Rachel's Prayer

In his prophecy, Yirmiyahu makes use - by God's word - of the ancient dialogue between the matriarch Rachel and God, applying it to a contemporary situation - the renewed rapprochement between the tribe of Yehuda and the tribe of Efraim, upon the return of the ten tribes: "In those days the house of Yehuda will go with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north" (3:18). Yirmiyahu understands that the dialogue was not a one-time event. It is an ongoing, continual dialogue, and Rachel - who, upon her death, left her sons to the arbitrary treatment of their half-brothers - protects them from any type of trouble after her death, through prayer. In Yirmiyahu's time, her weeping was for Efraim, who had been exiled from Shomron and had not yet returned. 

Yosef remained silent while his brothers, Leah's children, deceived their father for so many years, and he did not shame them before their father. Yosef learned Torah from his father, but perhaps the ability to remain silent was learned from his mother. Leah deceived Yaakov on their wedding night, just as her children deceived him throughout the rest of his life. Rachel knew and kept silent so that her sister would not be shamed. When his brothers quarreled with him, Yosef had the merit of his mother's silence. The merit of her prayer also stood by him when he was sold as a slave. It stood by him again when Efraim returned from the exile of Shomron, as Yirmiyahu prophesies in our chapter. Perhaps Rachel's merit stood by Yosef and all of Israel during the battle between brethren when Gedalia was murdered, when the remnant of Yehuda stayed in Beit-Lechem Yehuda on their way to their exile in Egypt by the hand of Yochanan ben Kareach; in the days of the Destruction of the Second Temple which happened because of brotherly strife, when Am Yisrael was required to pay with ten of its greatest Sages for the sale of Yosef; when they were required to pay with the failure of the Bar-Kokhba revolt for not treating one another with the proper respect, as they passed - on their way to the slave market in Bothna - by Rachel's grave to the north of Beit-Lechem. 

Rachel's prayer for Binyamin in the merit of her selflessness for him, and her prayer for Yosef and for all of Israel in the merit of her ability to conquer her natural jealousy - these prayers have stood by Israel throughout the generations, and will stand by them until the end of days, until the prophecy, "The children will return to their borders," will be fulfilled for all the distant exiles of Israel - speedily in our days.

Excerpted from the article "Rachel's Death and Burial" by Rabbi Yaakov Medan. Click here to read the full article.