Jewish Rachel and Christian Mary: Part 1

(The following article is a chapter in my book The Jewish Roots of Mary: A Different Look at the Iconic Hebrew Woman.) 

As background information throughout this book, I will engage with Catholic scholar Brant Pitre’s “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary” (2018). While I agree with many aspects of his work, I also take exception to his methodology, approach, reasoning and certainly conclusions in many places. Nevertheless, I recommend reading Pitre’s book alongside mine as it will enhance your experience reading this book. Probably the most interesting chapter in his book is the one that seeks to recast Mary as a Catholic version of Jewish Rachel. It is very interesting on the one hand and very problematic on the other. But you of course be the judge. This why after all your are reading this book – so that you can make up your own mind.

Merits of the Fathers

Perhaps counterintuitively, I want to start this discussion by talking about a famous Jewish concept “the merits of the fathers”. Soon, you will know why.

The basic concept here has to do with extraordinary actions of the fathers of Israel – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The “merits of the fathers” refer the righteous deeds of the original covenant members. These merits produce very positive outcomes for the descendants of Israel. The idea that the righteous Christ Jesus can obtain salvation for sinners by his sacrifice on the cross is the ultimate expression of this ancient Jewish concept.

Judging from Jewish liturgical practices the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham is the ultimate righteous deed in Torah (Gen 22). Abraham displays ultimate faith in being willing to put his only son Isaac to death in obeying YHVH. It becomes an example of the highest display of trust, that all future generations of Israelites still derive spiritual benefits from. The children of Israel, as members of the covenant, receive these extraordinary benefits because “the merits of the fathers” are always remembered by YHVH and are treasured by Him. We see this idea very clearly already in Genesis when God speaks to Isaac about the merits of his father, Abraham. We read:

²⁴ And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham; Do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants, For the sake of My servant Abraham.” (Gen 26:24)

Moreover, this concept is also found in the Amida, the central Jewish prayer that in other contexts is simply called tefilah (prayer). It is composed of 19 blessings and the very first one remembers the “merits of the fathers”. We read:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵֽינוּ וֵאלֹהֵי אֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אֱלֹהֵי יִצְחָק וֵאלֹהֵי יַעֲקֹב הָאֵל הַגָּדוֹל הַגִּבּוֹר וְהַנּוֹרָא אֵל עֶלְיוֹן גּוֹמֵל חֲסָדִים טוֹבִים וְקוֹנֵה הַכֹּל וְזוֹכֵר חַסְדֵי אָבוֹת וּמֵבִיא גוֹאֵל לִבְנֵי בְנֵיהֶם לְמַֽעַן שְׁמוֹ בְּאַהֲבָה

Blessed are You, LORD, our God, and God of our fathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, the Almighty, the Great, the Powerful, the Awesome, most high Almighty, Who bestows beneficent kindness, Who possesses everything, Who remembers the pious faithfulness of the fathers, and Who brings a redeemer to their children’s children, for the sake of His Name, with love.

מֶֽלֶךְ עוֹזֵר וּמוֹשִֽׁיעַ וּמָגֵן: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מָגֵן אַבְרָהָם

King, Helper, Deliverer, and Shield. Blessed are You, LORD, Shield of Abraham.

In Judaism, the concept of the “merits of the fathers” is a very important idea that, in many ways, constitutes the very basis of a covenantal relationship with God. It certainly is of such importance as to be listed first among 19 topics. This ancient Jewish idea is clearly visible in the letter to the Romans. In fact, Paul’s letters are one of the earliest witnesses to this idea. There, speaking about Jews who did not accept the Messiahship of Jesus and played a part in opposing his cause, he writes, “In relation to the gospel they are enemies on your account, but in relation to God’s choice they are beloved on account of the fathers.” (Rom 11:28) According to the Apostle Paul, even their rejection of Jesus does not disqualify Jews as beloved by Israel’s God on account of the fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is an unbelievable statement indeed.

Rachel’s Suffering and Tragic Life

Jews around the world follow a system of reading through the Hebrew Bible as laid out and organized by the rabbis long ago. In it, portions of the Torah (Five Books of Moses) are paired up with various selected readings from the Hebrew prophets. What is interesting is that on the Rosh Hashana holiday, the reading of Genesis 22, telling of Abraham’s offering Isaac on the altar, is paired with a reading from the prophet Jeremiah 31 that includes Rachel weeping for Israelite exiles. This, in Jewish liturgical tradition, sets up Rachel as a kind of female counterpart of Abraham.

Rachel’s life is truly full of suffering and tragedy. It all starts with meeting Jacob when he arrives in Padan Aram, fleeing the conflict with his brother Esau. Not long after, Jacob asks Laban to give his beautiful young daughter Rachel to him in marriage. Laban agrees but asks Jacob to work for him for seven years before marrying her. Upon the completion of the seven-year term, Laban switches Leah with Rachel, and Jacob unknowingly into Leah instead of Rachel, only to discover this trickery in the morning. In ancient times, having sexual intercourse with someone was equivalent to marrying that person. Imagine the emotional state of Rachel, who is supposed to become Jacob’s wife but is cheated by her own father from this joy and honor. Sometime in the same week, Laban gives Rachel to Jacob as advance pay for seven more years of work. Rachel becomes Jacob’s second wife.

