Mother Rachel comes to me

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See also Apochrapha Book of Jasher, Chapter 42

30 And Joseph reached his mother's grave, and Joseph hastened and ran to his mother's grave, and fell upon the grave and wept.

31 And Joseph cried aloud upon his mother's grave, and he said, O my mother, my mother, O thou who didst give me birth, awake now, and rise and see thy son, how he has been sold for a slave, and no one to pity him.

32 O rise and see thy son, weep with me on account of my troubles, and see the heart of my brethren.

33 Arouse my mother, arouse, awake from thy sleep for me, and direct thy battles against my brethren. O how have they stripped me of my coat, and sold me already twice for a slave, and separated me from my father, and there is no one to pity me.

34 Arouse and lay thy cause against them before God, and see whom God will justify in the judgment, and whom he will condemn.

35 Rise, O my mother, rise, awake from thy sleep and see my father how his soul is with me this day, and comfort him and ease his heart.

36 And Joseph continued to speak these words, and Joseph cried aloud and wept bitterly upon his mother's grave; and he ceased speaking, and from bitterness of heart he became still as a stone upon the grave.

37 And Joseph heard a voice speaking to him from beneath the ground, which answered him with bitterness of heart, and with a voice of weeping and praying in these words:

38 My son, my son Joseph, I have heard the voice of thy weeping and the voice of thy lamentation; I have seen thy tears; I know thy troubles, my son, and it grieves me for thy sake, and abundant grief is added to my grief.

39 Now therefore my son, Joseph my son, hope to the Lord, and wait for him and do not fear, for the Lord is with thee, he will deliver thee from all trouble.

40 Rise my son, go down unto Egypt with thy masters, and do not fear, for the Lord is with thee, my son. And she continued to speak like unto these words unto Joseph, and she was still.

41 And Joseph heard this, and he wondered greatly at this, and he continued to weep; and after this one of the Ishmaelites observed him crying and weeping upon the grave, and his anger was kindled against him, and he drove him from there, and he smote him and cursed him.

42 And Joseph said unto the men, May I find grace in your sight to take me back to my father's house, and he will give you abundance of riches.

43 And they answered him, saying, Art thou not a slave, and where is thy father? and if thou hadst a father thou wouldst not already twice have been sold for a slave for so little value; and their anger was still roused against him, and they continued to smite him and to chastise him, and Joseph wept bitterly.

https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/apo/jasher/42.htm

Poema de Yuçuf see

The Poema de Yuçuf or Poema de Yusuf is an anonymous poem written in Aragonese in the Aljamiado Arabic script from the fourteenth century. It was written in a strophic form called "cuaderna vía" by a Morisco poet. The text was discovered incomplete, but 380 verses have been preserved.

The poem has been passed on two codices. The most complete is Manuscript B, written, according to Ramón Menéndez Pidal^[1] in a very hispanicised Aragonese, while Manuscript A uses phonetic, morphosyntactic, and lexical features more typical of Aragonese. According to Menéndez Pidal, the poem dates from approximately the second half of the fourteenth century, and is directed toward mudéjars.

The poem recounts the story of the patriarch Joseph, one of the twelve sons of Jacob, not as recorded in the Old Testament but rather in the Islamic tradition. Its content reflects a commentary on Sūrat Yūsuf—the twelfth sūrah of the Qur'an—and Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine and the Sēfer ha-Yāšār—a Hebrew midrash and collection of legends.

