- published: 09 Aug 2012
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Rebecca (also spelled Rebekah) (Hebrew: רִבְקָה, Modern Rivkah Tiberian Riḇqāh ISO 259-3 Ribqa, from the Hebrew ribhqeh (lit., "connection"), from Semitic root r-b-q, "to tie, couple or join" or "to secure") appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. Rebecca and Isaac were one of the three couples buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs, the other two being Abraham and Sarah, and Jacob and Leah.
According to the account in the Book of Genesis, Rebecca was the wife of Isaac and the sister of Laban, who would later become the father of Rachel and Leah, two of the wives of Rebecca's son Jacob.
The news of her birth was told to her great-uncle Abraham after he returned from Akeidat Yitzchak (the Binding of Isaac), the episode in which Abraham was told by God to bring Isaac as a sacrifice on a mountain.
After the Binding of Isaac, Sarah, Abraham's wife, died. After taking care of her burial, Abraham went about finding a wife for his son Isaac, who was already thirty-seven years old. He commanded his servant (whom the Torah commentators identify as Eliezer of Damascus) to journey to his birthplace of Aram Naharaim to select a bride from his own family, rather than engage Isaac to a local Canaanite girl. Abraham sent along expensive jewelry, clothing and dainties as gifts to the bride and her family. If the girl had refused to follow him, Abraham stated that Eliezer would be absolved of his responsibility.
Sugar is the generalised name for a class of sweet-flavored substances used as food. They are carbohydrates and as this name implies, are composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. There are various types of sugar derived from different sources. Simple sugars are called monosaccharides and include glucose, fructose and galactose. The table or granulated sugar most customarily used as food is sucrose, a disaccharide. Other disaccharides include maltose and lactose.
Sugars are found in the tissues of most plants but are only present in sufficient concentrations for efficient extraction in sugarcane and sugar beet. Sugarcane is a giant grass and has been cultivated in tropical climates in the Far East since ancient times. A great expansion in its production took place in the 18th century with the setting up of sugar plantations in the West Indies and Americas. This was the first time that sugar became available to the common people who had previously had to rely on honey to sweeten foods. Sugar beet is a root crop and is cultivated in cooler climates and became a major source of sugar in the 19th century when methods for extracting the sugar became available. Sugar production and trade has changed the course of human history in many ways. It influenced the formation of colonies, the perpetuation of slavery, the transition to indentured labor, the migration of peoples, wars between 19th century sugar trade controlling nations and the ethnic composition and political structure of the new world.