Rachel, daughter of Laban the Aramean and younger sister of Leah, is one of the four Matriarchs of the Jewish people, known as Rachel Imenu. A shepherdess in her father's house in Paddan-Aram, she met Jacob at the well after he had fled his brother Esau; he rolled the heavy stone from the well's mouth to water her flock.

Jacob loved her more than his other wives and offered to work seven years for Laban in order to marry her. On the wedding night Laban substituted Leah. According to the Talmud and Rashi, Jacob had agreed on signs with Rachel, but she gave them to her sister to spare her shame. Jacob then worked another seven years to marry Rachel. Rashi teaches that it was in the merit of this act that God "remembered Rachel" and granted her children.

Long barren, she first gave her maidservant Bilhah to Jacob, and later bore Joseph. On the return to Canaan, on the road to Ephrath near Bethlehem, she died giving birth to her second son, whom she named Ben-Oni and whom Jacob called Benjamin. According to Seder Olam she was thirty-six. She is the only Matriarch not buried in the Cave of Machpelah.

The prophet Jeremiah describes her weeping for her exiled children: "A voice is heard in Ramah… Rachel weeping for her children," and God answers: "Refrain your voice from weeping… for there is a reward for your work; your children shall return to their own border." She thus became the image of the mother who pleads for her children.

The Yalkut Shimoni dates her passing to 11 Cheshvan, a date drawn from the Book of Jubilees' mention of the eleventh day of the eighth month. Since at least the nineteenth century, crowds have gone up on that day to Kever Rachel near Bethlehem, especially women praying for children.