Parashat Vayishlach Devorah, Rivka, and the Nuturing Shechina

 Parashat Vayishlach

Devorah, Rivka, and the Nuturing Shechina

Rabbi Ari Kahn

In the midst of Yaakov's return to the land of his fathers, the Torah pauses to record a death that should not matter. A woman we never knew was alive—whose name was never spoken in her lifetime of service—suddenly emerges in the narrative only to disappear:

בראשית פרק לה (פרשת וישלח)

וַתָּ֤מָת דְּבֹרָה֙ מֵינֶ֣קֶת רִבְקָ֔ה וַתִּקָּבֵ֛ר מִתַּ֥חַת לְבֵֽית־אֵ֖ל תַּ֣חַת הָֽאַלּ֑וֹן וַיִּקְרָ֥א שְׁמ֖וֹ אַלּ֥וֹן בָּכֽוּת:

"Devorah, the nurse of Rivka, died, and she was buried below Beit El, beneath the oak, and he called its name Allon Bachut—the Oak of Weeping."

The verse is part of the narrative of Yaakov’s return, yet its placement feels strikingly unexpected. Nestled within the account of a triumphant homecoming and the faithful keeping of ancient vows, the sudden mention of an obscure death—a death that seems unrelated to the immediate events—creates a jarring pause. This moment introduces mourning amidst celebration and grief alongside joy, arresting the flow and demanding our interpretive attention.

The verse interrupts the sacred drama of Yaakov's homecoming. He has just arrived at Beit El, the site of his transformative vision decades earlier, the place where heaven and earth touched and God promised him protection and return. He has built an altar and named the place El Beit-El, "God of the House of God," acknowledging that here, in this luminous space, the divine repeatedly broke through. And then, without warning, the narrative shifts to mourning. Devorah dies. She is buried beneath an oak. The weeping is so profound that the place itself becomes a monument to grief.

Why does Scripture interrupt this moment of homecoming and divine encounter to inform us that an elderly nursemaid has passed away? The question becomes more troubling when we recognize the Torah's pattern of silence. The Torah habitually withholds information, compressing decades into single verses, omitting what we often most wish to know. We are never told when Rivka died, though she is a matriarch of Israel. We are never told when Leah died, though she bore six of the tribes and is buried in Me'arat HaMachpelah. Sarah's death is recorded with full ceremony; Rachel's death is narrated with poignant brevity. But Rivka and Leah’s deaths are not narrated in real time, and though their burial locations are mentioned retrospectively in Yaakov’s final words (Genesis 49:31), the Torah offers no farewell when they pass, nor any narrative of mourning at the moment of their death. The Torah is silent about the deaths of women who shaped the covenant, yet here it pauses to tell us about Devorah—a woman so obscure that we never even learned her name until this verse, a woman whose very presence with Yaakov's household has not been explained.

This is the heart of the puzzle. The Torah, which omits the deaths of matriarchs, records the death of a nursemaid. The Torah, which compresses entire lifetimes into genealogical lists, expands to tell us where Devorah was buried and what the place was called. Why?

The strangeness deepens when we trace Devorah's first appearance in the Torah. When Rivka prepared to leave her father's house to marry Yitzchak, we read:

בראשית פרק כד פסוק נט (פרשת חיי שרה(

וַֽיְשַׁלְּח֛וּ אֶת־רִבְקָ֥ה אֲחֹתָ֖ם וְאֶת־מֵנִקְתָּ֑הּ וְאֶת־עֶ֥בֶד אַבְרָהָ֖ם וְאֶת־אֲנָשָֽׁיו:

"And they sent away Rivka their sister and her nurse."

The nurse is mentioned but not named. She accompanies Rivka into her new life, a silent presence, a figure of nurture and continuity. For decades, she disappears from the narrative entirely. We hear nothing of her during Rivka's years of barrenness, nothing during the tumultuous births of Esav and Yaakov, nothing during the friction between the brothers, nothing during the drama of the stolen blessing. She is absent—or so it seems—from every pivotal moment in Rivka's life. And then, suddenly, here at Beit El, she reappears only to die. The text now names her: Devorah. And the naming comes too late, attached only to her death and burial.

But here we must pause to consider an assumption that shapes our entire reading. When the text identifies Devorah as מֵינֶקֶת רִבְקָה—meineket Rivka—we instinctively translate this as "Rivka's nurse," meaning the woman who nursed Rivka in her infancy. This reading seems natural, and it is the one most commentators adopt. Yet the text itself may invite a different understanding.

Consider the parallel case of Bilha and Zilpah. When Rachel and Leah married Yaakov, each brought with her a maidservant (shifchah) who would assist her in the new household and eventually help raise her children. These women were not their childhood nurses; they were given to them at the time of marriage as companions and helpers for the life ahead. The text in Genesis 29:24 and 29:29 records this straightforwardly: Lavan gave Zilpah to Leah and Bilhah to Rachel as they departed for married life.

What if Devorah's role was analogous? What if meineket Rivka  does not mean "the woman who nursed Rivka" but rather "a nurse for Rivka"—a woman given to her upon her marriage to serve as caregiver for the children Rivka would bear? This reading has profound implications. If Devorah was not Rivka's childhood nurse but rather a nurse provided for Rivka's future household, then Devorah would have been a generation younger, not older. More significantly, Devorah would have been the woman who raised Yaakov—who rocked him as an infant, soothed him as a child, taught him his first words, and remained a steady, nurturing presence throughout his formative years.

This would explain the depth of grief at  Allon Bachut. Yaakov was not weeping for a distant figure from his mother's past; he was mourning the woman who had been, in the most intimate sense, a second mother. His wives wept for the woman who had welcomed them and helped raise their children. His sons wept for their grandmother in all but name. The naming of the site—Allon Bachut , the Oak of Weeping—suddenly resonates not as an anomaly requiring midrashic justification, but as the natural response to the loss of a beloved matriarch.

Moreover, this reading aligns with a detail often overlooked. When Rivka is described in Genesis 24 at the moment of her betrothal, the text calls her a נַעֲרָה (na'arah)—typically translated as "young woman" or "maiden," a term suggesting someone of marriageable age, not a three-year-old child requiring a wet nurse. If Rivka was, as the plain sense of the narrative suggests, a young woman capable of drawing water for an entire caravan and making independent decisions about her future, then the nurse who accompanied her was not nursing her, but was rather brought along to nurse the children she would soon bear.

This reinterpretation does not rest on speculation alone. It is grounded in the biblical pattern of women bringing attendants into marriage and in the linguistic possibility that מֵינֶקֶת רִבְקָה describes function and relationship rather than past service. If we accept this reading, the presence of Devorah in Yaakov's household becomes utterly natural, her death deeply significant, and her mourning profoundly appropriate. She was not an elderly stranger whose appearance requires elaborate midrashic explanation; she was the woman who embodied continuity, who carried Rivka's values and love into the daily life of the next generation.

