Rachel's Tomb

For thousands of years, Jews have the custom to come to Rachel's tomb to plead with G-d to have their prayers answered. Jews have come to this site to pour forth their hearts in prayer, and to awaken her merit in any time of travail, for the community as well as for the individual. The site of her burial in Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem, known to us by tradition, is covered by a stone edifice. On the eleventh of Cheshvan, while giving birth to her 2nd son,  Binyamin, Rachel, the beloved wife of Ya'akov, died, and was buried on the road to Bethlehem.

Our matriarch Rachel was buried on the road to Jerusalem, exactly where she died.Why did our Patriarch Ya'akov bury Rachel on the road in Bethlehem?
When Nebuzaradan exiled the Jews from Israel, and they passed her grave, Rachel emerged to weep and to ask for mercy on their behalf. And God answers: "Thus did the Lord say, refrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for there is reward for your labor, said the Lord, and the children shall return to their boundary" (Rashi Va'yechi, and Midrashim quoted by Radak, Yirmeyahu 31).
From the time when the People of Israel went into their first exile until Yirmeyahu's prophecy of redemption ('and the children shall return to their boundary'), the grave of our mother Rachel has always been and will always remain a House of Prayer to Israel, for she is a mother to all Israel, and always awakens mercy on their behalf.

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