A Wondrous Prayer at Rachel’s Tomb, by The Rav, Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a

The yahrtzeit of Rachel Our Mother falls on 11 Cheshvan; this year (5785) it falls on Tuesday of Parshas Vayeira

Master of the World, full of compassion: as we travel to Beis Lechem Efratah, to the holy and awesome tziyun—Rachel Our Mother’s tomb—about whom it is said, “Rachel weeps for her children; she refuses to be comforted.” Rachel Our Mother never stops praying for even a moment, not for a second, for us and for all our troubles. And now we are all in terrible distress and under terrible decrees. Every day, every moment and second, different and strange illnesses visit us—dangerous illnesses that seem to have almost no hope.

And now we have come to you, Rachel Our Mother, to pray before you about all our troubles and all the troubles of the House of Israel. [During the Three Weeks, one adds especially at this time of the Three Weeks:] our Beis HaMikdash was burned, our city was destroyed, and foreigners—“servants ruled over us; there is none to rescue us from their hand.” Therefore we have come to you, Rachel Our Mother, to pray before Hashem, and that you should elevate our prayer before Hashem with compassion and favor—until, in your merit, we will be saved with an everlasting salvation, and the Beis HaMikdash will be rebuilt in the blink of an eye, in our days, amen.

Master of the World: as I travel now to Rachel Our Mother’s tomb to prostrate myself upon her holy and awesome tziyun, please grant me the merit to cleave to her holy traits. Help me merit to weep day and night over the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash and over the destruction of the people of Israel, just as she did—as it is written, “Rachel weeps for her children.” Include me in her holy tears. Let me feel the pain of each and every Jew, and weep day and night over the spilling of the blood of Your holy and pure children. Please, Compassionate and Gracious One, Almighty—nothing is beyond You—grant me the merit to be like Rachel Our Mother, who gave everything she had to her sister. She surrendered herself completely, in every way, for her precious sister, and gave her all her worlds—this world and the next. Through this she merited to be the one who brings the Geulah, and Moshiach will first come to her holy tziyun. Please grant me the merit to travel to her constantly, day and night without pause, always to prostrate myself at her holy tziyun, and to pour out my heart like water at her holy tziyun—until I merit, in complete wholeness, to be included in her holy soul.

Master of the World, grant me the merit to be like Rachel Our Mother, who weeps day and night over the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash and over the blood of Israel that has been poured out like water.

Master of the World, grant me the merit to be holy and pure—my wife and I—like Rachel Our Mother. Out of the greatness of her holiness and purity, she handed over all her identifying signs to Leah her sister. She yielded her share in the World to Come and all the life of this world for her sister, and merited to give up her life for her sister with a whole heart. So too, grant me the merit to give up my life for each and every Jew with exalted self-sacrifice. Through this, I will merit to unite all the letters of Your holy Name—Yud–Kei and Vav–Kei in their full expansion—and to fulfill, “In You alone we mention Your Name.” Then I will merit that Your holy and awesome Name—Yud–Kei and Vav–Kei—will be before my eyes constantly, without pause, day and night, without interruption even for a single second.

Please, Compassionate and Gracious One: just as Yaakov Avinu merited to work for Rachel for seven years, so too grant me the merit to honor and cherish my wife day and night. Give me the mochin to cherish her and honor her without pause for even a second, and always to run to greet her and to bring her every good thing in the world—until, in the merit of the seven years that Yaakov worked for Rachel, there will be revealed to me: “The foundation of the Tzaddik is hidden in seven; the sign of the covenant is forever; the wellspring of blessing—Tzaddik Yesod Olam; ‘You are righteous—He is Hashem.’”

And I will merit to roar with awesome roars over the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash and over the blood of Israel that is spilled in the streets of the city day and night without pause, as it is written: “Hashem roars from on high; from His holy dwelling He gives forth His voice—He roars, He roars over His abode.” And I will raise a voice of lamentation and weeping day and night over the shattering of the daughter of my people—like Rachel Our Mother, who does not stop for a second from weeping over the killing of our people: brothers, parents, grandparents, and the little children who learn Torah, as it is written: “So says Hashem: A voice is heard in Ramah—lamentation, bitter weeping—Rachel weeps for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, for they are gone.” And I will merit, in complete wholeness—my wife and I—to be included in the soul of Rachel Our Mother. Through this, I will draw down the soul of Moshiach, who will merit to guard the holy covenant in the highest perfection—just as Rachel Our Mother merited to draw down the soul of Yosef, who merited to withstand every test in the world, until he sanctified all the space of the world, until even lesser holy offerings are eaten in his portion, visible to all who see.

Master of the World, Almighty—nothing is beyond You: in these holy and awesome moments, as I prostrate myself upon the holy and awesome tziyun of Rachel Our Mother, grant me, in Your abundant compassion and Your infinite kindness, to merit—like her—to pour out tears day and night over the spilling of the blood of Israel, a holy people, whose blood is poured out like water day and night in the streets of the city and in its public squares, and no one opens his mouth in protest.

Please, Compassionate and Gracious One: I know that all the terrible suffering that is passing over the people of Israel is only because of my terrible sins, and the endless blemishes of the covenant in which I have stumbled from my youth until this very day. Please, Compassionate and Gracious One, grant me the merit—like Rachel Our Mother—of: “So says Hashem: A voice is heard in Ramah—lamentation, bitter weeping—Rachel weeps for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, for they are gone.”