The commentators could not ignore this puzzle. Rashi, drawing upon the teachings of Rabbi Moshe HaDarshan—a scholar of the eleventh century whose midrashic traditions and teachings Rashi quotes nineteen times in his commentary on the Torah—offered an explanation rooted in Rivka's own words. When Rivka sent Yaakov away to escape Esav's murderous rage, she made him a promise:

בראשית פרק כז (פרשת תולדות)

(מג) וְעַתָּ֥ה בְנִ֖י שְׁמַ֣ע בְּקֹלִ֑י וְק֧וּם בְּרַח־לְךָ֛ אֶל־לָבָ֥ן אָחִ֖י חָרָֽנָה: (מד) וְיָשַׁבְתָּ֥ עִמּ֖וֹ יָמִ֣ים אֲחָדִ֑ים עַ֥ד אֲשֶׁר־תָּשׁ֖וּב חֲמַ֥ת אָחִֽיךָ: (מה) עַד־שׁ֨וּב אַף־אָחִ֜יךָ מִמְּךָ֗ וְשָׁכַח֙ אֵ֣ת אֲשֶׁר־עָשִׂ֣יתָ לּ֔וֹ וְשָׁלַחְתִּ֖י וּלְקַחְתִּ֣יךָ מִשָּׁ֑ם לָמָ֥ה אֶשְׁכַּ֛ל גַּם־שְׁנֵיכֶ֖ם י֥וֹם אֶחָֽד:

"Until your brother's anger turns away from you, and he forgets what you have done to him; then I will send and fetch you from there."

Rashi writes:

רש"י בראשית פרק לה פסוק ח (פרשת וישלח)

ותמת דבורה - מָה עִנְיַן דְּבוֹרָה בְּבֵית יַעֲקֹב? אֶלָּא לְפִי שֶׁאָמְרָה רִבְקָה לְיַעֲקֹב וְשָׁלַחְתִּי וּלְקַחְתִּיךָ מִשָּׁם, שָׁלְחָה דְבוֹרָה אֶצְלוֹ לְפַדַּן אֲרָם לָצֵאת מִשָּׁם, וּמֵתָה בַדֶּרֶךְ; מִדִּבְרֵי רַבִּי מֹשֶׁה הַדַּרְשָׁן לְמַדְתִּיהָ:

"What is Devorah doing in Yaakov's household? Rather, because Rivka said to Yaakov, 'I will send and fetch you from there,' she sent Devorah to him in Padan Aram to tell him to leave from there, and she died on the way."

According to this tradition, Devorah was the messenger, the emissary sent by Rivka to fulfill her promise. When Esav's anger finally subsided—or when Rivka determined that the time had come—she dispatched her faithful nurse on the long journey to Charan to summon Yaakov home. Devorah found him, delivered the message, and accompanied him on the return journey. But she did not survive to see Rivka again. She died en route, and Yaakov buried her at Beit El with such honor and mourning that the place became known as the Oak of Weeping.

This explanation appears in later midrashic compilations as well. The Lekach Tov, a midrashic work composed in eleventh-century Greece by Rabbi Tuvia ben Eliezer, who himself drew upon Rabbi Moshe HaDarshan's teachings, records the same tradition. It asks:

פסיקתא זוטרתא (לקח טוב) בראשית פרק לה פסוק ח (פרשת וישלח)

ותמת דבורה. שאילה מהיכן נמצאת דבורה עם יעקב והכתיב כי במקלי עברתי (שם לב יא), אלא מלמד ששלחה רבקה אמנו להביא את יעקב, וכה"א עד שוב אף אחיך ממך ושלחתי ולקחתיך משם (שם כז מה): מינקת רבקה. לבאר לנו כי היתה דבורה, כי לא נזכר שמה עד עתה, שנאמר וישלחו את רבקה אחותם ואת מניקתה (שם כד נט), ובא הנה להזכיר את שמה:

"From where did Devorah come to be with Yaakov, when it is written, 'With my staff alone I crossed this Jordan'? Rather, this teaches that our mother Rivka sent her to bring Yaakov back."

The Sekhel Tov, another midrashic work from twelfth-century Italy that utilized the Lekach Tov, repeats the idea almost verbatim. Both sources struggled with the same question: How could Devorah be traveling with Yaakov when he left Lavan's house with nothing but his staff? The answer: she was sent later, a messenger bearing Rivka's word.

Yet this solution, elegant as it appears, raises a deeper and more painful question. If Rivka sent for her son, if she kept her promise, if Devorah traveled all the way to Padan Aram to summon him home—then where is Rivka when Yaakov finally arrives? The Torah never records her death. After the blessing scene, after she sends Yaakov away with the words "shema b'koli"—"listen to my voice"—Rivka vanishes from the narrative. We never hear her voice again. We are not told when she died, or where, or how. When Yaakov returns to his father's house, the text says:

בראשית פרק לה (פרשת וישלח)

(כז) וַיָּבֹ֤א יַעֲקֹב֙ אֶל־יִצְחָ֣ק אָבִ֔יו מַמְרֵ֖א קִרְיַ֣ת הָֽאַרְבַּ֑ע הִ֣וא חֶבְר֔וֹן …

"And Yaakov came to Yitzchak his father at Mamre, Kiriath-arba, which is Chevron."

Only to his father. Not to his father and mother. The silence speaks.

The Midrash heard that silence and filled it with sorrow. Bereshit Rabbah teaches:

בראשית רבה (וילנא) פרשה פא סימן ה (פרשת וישלח)

ותמת דבורה מינקת רבקה וגו' ... עַד שֶׁהוּא מְשַׁמֵּר אֶבְלָהּ שֶׁל דְּבוֹרָה בָּאָה לֵיהּ בְּשׂוֹרְתָא שֶׁמֵּתָה אִמּוֹ, הֲדָא הוּא דִכְתִיב: וַיֵּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶל יַעֲקֹב וגו' וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתוֹ (בראשית ל"ה:ט'), מַהוּ בְּרָכָה בֵּרְכוֹ רַב אַחָא בְּשֵׁם רַבִּי יוֹנָתָן אָמַר בִּרְכַּת אֲבֵלִים בֵּרְכוֹ.

"While he was still observing mourning for Devorah, word came to him that his mother had died."

Two deaths, two losses, intersecting in a moment of unbearable grief. The weeping at Allon Bachut was not for Devorah alone. It was for Rivka as well, the mother Yaakov would never see again, whose death the Torah conceals in shadow. The Midrash continues, explaining that when God appeared to Yaakov immediately after this verse and blessed him, it was the blessing one offers to mourners—birkat aveilim—a divine consolation for the double loss.

But why would the Torah hide Rivka's death? Why record the passing of the nurse but not the matriarch? The Midrash (cited by the Ramban Bereishit 35:8[1]) offers one answer: shame. 

Rivka was the mother of Esav, and the people would curse her for bearing such a son. Better to conceal her death than to expose her memory to dishonor. The Ramban, however, proposes a different and more devastating explanation. He suggests that Rivka's death lacked honor not because of what people might say, but because of who was absent. Yaakov was not there—he had not yet returned. Esav, who hated her for orchestrating the blessing, would not come to mourn. Yitzchak, old and blind, could not leave his house. Who, then, would bury her? Only the Hittites, the local inhabitants, would attend to her burial, and there would be no ceremony, no eulogy, no procession befitting a matriarch of Israel. The Torah, in its mercy, does not chronicle this indignity. It hints at her death through Devorah's, allowing the nurse's mourning to carry the weight of what cannot be spoken about the mother.

The Ramban writes:

והנה גם מיתת לאה לא יזכיר. אבל הכוונה להם מפני שהזכיר המיתה ברמז, ותלה הדבר במניקתה

And behold, the death of Leah is also not mentioned. But the intent is that Scripture mentioned the death by hint, and connected the matter to her nurse.