“How great was that caravan! It went on and on; /
but poor Yusuf in the midst of that crowd was alone. / A lone grave in the wilderness
they soon came upon; / there next to a hill was his mother’s tombstone. // All in a lash
from his camel he leapt, / without even disturbing his guard as he slept; / and dragging
his chain, to the grave sot he crept, / where he called to his mother; and he wept and
he wept. // He said: ‘Mother dear, may our Maker forgive you! / If you could see me,
your heart would break in two! / I’m a slave, I am chained so I hardly can move. / My
own brothers sold me. How can this be true? // they have done this to me, though I
gave them no reason, / with falsehood and cunning they have done me this treason. /
My dear father is taken from me out of season. / For a few worthless coins they have
taken my freedom.’// At this the black slave on the camel stopped sleeping, / gone was
Yusuf, whom the merchants had let in his keeping. / Back the way they had come he
went switly leaping, / as he passed by the grave, he heard Yusuf weeping. // ‘You rascal!’
he cried then. ‘Have you no fear?’ / And Yusuf he beat until death he was near. /
‘You’re a runaway slave,’ he said. ‘It is quite clear / your masters weren’t lying when
they sold you here.’ // that’s a lie,’ Yusuf said. ‘I am not as you say. / I was honoring
my mother in her grave where she lay. / But don’t listen to me; for to Allah I pray, /
as I am innocent, that He make you pray.’”

Michael McGaha, Coat of Many Cultures. The Story of Joseph in Spanish Literature 1200–1492 (Philadelphia: he Jewish Publication Society, 1997) 241–242; see also:

Satisfied as to Jacob's intentions concerning his sons, Joseph asked his father about his mother's burial-place, and Jacob spoke, saying: "As thou livest, thy wish to see thy mother lying by my side in the grave doth not exceed mine own. I had joy in 1life only as long as she was alive, and her death was the heaviest blow that ever fell upon me." Joseph questioned him: " Perhaps thou didst have to bury her in the way, because she died during the rainy season, and thou couldst not carry her body through the rain to our family sepulchre?" " No," replied Jacob, "she died in the spring time, when the highways are clean and firm." Joseph: Grant me permission to take up her body now and place it in our family burial-place." Jacob: No, my son, that thou mayest not do. I was unwilling to bury her in the way, but the Lord commanded it." The reason of the
command was that God knew that the Temple would be destroyed, and Israel would be carried away into banishment, and the exiles would ask the Patriarchs to intercede for them with God, but God would not hearken unto them. On their way to the land of the stranger they would pass the grave of Rachel, and they would throw themselves upon it, and beseech their mother to make intercession for them And Rachel would pray to God in their behalf:

"O Lord of the world, look upon my tears, and have compassion upon my children. But if Thou wilt not take pity on
them, then indemnify me for the wrong done to me." Unto her prayer God will hearken, and He will have mercy upon Israel. Therefore was Rachel buried in the way.

Legends of the Jews, Louis Ginzberg Vol II p. 135-6

The tomb-as-womb motif—with its concomitant association of pregnancy
and corruption34—is redolent in all its intensity of an elegiac
death-wish almost Freudian avant la letter—the desire to enter into
her burial niche; the lack of fear at such a dark, sealed space; the latter’s
analogy to his prenatal dwelling. But all of this plaintive excess
clinches what is in essence an inversion of the Mater Dolorosa theme
in Roiç de Corella’s Oració. he Virgin in the Oració, distraught over
her Son’s refusal to let her die along with Him, also pleads to be buried
alive in the same sepulchre as a inal act of reciprocity for willingly
giving Him shelter in her virginal womb (see n. 29, 2:821–822, vv.
28–35).

“Oh, death, you were kind
to Rachel, for you have closed her eyes that she might not see the great misery of her
son; but here now, by not closing my eyes, you allow me, living in slavery, to gaze
upon her tomb with such sadness! So kind to the mother, so cruel to the son, promising
me in Egypt, ater a life of miserable slavery, a foreign burial! Now is the time to
use your power on me, for since I’m young, it will seem even greater; and if I die upon
this tomb, my new masters will be content to give me burial in an urn with Rachel’s
corpse; if I found life bearable, I would not call upon you, oh cruel, wicked one; but
as it is, breaking the marble of that high tomb with the force of my extreme sorrow, I
would rest my weary person in an urn in there; and mixing my flesh with her bones,
either my soul would give life to her body, or her death would switly slay my life. I
would not fear that narrow space nor the darkness of the closed tomb, since I grew
accustomed to them during nine months in her womb.”

mise en scene in Roiç de Corella’s planctus

In the Opera:

