On this one-year anniversary of the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, Oct. 7, Amy Yoder McGloughlin reflects on how the imagery of Rachel’s tears applies to the current war.
Amy Yoder McGloughlin is the conference minister for Allegheny Mennonite Conference. Amy travels every year to Palestine to volunteer with Community Peacemaker Teams and Hebron International Resource Network.
“A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.” — Matthew 2:18 (NIV)
Rachel, the second wife of Jacob, is an underappreciated part of Jesus’ birth narrative. Generations before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and before he, Mary and Joseph narrowly escaped from Herod’s murdering tirade of baby boys in the region, Rachel gave birth to her second and final child, Benjamin, in Bethlehem. She gave birth on the side of the road in Bethlehem, as the family moved from the north down into the city of Hebron, Jacob’s hometown. And there, on the side of the road, she died.
It is intentional, then, that the gospel writer invokes Rachel’s tears in Bethlehem, as Jesus is escaping death by Herod. Weeping was heard as far away as Ramah; Rachel was weeping for her children, for they were no more.
Rachel, a compassionate mother, wept for her miscarried children, wept for Benjamin, who would be motherless, and wept for her descendants she would never know.
A few weeks ago, I was in Palestine, visiting friends and volunteering with Community Peacemaker Teams. I was curious about Rachel’s tomb, a memorial to the matriarch who died on the side of the road, because Rachel is an important character for Christians, Jews and Muslims in our Scriptures. So I decided to try to visit the shrine. I wanted to understand the power of her tears in the Jesus narrative.
Rachel’s tomb is right on the main road in Bethlehem. Before the second intifada,[1] it would have been easy to access the shrine. It is in front of the Aida Refugee camp and next to the Muslim cemetery. But now, it is behind the separation wall, which is defiantly adorned with murals depicting resistance to the occupation. On the Palestinian side of the wall, Rachel’s tomb can no longer be accessed.
I was determined to figure out how to visit the shrine, so I walked alongside the wall, bearing witness to the spray-painted stories and images. At the end of the meandering wall was Checkpoint 300, the main entrance from Israel into the West Bank. And it was closed.
A year ago, when I was in Palestine, the checkpoint was always open. It was annoying to get through sometimes, with hundreds of Palestinian bodies pressing relentlessly to get to work in the morning, or tourists lugging inefficient suitcases through turnstiles that were designed to crush bodies and spirits. But this year, it was closed. It seems that since the war on Gaza began, the checkpoint is open only a few hours a day, if at all.
I couldn’t access Rachel’s tomb. Her shrine was reserved almost exclusively for folks on the Israeli side of the checkpoint.
I cried out in frustration. I wanted to understand Rachel’s invocation in the story of Jesus. But really, I already knew why Rachel wept thousands of years ago — she wept for the children she lost in childbirth, and she wept for the children that died in Bethlehem while Jesus escaped to Egypt with his parents.
And Rachel continues to weep. She weeps for the children of Gaza who died from bombs, injury, starvation and illness. She weeps for the children of the West Bank, who are struggling to get to school through checkpoints monitored by young Israeli solders and who can’t play safely outside and are constantly afraid.
Rachel weeps, now, for those in Lebanon and Israel, who face indiscriminate bombing and who have nothing to do with the troubles created by their politicians and military leaders.
The invocation of Rachel’s tears in the Jesus narrative teaches us that there is a place for weeping. And there is so much to weep about in Palestine. The difficulties there did not begin last year, but they have certainly escalated since then. I join Rachel in weeping for all that’s been lost by Palestinians, Lebanese people and Israelis these last several months, years, decades.
Rachel has been weeping for millennia. She is not done with her tears yet. Her weeping is heard for miles and she cannot be consoled.
Rachel’s story may fill you with despair — she has been weeping for so long for the suffering in Palestine and Israel. And the suffering only seems to grow these days. But I find Rachel’s weeping to be comforting, because Rachel’s heart is tender, despite the suffering she’s seen over the millennia. She weeps because her heart is tender; she has not grown hard to the tragedies of the world. Each story, each bit of news, breaks her heart again.
As the suffering grows, let our hearts not grow hard. May we continue to be broken by the world. Because when our hearts are broken, we have deep empathy with all of God’s people. When we weep, we express our solidarity with the oppressed. Our tears make us more human, as the news desensitizes us with its disembodied headlines.
Rachel’s tears continue long after her death. They echo through the valleys and ring out over the mountaintops of Palestine. We join her tears for all who suffer. Those tears send us out to be more compassionate, to love more deeply, to risk more for peace.
May our tears and those of our spiritual ancestor, Rachel, make us more human — as we grieve, as we march, as we work for peace.
[1] Editor’s note: An intifada is an uprising, often used in relation to an armed rebellion by Palestinians in response to Israeli occupation of West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The phrase “the second intifada” refers to a major uprising of Palestinians against Israeli occupation that included heightened violence from 2000-2005.
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