Rivka's death is present, but veiled. It appears in the text as absence, as silence, as the unexplained tears at the Oak of Weeping. And this raises yet another question: if Rivka's death deserves concealment, why does Devorah's merit such explicit attention? What made this nursemaid so significant that her passing is recorded, her burial site named, her mourning memorialized in the eternal text of Torah?

Here the commentators diverge sharply, and their disagreement reveals the depth of the mystery. The Ramban remained unconvinced by the traditional explanation of how Devorah came to be with Yaakov. He writes:

רחוק הוא שתהיה הזקנה השליח שתשלח אמו ליעקב

It is far-fetched that this elderly woman would be the messenger that his mother sent to Yaakov.

If Devorah was the same nursemaid who accompanied Rivka from Charan decades earlier, she would have been extraordinarily old. Could such a woman undertake the arduous journey back to Padan Aram? The Ramban proposes alternatives. Perhaps Devorah had returned to her homeland years earlier and now, in her old age, traveled back with Yaakov to see Rivka one last time. Or perhaps Rivka, realizing that Yaakov would be away for many years, sent Devorah to help raise his children—a gift of nurturing wisdom to the next generation. Or perhaps Devorah was not the same nursemaid at all, but another woman who had served in Rivka's household and whom Yaakov now brought with him to honor his mother.

The Ramban's uncertainty reflects a deeper discomfort. The pieces of the traditional narrative do not quite fit. But more tellingly, the Ramban's alternatives all suggest the same thing: Devorah, in his view, was not a figure of particular significance. She was an old woman, a servant, perhaps beloved, but not someone whose death would normally warrant inclusion in Torah. The mention of her death is puzzling precisely because she seems unimportant.

Yet Rav Avraham ben HaRambam, writing in early thirteenth-century Egypt, saw something entirely different. He suggests:

רבי אברהם בן הרמב"ם בראשית פרק לה פסוק ח (פרשת וישלח)  1186-1237

ותמת דברה. סיפור התורה לזה מורה אל גודל כשרונה ואפשר שהיו מבקרים את קברה ומתפללים שם כמו שנשי ישראל היו נקראות על שמה לברכה [כמו שמצאנו] ודברה אשה נביאה ואמרו בהליכת דבורה אליו כי רבקה שלחה אותה כדי שתביא אותו כמו שאמרה לו ושלחתי ולקחתיך ויתכן שכאשר (יעקב) קרב אל הארץ יצאה דבורה לקראתו והיתה מאיצה עליו לבוא מהר:

The Torah's recounting of this indicates her great merit, and it is possible that people would visit her grave and pray there, just as Jewish women would invoke her name as a blessing."

Devorah, in this reading, was no mere servant. She was a figure of such spiritual stature that her grave became a pilgrimage site and her name a blessing invoked by generations of Jewish women. Rav Avraham ben HaRambam suggests the later Devorah—the prophetess and judge of Israel—was named for her, both bearing the name דְּבוֹרָה ("bee"), symbolizing wisdom's sweetness and communal nurture. Both were remembered with singular honor.

Here, then, is the paradox that the commentators could not resolve. The Ramban asks: Why is this insignificant woman mentioned at all? Rav Avraham ben HaRambam asks: How could we fail to recognize her greatness? One sees her death as an anomaly requiring explanation; the other sees it as evidence of extraordinary merit. The text itself offers no explicit answer. It simply records: Devorah died, she was buried, they wept.

But the very fact that she is mentioned—this almost anonymous woman who appears unnamed at Rivka's betrothal and reappears only to die—suggests that something essential is at stake. The Torah does not waste words.

While, as we noted, the Torah never narrates the deaths of Rivka or Leah in real time—and mentions their burial only briefly and retrospectively in Yaakov’s final words (Genesis 49:31)—it pauses in the middle of Yaakov’s journey to describe Devorah’s death as it happens and to name the place of her burial, Allon Bachut (Genesis 35:8).

Something about Devorah—and her relationship to Rivka—is not yet fully understood."

The name Allon Bachut (“Oak of Weeping”), a site near Bethel, symbolizes profound mourning and may reference the double grief of Devorah’s death and Rivka’s concealed passing. Its unique naming underlines Devorah's special significance in the narrative that we continue to explore.

The Ramban's uncertainty reflects a deeper discomfort, and Rabbi Naftali Hertz Wiesel, an eighteenth-century commentator, presses this objection further. He writes:

ר' נ"ה וויזל בראשית ל"ה

ותמת דבורה מינקת רבקה – [כתב רש"י] "מה ענין דבורה בבית יעקב? אלא לפי שאמרה רבקה ליעקב 'ושלחתי ולקחתיך משם' שלחה דבורה אצלו לפדן ארם לצאת משם. ומתה בדרך. דברי ר' משה הדרשן" [עכ"ל רש"י] ז"ל. אמנם אפשר שהיא שלחה אצלו כבר לפני שמונה שנים להשיבו כאשר שלמו י"ד שנים שעבד בשתי בנות לבן. וכאשר השכיר יעקב עצמו עוד על שש שנים ונשאר עם נשיו וילדיו בבית לבן. ועוד אין הדברים מתקבלים על דעתי, כפי הסברא, שתשיבנו רבקה משם בעוד לא שבה חמת אחיו ממנו. ואנו רואים כי עֶבְרַת עשו היתה שמורה בקרבו עדיין בשוב יעקב מפדן ארם, וכמבואר בפרשת וישלח. ואין לך לומר שעל פי הדבור שלחה להשיבו, שהרי דעת המקום לא הסכימה לזה אלא לאחר כלות עוד שש שנים. ואם בא הדבור ליעקב שישוב לארץ מולדתו איך סרב יעקב לעבור על מצות אמו. ואין ראיה מן "ושלחתי ולקחתיך משם" שכבר פירשנוהו בסוף פרשת תולדות. גם בעיני הרמב"ן ז"ל לא ישרו דבריו, ואמר שרחוק הוא שתהיה הזקנה השליח שתשלח אמו ליעקב.

וכפי הנראה לדעתי שכאשר ראתה רבקה שבנה יעקב צריך להתאחר בבית לבן ימים רבים, כי לא שב חמת אחיו ממנו, ושהתחתן שם עם שתי בנות אחיה והוליד בנים שלחה לו את האשה המבורכת הזאת את דבורה מינקתה להיות לו לעזר בגידולי בניו הקטנים. ובשוב יעקב עם כל ביתו מפדן ארם שבה עמו אל ארץ כנען. ובהיותה אשת חיל ויראת ה' נזכר שמה ומותה בתורה. וזכר שבכו עליה בכי גדול עד שקראו מקום קברה "אלון בכות", כי ספדוה יעקב ונשיו וזרעו שהטיבה לעשות עם כולם. ואולי ילמדנו הכתוב עוד שאמנו רבקה זכתה לינק משדי הצדקת הזאת שסייעה גם כן בשלמותה להורותינו, שצריך כל אדם להקפיד בקחתו מינקת לבניו לבחור באשה בעלת יראת י"י ומדות טובות. וזה ענין טבעי בהיות החלב מזון הילד וישוב לדם הניזון.