JOSEPH: Hail, oh grave, more kind than cruel, since you spared my mother
Rachel this bitterness! Oh hard stone, soten, so that my cries can
penetrate you! Oh Mother, pity my pain and my great misfortune!
You were lucky not to have seen your son thrown into a
well and then sold as a slave. It would have broken your heart
to see your child sufer like that! Mother, Mother: look down on
the child whom you carried in your womb! Take me with you!
If I could it into your womb, surely there’s room for me in your
grave. hat’s the only thing that could free an unlucky son? I
would have been much better of if I had died at birth. Mother,
why don’t you answer my sad cries? You seem to be hiding from
me, which only increases my sadness. Oh, cruel tomb: be not
so strong! Before I die, let me see my mother Rachel! Open to
me now, for my life is more bitter than gall! Oh, Mother: Why
doesn’t my senseless aliction cause you pain? Your heart may
well break now! Don’t leave me like this? Hear my lamentation!
[He sings:] Super lumina Babylonis, illic sedimus et levimus: cum
recordaremur Sion. If there be any feeling let in your bones, pity
me, for my life of luxury is over. Just as if I were a wicked traitor,
they’ve sold me as a slave.
MERCHANT: You, mourner, inish up. We can’t waste any more time.
JOSEPH: Farewell, Mother!

Miguel de Carvajal,Tragedia Josephina: a Spanish auto-sacramental—a religious play for Corpus Christifirst published in 1535

A Prayer for Pilgrims from Abroad to Say at Rachel's Tomb Shalom Our Mother Rachel . . . Shalom to you and to your pure soul which dwells in the shadow of God among the souls of God's holy ones. . . . Your children ask about you and send their regards from all the corners of the earth. Indeed their souls yearn to come and be sheltered at your tomb, and cry for your beauty that has withered in the earth. . . . We have fared the sea, and the great waters could not extinguish the love of children for their mother. . . . Mother, Mother, quickly go to the throne of our Father in Heaven, pour out your heart like water before the face of God, for the life of your young children who are dispersed to the four corners of the earth ... It is your duty to cry before God of the bitter fate, because you bore us. To whom among the saints can we go if not to Our Mother Rachel, the holy and pure? Therefore, please go and beg the King of the Universe to break the yoke of exile away from our neck and to gather the furthest of Israel into Jerusalem, the holy city.

an excerpt from a poetic prayer to be recited by pilgrims from abroad at Rachel's Tomb. This prayer, probably written in Jerusalem sometime around 1867, appeared in a small pamphlet entitled Prayers and Petitions to Pray at the Holy Shrine of Our Mother Rachel. From: Seder Tfillot veBakashot LeHitpalel etzel Tziun Kodsha shel Rachel Imeinu, Aleyha HaShalom, cited in Arie Leibush Lipshitz, Yesod LKRE Ohel Rachel Imeinu (published by the author 1968).

It is interesting to note that Rachel does not seem to have been a prominent symbol among orthodox early and pre-Zionists. Rabbi Yehuda Alkalai in Shiva I Zion brings many quotes from Jeremiah, but not the Rachel one. The same is true of Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Kalischer, even though his son organized a purchase of land near Rachel’s Tomb. I believe that evidence indicates that the late 19th and 20th century association of Rachel with the end of exile began as a secular movement, and only later was adopted by orthodox writers.

Yosef Salmon has identified a similar process among religious Zionists, who re- adopted “traditional’’ Jewish ideas and symbols which had been previously adopted and adapted by secular Zionists. See Yosef Salmon, “Religious Zionism and Its Opponents: Tradition and Modernity, Mcssianism and Romanticism,” Zmanim 14:60-69.

