Tomb of Rachel

Judaism

The Tombeau of Rachel is a holy site of an high importance in the Judaïsme, it is located beside the town of Bethlehem on the biblical territory of Judaea, into current the West Bank. It is the place where is buried the biblical matriarche Rachel, the woman of Jacob, which died by giving rise to Benjamin.

The site is regarded as the third holy place of the Judaïsme after the Mont of the Temple and the Tombeau of the Patriarchs. With the years, the tomb of Rachel became a place of Pèlerinage for the Jews, and in particular the women who do not manage to give birth to. The Jewish tradition teaches that Rachel cries for his/her children and when the Jews were exiled, it cried because they passed in front of his tomb on the way of Babylon.

The current tomb consists of a surmounted rock of 11 stones, each one for the 11 children of Jacob who were living when Rachel died by giving rise to Benjamin. The rock is covered with a dome supported by 4 arches.

The structure of the dome was added by Sir Moses Montefiore, which added a second part. In the years 1990, the original structure of the dome was strengthened, because of the deterioration of the safety of the site. The site is currently protected by the Israeli armed .

Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated the day of the annual pilgrimage of the Jews Haredi with the tomb of Rachel (November 4th, 1995).

Christianity

" A voice in Rama was made hear… It is Rachel which cries the death of its enfants". By these words of the prophet Jérémie (31, 15), the Gospel of Matthieu (2, 18) wants to explain the death of the Innocent Saints. The place was localized close to Bethlehem already in Gn. 35,19, and was thus appropriate well for the interpretation of the evangelist, but the texts of the beginning of the royal time suggest rather a town of Rama in the territory of Benjamin (I Sm. 10,2; Jos. 18,25), close to a Ephrata (Gn. 35,19). The localization of the Tomb of Rachel undoubtedly moved at the same time as a clan of Ephratéens to Bethlehem (cf Mi. 5,1; I Chr. 2,30-31), Ephrata being in the beginning a benjaminite place ( Ephraïm in II Sm. 13,23, Ophra in I Sm. 13,17, Ephrôn in II Chr. 13,19, Aphéréma in I Mac. 11,34, and-Taiyibeh today, close to er-RAM ).

The Jewish holy place is visited by the Pèlerin of Bordeaux into 333. The Christian lectionnaire of Jerusalem mentions in dated February 20th and of July 18th of the depositions of relics in the " Fall from Rachel" , which suggests that the place was annexed by the Christians (details here). At the time of Eudocie, Hikélia founded not far from there another church which entered (at the origin) the cycle of the nativity of Jesus, the Kathisme. The pilgrim Arculfe at the beginning of the Arab time (7th century) known as that the tomb was without ornament, apparently a simple monument; at the time of the crusades it had the shape of a pyramid. In the absence of excavations, one can wonder whether the liturgical station is not a church located close to the Tomb itself.

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