"It is possible that she sent word to him already eight years earlier, to bring him back when the fourteen years of service for Lavan's two daughters were complete... But still, the matter does not seem reasonable to me, that Rivka would bring him back from there while his brother's anger had not yet subsided. And we see that Esav's wrath was still preserved within him when Yaakov returned from Padan Aram."

The traditional reading, Rabbi Wiesel suggests, asks us to believe something the text itself contradicts: that Rivka sent for Yaakov because it was safe to return, when in fact it was not safe at all. Esav's fury still burned. The danger was real. When Yaakov finally approached the border of the land, Esav came to meet him—not alone, but with four hundred men. The text does not say "four hundred friends" or "four hundred servants." The text specifies that Esav came with four hundred men—a formidable military force whose number recalls Avraham's legendary victory with 318 men over four kings (Genesis 14). This numeric parallel highlights the gravity of the threat facing Yaakov, emphasizing that the covenantal promise is sustained not by earthly might but by divine intervention.

Terrified, Yaakov divided his camp and prayed for deliverance. Only a divine intervention—a wrestling match with an angel, his transformation into Yisrael, and a mysterious change of heart in Esav—prevented violence. Given these circumstances, can we truly say that Esav had calmed down? Can we believe that Rivka sent Devorah to summon Yaakov home while such danger still loomed?

The commentators offered multiple theories, but none entirely satisfied. Perhaps, as the Ramban suggested, Devorah came not as a messenger summoning Yaakov home, but as a caregiver sent years earlier to help nurture his growing family. In this reading, she was an eshet chayil, a woman of valor, sent by Rivka to ensure that the next generation would be raised with the same care and wisdom that had shaped Yaakov himself. Perhaps she was the embodiment of continuity, carrying Rivka's love and values across the distance that separated mother and son. When Yaakov's family finally returned to the land of Canaan, Devorah came with them, and when she died, they mourned her as one mourns a beloved grandmother. The naming of the place—Allon Bachut, the Oak of Weeping—testified to the depth of their grief.

Yet this still does not fully explain why the Torah records her death with such solemnity, or why her passing is so intimately connected to Yaakov's arrival at Beit El, the place of divine revelation. Nor does it resolve the paradox: Was Devorah a minor figure whose mention is puzzling, or a great soul whose merit demanded recognition? There is something more at work in this verse, something the commentators sensed but could not quite articulate. The death of Devorah is not merely a biographical detail. It is a theological marker, a hinge in the narrative, a moment when the visible and invisible worlds touch.

Before we can understand that moment, we must hear another voice—one that will transform our understanding not only of Devorah, but of Rivka herself, and of the mysterious ways that covenant is transmitted from one generation to the next.

At this point, the classical commentators leave us with an unresolved tension. Is Devorah a marginal figure whose mention is puzzling, as the Ramban implies, or a towering spiritual personality whose merit drew generations of women to her grave, as Rav Avraham ben HaRambam suggests? The Torah, which omits the deaths of Rivka and Leah, has chosen to write her name and to fix her tears upon the map of Eretz Yisrael. If Devorah stands at the crossroads of silence and speech, anonymity and remembrance, there must be more to her story.

It is here that a modern voice enters—one that does not cancel the earlier readings, but reframes them. Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, as recorded by Rabbi Saul Weiss, (Insights of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik – Saul Weiss, pages 84-85) asked a different question, one not about Devorah’s physical journey but about Rivka’s spiritual journey. How did Rivka become who she was? At the well outside Charan, “Rivka appears before us as a na’arah—a young woman, a maiden—whose instinctive response to a stranger’s request for water is a cascade of chesed.” She hastens to give servant (perhaps Eliezer) to drink and then, without being asked, draws water again and again for his ten thirsty camels. The Torah lingers on her movements, on her urgency, on the way she runs back and forth as if chesed were not merely a moral choice but her native language. Yet Rivka did not grow up in the tent of Avraham or in the home of Sarah. She was raised in the household of Betuel and Lavan, a home the tradition describes as pagan, corrupt, even orgiastic. How can such purity emerge from such darkness? How does a Rivka grow in that soil?

The Rav’s answer was as daring as it was simple. He suggested that Rivka did not stand alone. Beneath the surface of that corrupt Aramean environment, there existed what he called an "underground community" in Charan—a hidden fellowship of souls loyal to Avraham's moral vision. These were most likely people who had been influenced by Avraham during his years in Charan before his departure to Canaan, individuals who had encountered his monotheistic teaching and his ethic of justice and kindness, and who continued to follow his path even after he left. Avraham's influence did not end at the borders of Canaan; it lived on in Charan in the hearts of those who retained his teachings and vision. In the shadow of idolatry, there were people who whispered his Torah, who preserved his faith, who refused to surrender to the prevailing culture.

Rivka, according to this view, was part of that underground. She studied the teachings of Avraham not in his tent but in exile, in secret. She absorbed his philosophy, his weltanschauung, his way of seeing the world—a life lived before God in righteousness and compassion. And at the center of this hidden circle, the Rav suggested, stood one woman: Devorah.[2]

In Rav Soloveitchik’s portrait, Devorah is no longer a nurse in the narrow sense of providing physical nourishment alone, but a woman who offers spiritual nurture as well. She becomes the leader of a clandestine movement in Charan, a teacher of monotheism and morality, a spiritual matriarch in her own right. Rivka is her disciple, the young woman whose extraordinary chesed at the well is not an isolated miracle of character but the fruit of years of quiet instruction and example. Devorah thus nurtures Rivka’s soul just as she once nursed her body, sustaining not only life but faith. Under her guidance, Rivka learned not only to believe in the God of Avraham but to live like Avraham—to transform hospitality into a form of worship, to respond to human need with uncalculated generosity.

If so, the fact that the Torah pauses to record Devorah’s death at Beit El is not incidental. This report is a narrative and historical necessity: her passing must be inscribed in the text because she helped shape the destiny of Am Yisrael in exile. Without Devorah, there might be no Rivka as we know her; without Rivka, there might be no Yaakov as covenant-bearer. The tears at Allon Bachut are not merely the private grief of a family for an aged caregiver. They are the tears of a people for a hidden architect of its spiritual future, the leader of a moral underground whose work made the continuation of Avraham’s legacy possible.

Rav Soloveitchik developed this further with a daring comparison. Why, he asked, was Rivka not raised in the house of Avraham himself? Why did divine providence decree that she grow up in the morally compromised atmosphere of Betuel and Lavan? The Rav compared Rivka’s upbringing to the experience of Bnei Yisrael in Mitzrayim. In Egypt, the nation was subjected to cruelty, degradation, and idolatry, yet the Torah testifies that there they became  “a great nation.” It was in the crucible of oppression that their faith and identity were forged. Only one who has walked through the valley of spiritual darkness can truly appreciate the light of God’s moral order.

So too, the Rav suggested, with Rivka. Had she been raised in a safe, respectable, “balabatish” home—within a conventional, halakhically observant environment—she might never have felt, in all its starkness, the contrast between a world built on selfish desire and a world built on covenantal responsibility. By living within a pagan society and yet encountering, through Devorah and her circle, the radiant alternative of Avraham’s path, Rivka could recognize its greatness with a depth unavailable to those who never knew the other side. As the Rav put it, one cannot truly appreciate the good until one has seen the bad.