Please, Compassionate and Gracious One, grant me the merit to lift up a voice of lamentation and a voice of weeping day and night—especially at Chatzos until morning—over the shattering of the daughter of my people, and over all the slain of my people, old and young, whose blood is spilled day after day—and it is all only because of my terrible blemishes of the covenant.

Master of the World: in the merit of Rachel Our Mother, who took upon herself the spindle of silence—who saw her own gifts in her sister’s hands and remained silent—so too grant me the trait of silence in perfection. Then I will merit to fulfill in perfection: “Hashem is in His holy Sanctuary; hush before Him, all the earth.” And I will merit to give all that I have to every person in the world, and I will be like Rachel who dwells here, who gave everything she had to her sister—both this world and the next. In this merit I will become a throne for the Shechinah, and enter the King’s palace, and merit to be among the children of Rachel’s palace, which shines with precious light from one end of the world to the other. And I will merit the awesome ice that is above the Chayos, and I will merit to be entirely like that awesome ice—like Rachel, who merited Yaakov who said, “By day the heat consumed me, and the frost by night.” And in this merit I will burn with the fiery sparks of Your flame, and for twenty-four hours I will blaze with the fiery sparks of Your flame to You, blessed One—until, through this, I merit to be included in Abba and Imma Elyonim, and I will merit—like Rachel Our Mother—to draw down the soul of Moshiach ben Yosef into the world, who will redeem the people of Israel.

A Prayer at Rachel’s Tomb — for Women

Master of the World, Almighty—nothing is beyond You: with trembling and shaking, fear, quaking, dread, and awe, we stand here before the holy and awesome tziyun of Rachel Our Mother, peace be upon her. She burned and blazed with the fire of a holy flame day and night to You, Hashem—therefore her lamp is never extinguished. May it be Your will, Hashem our God and God of our fathers, that this fire of holy flame that burned within Rachel Our Mother day and night should burn within our hearts, in the sense of: “A continual fire shall burn upon the altar; it shall not be extinguished.” Let it be engraved upon our hearts until we merit to become a flame of fire in the chain of generations of holy and pure Mothers, who went out in dance around the altar’s blaze. And may we merit, like Rachel Our Mother, to draw into the world the soul of Moshiach ben Yosef, and—like her—to bear a son like Binyamin, in whose portion the Beis HaMikdash was built and will be rebuilt speedily in our days. And may we merit to pray for Moshiach ben Yosef, that he not fall into the hands of men of injustice. And through the power and merit of Rachel Our Mother—who stands day and night with weeping and roaring for the salvation of her children, as it is written: “A voice is heard in Ramah—lamentation, bitter weeping—Rachel weeps for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, for they are gone” (Yirmiyahu 31:14), “He roars, He roars over His abode” (ibid. 25:30)—therefore Rachel chose to be buried “on the road to Efrat, which is Beis Lechem,” by the roadside, so that we can always approach her with prayer, request, and cry, and pour out the yearning whisper of our hearts upon her holy and awesome tziyun.

Please, Compassionate and Gracious One: in the merit of Rachel Our Mother, peace be upon her, have compassion on Your sons and daughters who are slaughtered day after day in the streets of the city. Death has climbed through our windows—in physicality and in spirituality—“We were almost like Sedom; we resembled Amorah.” All the walls of morality, holiness, and modesty have been breached, and we have remained like orphans without father or mother—“like a lone pole on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.” For all the tzaddikim and tzaddikaniyos who were from time immemorial have left us: “They have departed to their resting places, leaving us to sigh.” And now the duty of the day has fallen upon us—to be the connecting link between Rachel Our Mother and the holy Mothers and the generations to come, and to pass on the torch of fire of Torah and Emunah, holiness, purity, and modesty that burns in our hearts day and night. And in the merit of passing this torch of fire to all our generations after us, the fire will burn in our hearts many times over—thousands and tens of thousands of times more and more—until we merit to be like the holy Mothers and the holy prophetesses: Miriam the prophetess and Devorah the prophetess, who at the time of their prophecy saw torches of fire above their tents. Until we merit that some spark of Rachel Our Mother—holy and pure—will be impregnated within us, and we too will merit a spirit of prophecy, as it is written: “And it shall be afterward that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your elders shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also upon the servants and upon the maidservants in those days I will pour out My spirit. And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke” (Yoel 3:1–3). And may the verses be fulfilled in our days: “Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You, and upon kingdoms that do not call upon Your Name; for they have devoured Yaakov and laid waste his dwelling” … “Why should the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’ Let it be known among the nations before our eyes—the vengeance for the blood of Your servants that has been spilled” (Tehillim 79:6–7, 10). “Rejoice, O nations, with His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants; He will return vengeance to His adversaries, and He will atone for His land, His people.” And Rachel’s roars, tears, and cries will awaken the light of the Geulah, and in the merit of Rachel Our Mother, peace be upon her, we will merit to see the complete Geulah and the building of the Beis HaMikdash—speedily in our days, in the blink of an eye—amen, forever and ever.