah.

Today the tourists make this a routine stop, and the flow of genuine pilgrims is a daily occurrence.

Following is part of a prayer which may be recited when visiting her tomb.

Oh Merciful King! I have come to pray at Tomb of Rachel our Matriarch. Let her good acts stand in my steed, especially her heartfelt prayers to You when she was barren which You answered. In her merit please answer my prayers and the prayers of my fellow Jews. Listen to what I utter before You, and fulfill my inner most needs.

Jacob buried Rachel on the roadside and not in Bethlehem so that she could come to the assistance of her children's children at the destruction of the first Temple. Then You hearkened and returned us after seventy years. But now, with a galus of over 1900 years since the destruction of the second Temple, we plead that You will again hearken to her prayers....

The Zohar (The Mystical Book of Splendor) says, When will the Jewish people return from galus? At the time of the redemption, and then the Shechina (the presence of G-d) will rest on Tomb of Rachel.

May you merit to be among the visitors to this special Holy site!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Rachel's Tomb and the making of an Arab lie

Today was the traditional anniversary of the death of the matriarch Rachel, and thousands of Jews went to Rachel's Tomb to pray. Ma'an reported it this way:

Thousands of Israelis, most of them ultra-Orthodox Jews, descended on the tomb of the Biblical matriarch Rachel in a militarized compound in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Thursday.

Right-wing religious groups petitioned Israel’s highest court in 2004 to re-route the wall to include the tomb on the western side. To this day the site, formerly known as the location of the Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque, is accessible only from the Israeli side.

Was Rachel's Tomb ever really known as the Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque?

The answer is, of course, no. That name was created relatively recently - believe it or not, in the 1990s!

As Nadav Shragai revealed in a 2007 article:

In 2000, after hundreds of years of recognizing the site as Rachel's Tomb, Muslims began calling it the "Bilal ibn Rabah mosque."20 Members of the Wakf used the name first in 1996, but it has since entered the national Palestinian discourse. Bilal ibn Rabah was an Ethiopian known in Islamic history as a slave who served in the house of the prophet Muhammad as the first muezzin (the individual who calls the faithful to prayer five times a day).21 When Muhammad died, ibn Rabah went to fight the Muslim wars in Syria, was killed in 642 CE, and buried in either Aleppo or Damascus.22 The Palestinian Authority claimed that according to Islamic tradition, it was Muslim conquerors who named the mosque erected at Rachel's Tomb after Bilal ibn Rabah.

The Palestinian claim ignored the fact that Ottoman firmans (mandates or decrees) gave Jews in the Land of Israel the right of access to the site at the beginning of the nineteenth century.23 The Palestinian claim even ignored accepted Muslim tradition, which admires Rachel and recognizes the site as her burial place. According to tradition, the name "Rachel" comes from the word "wander," because she died during one of her wanderings and was buried on the Bethlehem road.24 Her name is referred to in the Koran,25 and in other Muslim sources, Joseph is said to fall upon his mother Rachel's grave and cry bitterly as the caravan of his captors passes by.26 For hundreds of years, Muslim holy men (walis) were buried in tombs whose form was the same as Rachel's.

Then, out of the blue, the connection between Rachel, admired even by the Muslims, and her tomb is erased and the place becomes "the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque." Well-known Orientalist Professor Yehoshua Porat has called the "tradition" the Muslims referred to as "false." He said the Arabic name of the site was "the Dome of Rachel, a place where the Jews prayed."27

Only a few years ago, official Palestinian publications contained not a single reference to such a mosque. The same was true for the Palestinian Lexicon issued by the Arab League and the PLO in 1984, and for Al-mawsu'ah al-filastiniyah, the Palestinian encyclopedia published in Italy after 1996. Palestine, the Holy Land, published by the Palestinian Council for Development and Rehabilitation, with an introduction written by Yasser Arafat, simply says that "at the northwest entrance to the city [Bethlehem] lies the tomb of the matriarch Rachel, who died while giving life to Benjamin." The West Bank and Gaza - Palestine also mentions the site as the Tomb of Rachel and not as the Mosque of Bilal ibn Rabah.28 However, the Palestinian deputy minister for endowments and religious affairs has now defined Rachel's Tomb as a Muslim site.29

On Yom Kippur in 2000, six days after the IDF withdrew from Joseph's Tomb, the Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida published an article marking the next target as Rachel's Tomb. It read in part, "Bethlehem - ‘the Tomb of Rachel,' or the Bilal ibn Rabah mosque, is one of the nails the occupation government and the Zionist movement hammered into many Palestinian cities....The tomb is false and was originally a Muslim mosque."30

Indeed, the earliest reference I can find to such a name is from the BBC in 1997, and for the rest of the 90s that is the only news outlet I can find that ever used that terminology.