This powerful image—Rivka as a kind of “Egyptian exile of one,” Devorah as her underground mentor—elevates the nursemaid to an almost revolutionary status. Devorah becomes the spiritual resistance, the clandestine teacher who preserves the pure flame of Avraham in the smoky air of Charan. Her death must therefore be inscribed in the Torah; the Oak of Weeping marks not only the end of a life, but the passing of a leader whose influence runs beneath the entire story.

And yet, precisely here, hesitation arises. The image of Devorah as Rivka’s underground teacher is beautiful and persuasive. It restores dignity to the “anonymous nurse” and explains why her death ripples through the narrative. But it also threatens to pull the center of gravity away from Rivka herself. If Devorah is the architect of Rivka’s greatness, Rivka becomes derivative. She is no longer the spiritual origin point, but the product.

Sefer Bereishit, however, has already taught us another pattern. Avraham emerges from a world of idolatry without a mentor. No one takes him aside in Ur Kasdim or Charan to teach him monotheism. He is not the disciple of an underground academy; he is its founder. Alone amid the idolaters of Ur Kasdim, Avraham intuits a God who is one and transcendent, hears a call no one else perceives, and answers with his own lech lecha, walking away from everything familiar into a future even God describes only in fragments. Avraham is not merely taught truth; he discovers it. Is it impossible to imagine Rivka in similar terms? The Torah's brief portrait of her at the well—her instinctive chesed, her willingness to leave everything familiar and journey toward an unknown future—mirrors Avraham's own lech lecha. Like him, she emerges from a morally compromised environment. In this sense, one could argue that she possesses a kind of spiritual courage and clarity that sets her apart from her surroundings.

Rivka's story should be read in deliberate parallel to Avraham's. Like Avraham, she grows up in a world saturated with idolatry—Betuel and Lavan's house—yet arrives at a vision of the One God that expresses itself first as chesed: an open heart, an instinct to give, a readiness to leave home for the unknown (Genesis 24). Her moral monotheism is not initially presented as prophetic product; it arises from within her, as tradition teaches it did for Avraham.

Only afterward do we learn God speaks to her directly.[3] When the twins struggle in her womb, she seeks God and receives prophecy: 

בראשית פרק כה פסוק כג (פרשת תולדות)

(כג) וַיֹּ֨אמֶר ה֜' לָ֗הּ שְׁנֵ֤י גוֹיִם֙ בְּבִטְנֵ֔ךְ וּשְׁנֵ֣י לְאֻמִּ֔ים מִמֵּעַ֖יִךְ יִפָּרֵ֑דוּ וּלְאֹם֙ מִלְאֹ֣ם יֶֽאֱמָ֔ץ וְרַ֖ב יַעֲבֹ֥ד צָעִֽיר:

"and God said to her -Two nations are in your womb... the elder shall serve the younger" (Genesis 25:23).

While some commentators suggest this response came through an emissary, the plain meaning portrays Rivka as recipient of divine prophecy, directly touched by the heavenly realm. This encounter is not mere narrative aside but a profound moment shaping her spiritual awareness and decisions throughout her life.

Her trajectory mirrors Avraham's: discovery amid paganism, embodiment in chesed, deepening through revelation.

It is worth noting a widespread but theologically motivated teaching in some midrashim and commentaries that Rivka was merely three years old when she left her father’s house for Yitzchak—a reading that reflects a desire to align her life with that of Avraham, who tradition holds was three when he first glimpsed the unity of God. However, the biblical text itself calls Rivka a na’arah, a term that almost always denotes a young woman or maiden of marriageable age, a far cry from a toddler. This designation, along with other textual clues, stands in tension with the notion of a three-year-old bride, and likewise challenges suggestions that Yitzchak was only a youth at the Akedah.

Such age assignments appear less concerned with peshat—the straightforward reading of the text—and more with constructing a midrashic theology that links the great parents of Israel in typological harmony. The three-year-old motif thus reflects a spiritual allegory rather than an historical claim—a symbol that the divine call and spiritual awakening begin early and set the stage for the unfolding of covenantal destiny.

By recognizing this dynamic, we can approach Rivka as the na’arah the text describes: a young woman who was formed and prepared by her environment and divine providence, ready to embark on her own lech lecha, echoing Avraham’s journey both in age and in spiritual trajectory.

Placing Devorah in the role of Rivka’s theological teacher, therefore, distorts this symmetry. It suggests that Rivka’s faith is derivative, when the Torah and midrash together allow us to see her, like Avraham, as an origin point: a soul who discovers God, lives God’s ethics, and then is addressed by God.

Perhaps, then, the choice is not between Devorah and Rivka, between an underground movement and solitary discovery. Perhaps the Torah is drawing our gaze toward two intertwined forms of feminine leadership: one nurturing from below, one speaking from above. Devorah may well have provided Rivka with spiritual nurture, a human embodiment of faith and courage in the house of Betuel and Lavan. But Rivka herself, at the critical junctures of the narrative, stands not merely as a disciple of an underground community, but as a prophet through whom the Shechina speaks.

It is this intimate connection with the divine that infuses her later interventions with unparalleled authority. When we turn to the blessing narrative of chapter 27, we encounter not a woman relying solely on instinct or external teaching, but a prophetic figure whose actions are informed and empowered by ongoing divine communication.

To see this prophetic voice at work, we must return to the pivotal moment of the blessing narrative where Rivka's command rings out with unmistakable authority. The Torah repeatedly records Rivka’s command to Yaakov with the phrase shema b’koli—“listen to my voice” (Genesis 27:8, 13, 43)—a formula that resonates throughout the chapter, marking moments of decisive action and divine directive. Far from a mother’s mere counsel, these words carry the weight of prophecy and command, words through which the Shechina speaks and the divine will is disclosed. Moreover, tradition and the Targumim make explicit that Rivka receives ruach hakodesh—the divine spirit—that reveals to her Esav’s hidden intentions and guides her interventions. Thus, Rivka stands not only as a moral exemplar but as a prophetic conduit, chosen to articulate and enact the unfolding plan of God in history.

The key repeated phrase appears three times in Gen. 27:

(ח) וְעַתָּ֥ה בְנִ֖י שְׁמַ֣ע בְּקֹלִ֑י לַאֲשֶׁ֥ר אֲנִ֖י מְצַוָּ֥ה אֹתָֽךְ: 

(יב) אוּלַ֤י יְמֻשֵּׁ֙נִי֙ אָבִ֔י וְהָיִ֥יתִי בְעֵינָ֖יו כִּמְתַעְתֵּ֑עַ וְהֵבֵאתִ֥י עָלַ֛י קְלָלָ֖ה וְלֹ֥א בְרָכָֽה: 

(מג) וְעַתָּ֥ה בְנִ֖י שְׁמַ֣ע בְּקֹלִ֑י וְק֧וּם בְּרַח־לְךָ֛ אֶל־לָבָ֥ן אָחִ֖י חָרָֽנָה:

“listen to my voice,” Genesis 27:8

“and now, my son, listen to my voice,” Genesis 27:13

“and now, my son, listen to my voice, and arise flee from here,” Genesis 27:43

Targum Onkelos renders the crucial assurance at verse 13 in explicitly prophetic terms:

)יג) וַתֹּ֤אמֶר לוֹ֙ אִמּ֔וֹ עָלַ֥י קִלְלָתְךָ֖ בְּנִ֑י אַ֛ךְ שְׁמַ֥ע בְּקֹלִ֖י וְלֵ֥ךְ קַֽח־לִֽי:

And his mother said to him: Upon me be your curse, my son; only listen to my voice, and go take for me" (Genesis 27:13).

