The Cloud Over Sarah's Tent Returns When Rebecca Enters

"Into the tent of Sarah his mother" — for he found her fit like Sarah his mother. And our Sages of blessed memory said that over Sarah a cloud was bound upon her tent, and when she would kindle lamps on the eve of the Sabbath, the lamps would burn until the going out of the Sabbath; and so too with Rebecca. "And the cloud covered the tent of Sarah" — when Sarah died the cloud departed, and when Rebecca came the cloud returned. And just as Sarah was scrupulous in the three commandments by which a woman is obligated — niddah (menstrual separation), challah, and the kindling of the lamp — so too was Rebecca scrupulous. "And Isaac was comforted after his mother" — all the time that a man's mother is alive his love goes with his mother; once his mother dies his love goes to his wife. And some say that he did not find her a virgin, so that he suspected Eliezer. Rebecca said: Heaven forbid, Eliezer did not lie with me; rather, because of the fall that I fell I lost my virginity. Let us arise and go to that place where I fell, and perhaps the Lord will perform a miracle and the blood of virginity will be found there. And so they did: they went and found the blood upon a certain tree, and she had been injured by wood (mukkat etz). And the blood — Gabriel was guarding it so that neither bird nor beast should eat of it. And because he suspected Eliezer for no cause, while Eliezer had carried out Abraham's mission faithfully, he merited to enter the Garden of Eden alive.