Rebecca רבקה אמנו

Rivka grew up in Charan, in Betuel's house, among deceivers, and remained different. Avraham's servant devised a test: the girl who waters both him and his camels is the bride. Rivka ran to the spring again and again until ten camels had drunk. Asked "will you go with this man?", she answers in a single word: "I will go."

For twenty years she is childless; she and Yitzchak pray facing one another. The pregnancy is violent, and she goes to enquire at Shem's study house: "If so, why am I?" The answer is prophecy: "Two nations are in your womb… and the elder shall serve the younger."

That knowledge shapes what follows. When blind Yitzchak prepares to bless Esav, she takes the risk on herself—"your curse be on me, my son"—and sends Yaakov in. Later she sends him to Charan "for a few days" that become twenty-two years; she never sees him again.