תרגום אונקלוס בראשית פרק כז פסוק יג (פרשת תולדות)

וַאֲמַרַת לֵיהּ אִמֵּיהּ עֲלַי אִתְאֲמַר בִּנְבוּאָה דְּלָא יֵיתוֹן לְוָטַיָּא עֲלָךְ בְּרִי בְּרַם קַבֵּיל מִנִּי וְאִיזֵיל סַב לִי.

“I was told by prophecy,” Targum Onkelos on Genesis 27:13

This signifies that Rivka’s words are no mere intuitive encouragement or tactical advice but revelation, divinely inspired knowledge.

Furthermore, at Genesis 27:42, the Torah states:

(מב) וַיֻּגַּ֣ד לְרִבְקָ֔ה אֶת־דִּבְרֵ֥י עֵשָׂ֖ו בְּנָ֣הּ הַגָּדֹ֑ל וַתִּשְׁלַ֞ח וַתִּקְרָ֤א לְיַעֲקֹב֙ בְּנָ֣הּ הַקָּטָ֔ן וַתֹּ֣אמֶר אֵלָ֔יו הִנֵּה֙ עֵשָׂ֣ו אָחִ֔יךָ מִתְנַחֵ֥ם לְךָ֖ לְהָרְגֶֽךָ:

And the words of Esau her elder son were told to Rebekah; and she sent and called Jacob her younger son, and said to him, ‘Behold, your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you.’" (Genesis 27:42)

Given that Esav only thought these words internally, the medieval commentators, including Rashi, understand this “telling” as ruach hakodesh, the divine spirit revealing hidden knowledge to Rivka.

Through this ruach hakodesh, Rivka acts as a vessel of divine will, her voice the channel through which God’s plans unfold.

The divine origin of Rivka’s authority clarifies the perplexing statement she makes to Yaakov:

(מה) עַד־שׁ֨וּב אַף־אָחִ֜יךָ מִמְּךָ֗ וְשָׁכַח֙ אֵ֣ת אֲשֶׁר־עָשִׂ֣יתָ לּ֔וֹ וְשָׁלַחְתִּ֖י וּלְקַחְתִּ֣יךָ מִשָּׁ֑ם לָמָ֥ה אֶשְׁכַּ֛ל גַּם־שְׁנֵיכֶ֖ם י֥וֹם אֶחָֽד:

“Until your brother's anger subsides and he forgets what you have done to him, I will send and fetch you from there” (Genesis 27:45).

At face value, this sounds like a simple maternal promise requiring a human emissary to fetch Yaakov. Traditional commentators—including Rashi—understood Devorah as that emissary, sent by Rivka to summon Yaakov home (Genesis 35:8).

Yet, recognizing Rivka’s role as a prophet and conduit of divine communication challenges this reading. If Rivka’s words are voiced by the Shechina itself, expressing God’s will, then the sending and fetching belong ultimately to God. Rivka’s promise to send Yaakov is not a plan she enacts personally; it is divine speech issuing through her mortal lips.

This view is supported by the recurrent formula vayugad—“it was told to Rivka” (Genesis 27:42)—which as we noted implies divine revelation, ruach hakodesh. God directs Rivka and, later, God directs Yaakov.

God reiterates this divine promise explicitly during Yaakov’s dream at Bethel:

בראשית פרק כח 

)טו) וְהִנֵּ֨ה אָנֹכִ֜י עִמָּ֗ךְ וּשְׁמַרְתִּ֙יךָ֙ בְּכֹ֣ל אֲשֶׁר־תֵּלֵ֔ךְ וַהֲשִׁ֣בֹתִ֔יךָ אֶל־הָאֲדָמָ֖ה הַזֹּ֑את כִּ֚י לֹ֣א אֶֽעֱזָבְךָ֔ עַ֚ד אֲשֶׁ֣ר אִם־עָשִׂ֔יתִי אֵ֥ת אֲשֶׁר־דִּבַּ֖רְתִּי לָֽךְ:

 

“I am with you, and I will guard you wherever you go, and I will return you to this land” (Genesis 28:15).

Later, God commands Yaakov:

בראשית פרק לא (פרשת ויצא)

(ג) וַיֹּ֤אמֶר ה֙' אֶֽל־יַעֲקֹ֔ב שׁ֛וּב אֶל־אֶ֥רֶץ אֲבוֹתֶ֖יךָ וּלְמוֹלַדְתֶּ֑ךָ וְאֶֽהְיֶ֖ה עִמָּֽךְ:

“Return to the land of your fathers and to your birthplace, and I will be with you” (Genesis 31:3).

Thus, the promise that Rivka speaks is fulfilled not by human emissary but by the Shechina’s direct intervention. God alone summons Yaakov home, answering the prophetic voice carried by Rivka.

This understanding preserves Rivka’s full status as prophet, avoids awkwardness in Devorah’s role, and deepens our appreciation for the divine orchestration behind the family’s destiny.

A subtle but revealing pattern in the language confirms that Rivka's prophetic perception was accurate. When Rivka instructs Yaakov to leave, she uses the urgent verb brach—"flee":

בראשית פרק כז (פרשת תולדות)

(מג) וְעַתָּ֥ה בְנִ֖י שְׁמַ֣ע בְּקֹלִ֑י וְק֧וּם בְּרַח־לְךָ֛ אֶל־לָבָ֥ן אָחִ֖י חָרָֽנָה:

"And now, my son, listen to my voice and arise, flee to yourself," Genesis 27:43).

By contrast, when Yitzchak subsequently blesses Yaakov and sends him to find a wife, he employs the calmer verb lech—"go":

בראשית פרק כח פסוק א (פרשת תולדות) - י (פרשת ויצא)

(א) וַיִּקְרָ֥א יִצְחָ֛ק אֶֽל־יַעֲקֹ֖ב וַיְבָ֣רֶךְ אֹת֑וֹ וַיְצַוֵּ֙הוּ֙ וַיֹּ֣אמֶר ל֔וֹ לֹֽא־תִקַּ֥ח אִשָּׁ֖ה מִבְּנ֥וֹת כְּנָֽעַן: (ב) ק֖וּם לֵךְ֙ פַּדֶּ֣נָֽה אֲרָ֔ם בֵּ֥יתָה בְתוּאֵ֖ל אֲבִ֣י אִמֶּ֑ךָ וְקַח־לְךָ֤ מִשָּׁם֙ אִשָּׁ֔ה מִבְּנ֥וֹת לָבָ֖ן אֲחִ֥י אִמֶּֽךָ:

"Arise, go to Padan Aram," Genesis 28:2.

Which verb reflects reality? Was Yaakov merely traveling on a matrimonial mission, or was he fleeing for his life from a murderous brother?