To add insult to injury, God blesses Leah with children when he sees that she is loved less than Rachel. But like Sarah and Rebekah before her, Rachel has trouble conceiving. Eventually, Rachel conceives a son and calls him Joseph. Joseph’s life before his eventual exaltation is even more tragic. And given any mother’s connection to her child, Joseph’s sufferings naturally add to the tragedy of Rachel’s own life.

To make a truly long story short, some of Joseph’s half-brothers want to kill him, but he ends up in Egyptian slavery instead. From the Bible, it is not entirely clear whether Rachel was still alive when Joseph’s tragic events unfolded. On the one hand, Genesis 35:18 speaks about the tragic death of Rachel at the birth of Benjamin, Joseph’s full brother. Joseph has his famous dreams and relates them to his brothers only in Genesis 37. So, the obvious presumption is that since chapter 35 comes before chapter 37, then Rachel already gave birth to Benjamin and died before Joseph is sold to Egyptian slavery. This also may explain why Jacob made for teenage Joseph a flashy tunic, setting him apart from his older siblings from other mothers. Jacob may have thought he was honoring the departed Rachel this way.

On the other hand, something doesn’t quite work here, and it is possible that the stories relating to Joseph and Rachel are not told chronologically (this is not the first time this would happen in the Bible). Jacob challenges his son after he hears about the second dream with the following: “What is this dream that you have had? Am I and your mother and your brothers actually going to come to bow down to the ground before you?” (Gen 37:10b)

This reads as if Rachel were still alive. Genesis 37 may be a story flashing back in time. Genesis is known for telling stories twice. Also, when a very old Jacob reunites with his son Joseph, who rose to immense power in Egypt, Jacob feels it is important to recount to him how and where his mother died as if Joseph was not aware of it. “Now, as for me, when I came from Paddan, Rachel died, to my sorrow, in the land of Canaan on the journey when there was still some distance to go to Ephrath. I buried her there on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).” (Gen 48:7)

On the other hand, this may not be the exact words of Jacob since it is not Jacob but Moses who is much later penning down for Israel, as what happened in the past. Also, they are told in the context of Jacob telling Joseph that he will adopt his two sons, who were born to him in Egypt. So, it is possible that Jacob is not so much as informing Joseph (after all, Joseph would have asked about his mother much earlier in the story), but recalling this tragic event and arguing his case.

There are many other arguments for and against the idea that Rachel died before Joseph’s slavery in Egypt. The case does not appear to be settled. If Rachel had been alive when Joseph disappeared, imagine the intense suffering she must have endured when the brothers brought Joseph’s shredded clothes, covered in blood. In this scenario, Rachel dies, never knowing what really happened. She most likely constantly relived in her dreams the wild animals attacking and carrying away the lifeless body of her beloved son. She dies without realizing how God, through Joseph and the murderous intent of his brothers, was in fact bringing salvation to the whole family of Jacob.

Before she died, however, God, in his mercy, gave Rachel another son. Jacob rightly names him Benjamin (the son of my right hand) even though Rachel wants to call him Ben Oni (the son of my sorrow). Rachel realizes that while she has succeeded in giving him life, she will not survive this ordeal. Rachel died that day, giving Jacob another son and another brother to Joseph. Her loving husband Jacob buries her in the vicinity of Bethlehem. We read. “So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem).” (Gen 35:19)

In death, Rachel is further singled out for the ultimate separation, for she is buried not with her husband or her ancestors, but on the road, away from everyone else. This reinforces the sense of profound suffering that relates to Rachel in Jewish memory. On the other hand, if Rachel died before Joseph’s slavery it could be argued that she still had plenty of undeserved suffering in her life even without knowing of Joseph’s slavery. She can be considered the greatest woman of suffering featured in the Torah.

If Jeremiah was not speaking only poetically and really believed that Rachel was weeping for the sons of Israel marching in shackles into exile via the road by Rachel’s grave, then surely her dying before Joseph’s slavery did not stop her from knowing about it and agonizing from the other side of life either.