See for this and quotes below: Rachel's Tomb: The Development of a Cult, Author(s): Susan Starr Sered
Source: Jewish Studies Quarterly , 1995, Vol. 2, No. 2 (1995), pp. 103-148 Published by: Mohr Siebeck GmbH & Co. KG
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40753126

On November 6, 1987, in honor of the anniversary of Rachel’s death, Geula Cohen (a contemporary right-wing Israeli political leader) wrote a column for the Israeli newspaper Yedi'ot Aharonot in which she described how her mother used to cry and pray at Rachel’s Tomb before coming to visit her when she was incarcerated in a British jail because of her Zionist activities during the time of the British Mandate.89 Cohen portrays Rachel as the mother who is never quiet, who cries and prays and demands justice not only for her own biological children, but for all mothers’ children. The column ends with Cohen’s retelling the story of her trial before the bewigged British judges:

What did those British judges see at that moment! They saw nothing other than what I saw with the eyes of my soul. The image of Our Mother Rachel hovering (mesochechet) like a halo over the head of my mother, as her words of comfort 'There is hope for your future’ (Jeremiah 31) mixed together with the notes of ’Hatikva’ (the Israeli national anthem) which my mother sang out loud.

In the 1980’s when the plight of Jews who were not permitted to leave the Soviet Union was an acute issue, it was announced on Israeli radio that mothers of Jewish prisoners of Zion in Russia prayed at Rachels Tomb for the freedom of their children, because “Rachel is the mother of the exiled children.” This motif has become one of the most salient Rachel themes, tying together in a dramatic way both Rachel's association with exile and her role as eternal mother.

Other writers of this period began to associate Rachel with nature and Eretz Yisrael. David Frishman (1859-1922) was one of the first major writers of modern Hebrew literature. On one of his emotionally stirring trips from Russia to Eretz Yisrael he came to Rachel's Tomb, “And when I left the corridor [entrance way] and sat outside, the sun was already at the height of its power, everything around was blooming and joyful and green, and it was sent by the spirit of Rachel My Mother.”70

Again, I emphasize that this type of language was not traditional. Older Jewish sources did not attribute to Rachel the power to make the land bloom; this was a theme that grew out of 19th century spiritual Zionism which extolled nature, farming, and love of the land.

... Today, the 11th of the 8th month [11 Heshvan] Rachel died on the way to Ephrat, so the residents of Eretz Yisrael believe, and therefore many of them go to her Tomb on this day to fall against and kiss its earth, and pray to God that she should intercede on behalf of her children who have not yet returned to their homeland.

And one should look at this phenomenon with holy excitement [in a positive light, as a pious act). Of all of the Matriarchs, Rachel is the one who symbolizes the Mother of the Jewish people [HaUma] as a whole. Rachel the beautiful one, who died in the spring of her youth giving birth to her son, buried on the road, she is the one who cries for her people in their exile from their land. She calls to her God and calls Him to task. And her name will be remembered by her children for all the thousand years of their exile, at night when they rise to speak their heart and at all of their times of sorrow. Indeed, the Daughter of Judah [people of Israel] chose Rachel to symbolize their bitter and terrible fate, because just like Rachel was the most beloved by Jacob of all the Matriarchs, though her fate was worse even than that of her maidservants, so is the Daughter of Judah [people of Israel] the most beloved to God of all nations, but in the spring of her [its] youth she was murdered.

Eliezer Ben Yehuda, in HaHavatselet of November 5, 1882

"Cut off in the bloom of youth, (Rachel is) known to us only through the tender affection which she bore to her husband and children. It is a noble trait in the human heart, that it delights to honor all that appears to it beautiful and good. Both the intellect and the imagination aid in shedding a halo around it, and man has always shown the deepest devotion to the gods of his own creation. ... When her child died, the mother's love was changed into love for the whole nation. When Israel was threatened with misfortune, or overwhelmed with sorrow, she always appeared as their guardian angel."

August Ludwig Frankl (1810-1894) was a physician, writer, and the Secretary of the Vienna Jewish Community. In 1856 he made a trip to Eretz Yisrael, and while there he founded the Laemel School, an unusual institution for its day in that it offered children both a secular and religious education. (For founding this school, he was ex-communicated by the ultra-orthodox rabbis of Jerusalem.) According to the book he wrote describing his trip to Eretz Yisrael, the last place that he visited was Rachel's Tomb.