The Torah itself resolves this question. Twice, when God later recalls Yaakov's initial departure, He adopts Rivka's language, not Yitzchak's. At Beit El, upon Yaakov's return, God says:

בראשית פרק לה (פרשת וישלח)

(א) וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶֽל־יַעֲקֹ֔ב ק֛וּם עֲלֵ֥ה בֵֽית־אֵ֖ל וְשֶׁב־שָׁ֑ם וַעֲשֵׂה־שָׁ֣ם מִזְבֵּ֔חַ לָאֵל֙ הַנִּרְאֶ֣ה אֵלֶ֔יךָ בְּבָרְחֲךָ֔ מִפְּנֵ֖י עֵשָׂ֥ו אָחִֽיךָ: … (ז) וַיִּ֤בֶן שָׁם֙ מִזְבֵּ֔חַ וַיִּקְרָא֙ לַמָּק֔וֹם אֵ֖ל בֵּֽית־אֵ֑ל כִּ֣י שָׁ֗ם נִגְל֤וּ אֵלָיו֙ הָֽאֱלֹהִ֔ים בְּבָרְח֖וֹ מִפְּנֵ֥י אָחִֽיו: 

"To the God who appeared to you when you fled from Esav your brother," Genesis 35:1.

"Because there God revealed Himself to him when he fled from his brother," Genesis 35:7.

Twice the verb בְּבָרְחוֹ—"when he fled"—appears in divine speech. God validates Rivka's reading of the situation. Yaakov was not simply going; he was fleeing. The danger was real, Esav's rage genuine, and Rivka's urgent command—brach lecha—was prophetically accurate.

This linguistic pattern underscores that Rivka's voice carried divine insight. When the Torah must choose between the calm perspective of Yitzchak and the urgent perspective of Rivka, it chooses Rivka. Her perception of reality, informed by ruach hakodesh, becomes the lens through which the narrative itself remembers and retells the story.

If Rivka speaks prophetically, and if God Himself fulfills the promise to bring Yaakov home, then what role does Devorah play? The traditional reading—that Devorah was sent as Rivka's messenger to fetch Yaakov from Padan Aram—begins to seem unnecessary, even awkward. As the Ramban noted, it strains credibility to imagine an elderly woman undertaking such a journey. More fundamentally, if the Shechina speaks through Rivka and God directly commands Yaakov's return, no human emissary is required.

Yet this does not diminish Devorah's significance. It reframes it. Devorah need not be the literal messenger carrying Rivka's summons. Her role lies on a different plane entirely—one that complements rather than competes with Rivka's prophetic function.

Rav Soloveitchik's portrait of Devorah as leader of a moral underground in Charan captures an essential truth: there existed a dimension of nurture, teaching, and embodied faithfulness that sustained Avraham's legacy in exile. Whether or not Devorah formally "taught" Rivka monotheism—and we have argued that Rivka, like Avraham, discovered God independently—Devorah represents the nurturing presence of the divine in human form. She is the one who holds, feeds, comforts, and sustains. If Rivka is the voice of the Shechina, commanding and directing through prophetic speech, Devorah is the embrace of the Shechina, nurturing and preserving through daily acts of care.

This duality resolves the tension between the Ramban's puzzlement (why is this obscure woman mentioned?) and Rav Avraham ben HaRambam's reverence (she was a figure of great spiritual merit). Both are correct. Devorah is not a prophet, yet her life manifests the divine attribute of rachamim—compassion and nurture. She embodies what the later mystical tradition would call the Shechina's immanent presence, the mothering face of God that dwells among the people even in exile.

The Torah records her death at Beit El—the very site where Yaakov saw the ladder connecting heaven and earth—because she represents the earthly pole of that connection. Above: the Shechina speaks through Rivka. Below: the Shechina nurses through Devorah. Together, they form a complete picture of how the covenant is transmitted from one generation to the next.

At last we can return to that lone verse that set our inquiry in motion:

(ח) וַתָּ֤מָת דְּבֹרָה֙ מֵינֶ֣קֶת רִבְקָ֔ה וַתִּקָּבֵ֛ר מִתַּ֥חַת לְבֵֽית־אֵ֖ל תַּ֣חַת הָֽאַלּ֑וֹן וַיִּקְרָ֥א שְׁמ֖וֹ אַלּ֥וֹן בָּכֽוּת: "Devorah, the nurse of Rivka, died, and she was buried below Beit El, beneath the oak, and he called its name Allon Bachut—the Oak of Weeping" (Genesis 35:8).

Devorah's death is recorded precisely at Beit El—the place where Yaakov first saw the Shechina standing over him, where God promised, "I am with you… and I will bring you back" (Genesis 28:15)—echoing the words his mother had spoken prophetically. It is there, at the topological and spiritual intersection of heaven and earth—the very rung of the ladder where ascent and descent converge—that the Torah inscribes the name of the woman who embodied the Shechina's nurturing presence.

The oak itself is telling. In Tanach, the tree often serves as a meeting point of worlds—roots sunk in the dark earth, branches reaching toward light. Here, the allon holds two griefs at once: the spoken mourning for Devorah and the unspoken mourning for Rivka. Chazal teach that while Yaakov wept for his nurse, news came of his mother's death (Bereshit Rabbah 81:5). The Torah will not narrate Rivka's death in real time. Though her burial in Me'arat HaMachpelah is mentioned retrospectively in Yaakov's final words (Genesis 49:31), the text offers no farewell when she passes, nor any narrative of mourning at the moment of her death. Yet it allows her tears to seep into the soil of Beit El through the story of another woman's grave. Devorah's death is the visible side of a hidden loss; the Oak of Weeping becomes a double memorial, a place where two women are mourned—one named, one concealed.

In the language of sod, we might say that Rivka represents the upper wellspring, the voice of the Shechina flowing from above—prophetic, commanding, shaping history through word. Devorah represents the lower wellspring, the same Shechina filtering down into daily life—feeding infants, comforting children, sustaining faith in kitchens and courtyards and back rooms in Charan. The Zohar would later speak of the Shechina as Ima Tata'ah, the lower mother, the divine presence that dwells with Israel in exile. Long before the Zohar, the Torah has already given us its image: a nursemaid who appears at the threshold of exile and reappears at the threshold of return.

From this perspective, the two channels of transmission become clear. The covenant travels through vertical revelation and horizontal nurture, through word and through touch.

Vertically: Rivka hears the struggle in her womb and is answered with prophecy (Genesis 25:22–23). She hears Esav's unspoken rage through ruach hakodesh (Genesis 27:42). She commands Yaakov with the urgency of one who knows that the stakes are not merely familial but cosmic. God confirms her reading of reality, adopts her verbs, fulfills her promise with His own "I will bring you back" (Genesis 28:15; 31:3). Rivka is the ear that receives and the mouth that speaks. Through her, the Shechina instructs.

Horizontally: Devorah holds infants, teaches children, quietly shapes a young girl named Rivka in a house that reeks of idolatry. If we follow Rav Soloveitchik, she leads an underground circle of faith in Charan, preserving Avraham's teachings among those he influenced before his departure. If we follow Rav Avraham ben HaRambam, her grave becomes a pilgrimage site, her name a blessing on the lips of Jewish women. In every reading, she is the human face of divine nurture, the one who makes Torah livable, tangible, embodied. Through her, the Shechina feeds.

This duality—Rivka above, Devorah below—helps explain the asymmetry of their deaths in the text. Prophecy in Bereishit often hides itself. We are not told when or how Rivka dies because she has already stepped into the realm where names are less important than voices. Her legacy is not marked in stone but woven into Yaakov's destiny, into the transformation from Yaakov to Yisrael that occurs precisely at the time when her life ends. For Rivka, the Torah substitutes narrative consequence for obituary.