The Power of Rachel’s Prayer

In later Rabbinic material, the plot thickens. We read in Genesis Rabah the question: “What was Jacob’s reason for burying Rachel on the way to Ephrat?” Evoking Jer 31:14-15, the midrash answers that “Jacob foresaw that the exiles would pass on from there. Therefore, he buried her there so that she might pray for mercy for them. (Gen Rab 82:10) As was mentioned in the previous chapter, long after Rachel’s death, Jeremiah declares that when Rachel sees Israel’s exiles departing Jerusalem, she weeps for them, and that God then hears her voice of intercession. We read:

¹⁵ This is what the Lord says: “A voice is heard in Ramah, Lamenting and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; She refuses to be comforted for her children Because they are no more.” (Jer 31:15)

Rachel is the ancestress of the Northern Kingdom, which was named Ephraim after Joseph’s son. After Ephraim and Benjamin are exiled by the Assyrians, Rachel is remembered as the classic mother who mourns and intercedes for her children. Rachel’s centrality within the concept of “merits of the fathers/mothers” appears in the midrash, which preserves a rabbinic debate about identifying the tribe to which the prophet Elijah belongs. Rabbi Eleazar argues that Elijah belongs to the tribe of Benjamin, while Rabbi Nehorai counters that he belongs to the tribe of Gad. We read:

These names are meant for allegorical interpretation: when [God] would shake the world, Elijah recalls the merit of the ancestors … On one occasion our Rabbis were debating about Elijah, some maintaining that he belonged to the tribe of Gad, others, to the tribe of Benjamin. Whereupon he came and stood before them and said, ‘Sirs, why do you debate about me? I am a descendent of Rachel.’ (Gen Rab 71:9)

Rachel is repeatedly portrayed in Jewish religious poems as praying to God. The rabbinic midrashim present Rachel as an eternal mother of the people of Israel whose barrenness, untimely death, accumulation of merit due to several episodes of loss and self-sacrifice, and her timeless supplications in later generations can intervene in God’s judgment of her descendants. They transform Rachel not only into a heavenly maternal intercessor but the most meritorious matriarch, whose merit transcends generations.

We now come to the best example by far of how Rachel becomes the most powerful intercessor in Judaism. Even though Judaism knows four mothers of Israel, Rachel is the one who takes the leading role. We read in Lamentations Rabah that:

Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman said: When the Temple was destroyed, Abraham came before the Holy One blessed be He weeping, pulling out his beard, tearing out the hair of his head, striking his face, rending his garments, ashes on his head, and he was walking in the Temple and lamenting and screaming… ‘Master of the universe: Why did You exile my children, deliver them into the hand of the nations, kill them with all kinds of uncommon deaths, and destroy the Temple, the place where I elevated my son Isaac as a burnt offering before You?’ (Lam Rab, Petichta 24)

This text shows the emotional level of engagement by Father Abraham when it comes to interceding for Israel’s children in exile. He doesn’t just sympathize, he suffers. The exiles are not some remote needy people. They are his posterity, his very flesh and blood, in dire straits. The midrash describes this passionate, imagined, and ultimately failed address of Abraham to God.

The God of Israel gives his reasons for rejecting Abraham’s plea for mercy and help. The story moves on to Isaac intervening for the children of Israel, where he makes a claim about his merits before the Almighty and pleads for Israel. But he, too, receives a negative answer from God. Then Jacob intercedes and addresses God, but Jacob, too, is unsuccessful in his intercession. Now, it is Moses’ turn. Moses begins and says,

‘Master of the universe, was I not a loyal shepherd over Israel for forty years? I ran before them like a horse in the wilderness, yet when the time came for them to enter the land, You decreed against me that my bones would fall in the wilderness. Now that they have been exiled you sent to me to lament them and weep over them.’ (Lam Rab Petichta 24)

God is apparently unimpressed. Moses fails as well. The midrash then recounts that Moses is in conversation with the prophet Jeremiah. Together, they reach the rivers of Babylon, where Israel’s exiles are situated. The exiles, Moses and the Bat Kol (divine voice) interact with each other, and the exiles then raise passionate prayers of their own. When Moses encounters Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and talks with them about Israel’s exiles, he tells them of the children of Israel suffering in Babylonian captivity. The fathers of Israel begin profusely weeping and lamenting. Then something unexpected happens.

Rachel — the text calls her “our matriarch” — interjects her appeal. She recounts her life of suffering, especially regarding Laban’s night of “bait and switch” tactics. She appeals to her ability to take her own jealousy under control and argues from lesser to the greater. If she could do it, can’t God do it too? If she forgave and blessed Leah, the Midrashic storyteller, who takes some liberties from the original text, couldn’t God forgive and bless Israel too? We read:

If I, who is flesh and blood, was not jealous of my rival, and I did not lead her to humiliation and shame, You who are a living and eternal merciful King, why were You jealous of idol worship that has no substance, and You exiled my descendants, and they were killed by sword, and the enemies did to them as they pleased? (Lam Rab Petichta 24)

What happens next, given the intercessory failures of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, is unprecedented:

Immediately, the mercy of the Holy One blessed be He was aroused, and He said: ‘For you, Rachel, I will restore Israel to its place.’ That is what is written: “So said the Lord: A voice is heard in Rama, wailing, bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be consoled for her children, as they are not” (Jeremiah 31:14). And it is written: “So said the Lord: Restrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears, as there is reward for your actions.… And there is hope for your future, the utterance of the Lord, and your children will return to their borders” (Jeremiah 31:15–16) (Lam Rab Petichta 24)

The point here is not that the Midrashic storyteller has additional information that is missing from the Torah but that in Jewish minds, Rachel continues to emerge as the supreme intercessor for the children of Israel.