The Blogs: Momma Rachel

Day 6 · Chanukah 2025

Lighting six candles tonight stands for, in my view:

Abraham & Sarah
Yitzchak & Rivka
Yaacov & Leah

“Gabriel,” you might ask, “have you forgotten Rachel, the wife of Yaacov?”

God forbid. I haven’t.

And yet, at Ma’arat HaMachpela, it is Leah who lies beside Yaacov—not Rachel. Why?

Rachel is buried in Efrata, on the way to Bethlehem. Her tomb carries an emotional weight almost unmatched in Jewish memory. Few places are as soaked in tears, longing, and holiness as the Tomb of Rachel.

Leah, we are told, had tender eyes—softened by years of crying. She felt second-best, less loved. And when she confronts Rachel accusing her of “stealing” her husband—Rachel does not shout, does shrivel, does not become emotional. She does not defend herself. She does not retaliate. She sees through her sister’s pain.

Instead, she steps aside.

That night, Rachel allows Leah—her sister, the less-loved wife—to be with Yaacov.

Read that again. Slowly.

At that moment, Rachel herself has no children. Leah already has four. And yet Rachel yields. That night, Leah conceives Yissachar, one of the tribes of Israel.

The Rabbis pause here. Something doesn’t add up. Why is the tribe born of this moment called Yissachar—a name that means reward? Who has the reward? What causes the reward for the action? Whose action?

They turn to one of the most beautiful passages in all of Tanakh (Jeremiah 31)

Thus said God:
A cry is heard in Ramah—
Wailing, bitter weeping—
Rachel weeping for her children.
She refuses to be comforted,
For her children, who are gone.
Thus said God:
Restrain your voice from weeping,
Your eyes from shedding tears;
For there is a reward for your actions—
declares God.
They shall return from the enemy’s land.
There is hope for your future—
declares God:
Your children shall return to their country.