Devorah, by contrast, must be buried in words. The Shechina's nurturing presence is easily overlooked; it disappears into the routines of care. To ensure that such nurture is never dismissed as trivial or "merely domestic," the Torah carves a verse for Devorah, etches her name beside Beit El, and anchors her memory to the geography of revelation. Where God once stood above the ladder and promised to guard and return Yaakov, there the nurse who guarded and nurtured his childhood stands now beneath the oak, returned herself to the earth. Heaven and earth meet again: above, the God who promises; below, the woman who sustained those destined to receive that promise.

Thus the question with which we began—why does the Torah record the death of a seemingly anonymous nurse while omitting the real-time deaths of matriarchs?—receives a deeper answer. The Torah is not choosing between greatness and insignificance. It is revealing two faces of the same mystery. Rivka teaches that the Shechina speaks; Devorah teaches that the Shechina nurses. Rivka shows us that God's word can be carried in a woman's voice, directing the course of history. Devorah shows us that God's presence can be carried in a woman's arms, sustaining the fragile beginnings of that history.

Allon Bachut thus becomes more than a topographical note. It is the point at which we are invited to weep for all that is hidden: for the unrecorded tears of Rivka, for the unspoken wisdom of women who transmitted covenantal life without ever delivering a formal derashah, for the countless acts of quiet nurture upon which the grand architecture of Jewish destiny rests. Under that oak, the Torah teaches us to listen not only to the thunder of prophecy but also to the soft footfalls of those who rock cradles, prepare food, and whisper the first names of God into children's ears.

In the end, the story of Devorah and Rivka is not a marginal footnote to Yaakov's journey. It is a revelation of how that journey was even possible. Between the ladder of Beit El and the Oak of Weeping, between the voice that says "Return to the land of your fathers" (Genesis 31:3) and the arms that once lifted a crying infant, the Shechina moves in two modes: commanding and comforting, summoning and sustaining. Devorah, Rivka, and the nurturing Shechina together remind us that the covenant does not travel only through visions and promises, but also through milk and tears.

It is there, in the meeting of those worlds, that the pshat of the verse opens into something deeper: a brief notice of an old woman's death, transformed into a window onto the secret life of the Shechina in our history.

 

         In loving memory of my mother

Rivkah Riva bat Nechemia Meir v’ Mindel A”H

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[1] Ramban Bereishit 35:8

...But it is possible to say that there was no honor in her death, for Yaakov was not there, and Esav hated her and would not come there, and Yitzchak's eyes were dim and he could not leave his house. Therefore the text did not want to mention that the sons of Chet buried her. And on this matter I found (in Bereshit Rabbah, parasha "When you go out to war" [Tanchuma Tetzaveh 4]): They said, when Rivka died, who will go out first? Avraham is dead, Yitzchak sits in the house and his eyes are dim, Yaakov went to Padan Aram—who will go out? The wicked Esav will go out first and mock the creature, saying "Now they suckle as before." What did Esav do? He took out her bier at night. Rabbi Yosi bar Chanina said: Because they took out her bier at night, the scriptures did not detail her death explicitly, but obliquely. This is what is written: "and he called its name Allon Bachut"—two weepings. This is what is written: "And God appeared to Yaakov and blessed him"—what did He bless him with? The blessing of mourners He blessed him with. Until here.

And behold, because Esav was alone at her burial, they feared the curse and did not see that there would be honor for her, and this is the meaning of the hint: "and Devorah was with Yaakov," for after she came with Rivka to the land, she returned to her place, and now she comes with Yaakov to see her mistress. Or she was occupied with raising Yaakov's children, for the honor of Rivka and her love, and she was in his house.

רמב"ן בראשית פרק לה פסוק ח (פרשת וישלח)

…אבל יתכן לומר שלא היה לה כבוד במיתתה, כי יעקב איננו שם, ועשו שונא אותה ולא יבא שמה, ויצחק כהו עיניו ואיננו יוצא מביתו, ולכן לא רצה הכתוב להזכיר שיקברוה בני חת: וכענין הזה מצאתי (באלה הדברים רבה בפרשה כי תצא למלחמה) [תנחומא תצא ד], אמרו אתה מוצא כשמתה רבקה אמרין מאן יפוק קמא, אברהם מת, יצחק יושב בבית ועיניו כהות, יעקב הלך לו לפדן ארם, יפוק עשו רשיעא קמא ויימרון ברייתא ליטין בזיא דהא כדין ינקין, מה עשו הוציאו מטתה בלילה. אמר רבי יוסי בר חנינה, לפי שהוציאו מטתה בלילה לא פרשו הכתובים מיתתה אלא מן הצד, הדא הוא דכתיב ויקרא שמו אלון בכות, שתי בכיות. הדא הוא דכתיב וירא אלהים אל יעקב ויברך אותו, מה ברכו, ברכת אבלים ברכו, עד כאן. והנה בעבור שהיה עשו יחידי בקבורתה פחדו מן הקללה ולא ראו שיהיה לה לכבוד, וזה ענין הרמז: והיתה דבורה עם יעקב, כי אחרי שבאה עם רבקה שבה לארצה, ועתה תבא עם יעקב לראות גברתה. או נתעסקה בגדול בני יעקב לכבוד רבקה ולאהבתה והיתה בביתו.

 

[2] Insights of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik – Saul Weiss, pages 84-85

Deborah—Leader of an Underground Movement

"Deborah, Rebekah's nurse died, and was buried under the oak below Bethel; so it was named Allon Bachuth ("the oak of the weeping") (Gen. 35:8).

Rashi comments that Deborah was the same nurse who accompanied Rebekah when she left her father's house. Rebekah, we know, was a young girl who possessed extraordinary hesed. We all know the incident that took place at the house of Bethuel and Laban, and coming from a pagan orgiastic society, how was it that she possessed such great humility and hesed typical of a daughter of Abraham? How did this happen? Why was she not influenced by her family and society?

The Rav theorized that there must have been an "underground community" in Haran, preaching Abraham's morality. Rebekah was part of this underground movement. She studied and absorbed Abraham's philosophy and adopted his Weltanschauung—living by his principles of justice and righteousness. Who was the leader of this underground movement? Deborah!

Why was the death of an old woman so significant that it was recorded in the Torah? Apparently, Deborah played a major role in shaping the history and the destiny of the Jewish people. Deborah's death, and the naming of the place where she died, was recorded because her life was historically important. Deborah was the leader of a moral underground movement, and a most effective leader at that.

The question may be posed regarding Rebekah—why was it necessary for her to be brought up in a pagan home? Why could she not have been raised in a home similar to Abraham's? The Rav compared Rebekah's environment to that of the Israelites during their long period of bondage in Egypt. The Torah teaches that in Egypt they became "a great nation" (Deut. 26:5). The Israelites were subjected to merciless persecution. Yet, somehow, even in order for them to experience the evils of immorality, spiritually, had Rebekah been brought up in a balabatasha  house, she could not have appreciated the greatness and beauty of the moral philosophy that cannot be grasped when one experiences the bad (notes from Motzei Shabbos Shiurim).

 

 

[3] While some debate this point – it seems to be the plain meaning of the text “And God spoke to her”.