Rachel רחל
Yaakov's beloved wife, mother of Yosef and Binyamin
Yaakov met Rachel at the well, rolled the stone away alone, and wept. He worked seven years for her, «and they seemed to him but a few days for the love he had for her». On the wedding night Lavan substituted her sister; midrash says Rachel herself passed Leah the secret signs she had agreed with Yaakov, so her sister would not be shamed.
She is long childless. «Give me children, or I am dead» is her one sharp sentence. At last Yosef is born. On the return from Charan, almost at journey's end, she bears a second son and dies, naming him Ben-Oni, «son of my sorrow»; his father renames him Binyamin. Yaakov buries her by the roadside near Bethlehem — by midrash, so that exiles on the road to Babylon would pass her grave and she would pray for them.
Yirmeyahu hears her: «Rachel weeps for her children» — and the answer, «your children shall return to their borders».