Jacob returns to Beth El and prepares to build an altar to God and amidst these profound events we suddenly read this:

“Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and was buried under the road below Bethel; so it was named the tree of tears.” (Gen. 35:8). In the middle of the drama of Jacob’s life, why does the Torah pause to note the death of a woman about whom almost nothing is known?

Deborah is mentioned but once before in the Torah (Gen. 24:59). Deborah was either Rebekah’s childhood nurse or is intended to be the nurse to Rebekah’s children when they are born. Rebekah and Isaac live in Haran. What is she doing decades later with Jacob, all grown, at Bethel?

Deborah is buried under “allon bachut,” the tree of tears. We assume that Deborah took care of Jacob himself when he was a child. Noting her passing, and the mourning it evoked, the Torah is hinting at something we now know from neuroscience.

In the first few years of life, more than one million new neural connections are formed every second. http://science.unctv.org/content/reportersblog/babies-neural-connections. Years of research have emphasized how much of our personality is shaped by our early years. This formative educational time was – and still often is – the province of mothers and nurses who brought the wisdom of the community to the newborns. The essential shaping of Jewish character was the legacy of women. By the time fathers began to educate children, their personalities were largely formed.

Robert Louis Stevenson describes the nurse of his childhood, Allison Cunningham, in a poem in his “A Child’s Garden of Verses”:

For the long nights you lay awake
And watched for my unworthy sake…
For all the story-books you read:
For all the pains you comforted…
The angel of my infant life.

Perhaps, as Ramban suggests, she was with Jacob not to bring him back but to pass on the legacy of child care to Rachel and Leah to be their teacher. Now an old woman, having raised Jacob, Deborah would have generations of childcare wisdom to offer to the young mothers. If so, Deborah was instrumental in shaping not only Jacob, but the tribes of Israel.

Deborah’s resting place is names “the tree of tears” to remind us how precious and dear she was to Jacob and his family. Our sages tell us we do not forget “girsa d’yankuta” – the version of our youth. Those who sing our first lullabies and steady our first steps remain forever precious. Let us give a moment to Deborah, who like the many unsung women who shape our youth, helped take Israel from the cradle to the world.