Looking at some old books, I see it was called "Kubbet Rahil" by Muslims in 1901. This travelogue from around 1880 says:

...We came to Rachel's tomb, a small square whitewashed domed building, part of which dates back to the twelfth century. It stands by the side of the road, a mile short of Bethlehem. It is in possession of the Jews, and is only opened on Thursdays; but we looked in through a small aperture on the south side.

Many other 1800's-era books do describe Rachel's Tomb as a mosque or as a place of worship for both Jews and Muslims. But none of them give any Arabic name that doesn't include the word "Rachel" in some form. And certainly none of them describe the spot as being exclusively Muslim.

Similarly, in 1949 the UN listed major holy sites according to religion. Here is what they said about Rachel's Tomb as being claimed by both Muslims and Jews:

Rachel died giving birth to Benjamin, when Jacob was travelling from Bethel to Hebron. A pillar was set up over her grave, and the spot was a familiar landmark in the time of Samuel.Several medieval writers refer to it as a Jewish Holy Place. The Arab writer Mugeir-al-Din described it as built of "eleven stones and covered with a cupola which rests on four pillars, and every Jew passing writes his name on the monument."

The tomb lies on the Jerusalem-Hebron road just before it enters Bethlehem. It consists of an open antechamber and a two-roomed shrine under a cupola containing a sarcophagus. The building lies within a Moslem cemetery, for which it serves as a place of prayer. The tomb is a place of Jewish pilgrimage. The Jews claim possession of Rachel's Tomb by virtue firstly of the fact that in 1615 Mohammad, Pasha of Jerusalem, rebuilt the Tomb on their behalf and by a Firman granted them the exclusive use of it; and secondly, that the building, which had fallen into decay, was entirely rebuilt by Sir M. Montefiore in 1845. The keys were obtained by the Jews from the last Moslem guardian at this time.

The Moslem claim to own the building rests on its being a place of prayer for the Moslems of the neighbourhood and an integral part of the Moslem cemetery within which it lies. The Moslems state that the Ottoman Government recognized it as such and further that it is included among the Tombs of the Prophets for which identity signboards were issued by the Ministry of Waqfs in 1328 A.H. They also assert that the antechamber was specially built, at the time of the restoration by Sir M. Montefiore, as a place of prayer for the Moslems. The Moslems object in principle to any repair of the building by the Jews although (up to the recent war) free access to it was allowed at all times.

In 1912 the Ottoman Government permitted the Jews to repair the shrine itself, but not the antechamber. Three months after the British occupation of Palestine the whole place was cleaned and whitewashed by the Jews without protest from the Moslems. In 1921 the Chief Rabbinate applied to the Municipality of Bethlehem for permission to repair the shrine. This gave rise to a Moslem protest, whereupon the High Commissioner ruled that, pending appointment of the Holy Places Commission provided for under the Mandate, all repairs should be undertaken by the Government. However, so much indignation was caused in Jewish circles by this decision that the matter was dropped, the repairs not being considered urgent. In 1925 the Sephardic Community requested permission to repair the Tomb. The building was then made structurally sound and exterior repairs were effected by the Government, but permission was refused by the Jews (who had the keys) for the Government to repair the interior of the shrine. As the interior repairs were unimportant, the Government dropped the matter, in order to avoid controversy.

The claim that Moses Montefiore built a mosque at Rachel's Tomb is laughable. Montefiore was a religious Jew, and he and his wife, who could not have children, identified so strongly with the biblical Rachel that they now lie in a replica of Rachel's Tomb that he built in England.

As far as the Muslim cemetery surrounding Rachel's Tomb is concerned, it is also relatively recent. Photographs of the area from the early 1900s show no such cemetery.


Once again, we have a case of where Muslims claim shrines of other religions as being their own. In this case, they added a completely new reason to venerate the site - specifically to take away the obvious fact that Rachel herself is associated exclusively with Jews.