Star

A star is a luminous sphere of plasma held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Other stars are visible to the naked eye from Earth during the night, appearing as a multitude of fixed luminous points in the sky due to their immense distance from Earth. Historically, the most prominent stars were grouped into constellations and asterisms, and the brightest stars gained proper names. Extensive catalogues of stars have been assembled by astronomers, which provide standardized star designations.

For at least a portion of its life, a star shines due to thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium in its core, releasing energy that traverses the star's interior and then radiates into outer space. Once the hydrogen in the core of a star is nearly exhausted, almost all naturally occurring elements heavier than helium are created by stellar nucleosynthesis during the star's lifetime and, for some stars, by supernova nucleosynthesis when it explodes. Near the end of its life, a star can also contain degenerate matter. Astronomers can determine the mass, age, metallicity (chemical composition), and many other properties of a star by observing its motion through space, luminosity, and spectrum respectively. The total mass of a star is the principal determinant of its evolution and eventual fate. Other characteristics of a star, including diameter and temperature, change over its life, while the star's environment affects its rotation and movement. A plot of the temperature of many stars against their luminosities, known as a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram (H–R diagram), allows the age and evolutionary state of a star to be determined.

Rebecca

Rebecca (also spelled Rebekah) (Hebrew: רִבְקָה, Modern Rivká, Tiberian Riḇqā ISO 259-3 Ribqa,(AssyrianːܪܲܦܩܵܐːRapqa) from the Hebrew ribhqeh (lit., "connection"), from Semitic root r-b-q, "to tie, couple or join", "to secure", or "to snare") appears in the Hebrew Bible as the wife of Isaac and the mother of Jacob and Esau. Rebecca and Isaac were one of the four couples believed to be buried in the Cave of the Patriarchs, the other three being Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, and Jacob and Leah.

Early life

The news of her birth was told to her uncle Abraham before Akeidat Yitzchak (the Binding of Isaac), the episode in which Abraham was told by God to bring Isaac as a sacrifice on a mountain.

Many years 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 37 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.