Rashi’s Daughters Book I: Joheved

by Maggie Anton

  “When I heard the babe crying, I knew I’d better get things ready down here right away,” Marie said, her high voice both happy and excited. “I’ve heated up a kettle of ale for the mistress, the best thing for getting her milk flowing. Is it all right for me to bring her some on my way up to dress Mistress Leah?”

  Sarah smiled at the servant’s eagerness to see the new baby. “You’re a great help to this family, Marie. Warm ale is just what my sister needs. Take your time with Mistress Leah; the girls and I will see to breakfast.”

  Once their hair was braided, Joheved and Miriam accompanied their aunt to her house on the other side of their shared courtyard. There Sarah filled their arms with fern fronds. “Ferns have a certain force such that evil spirits avoid it. So when a woman gives birth, we place its fronds around her bed and the infant’s cradle.”

  When they returned to the kitchen, they heard Grandmama Leah’s voice screeching upstairs, “You robber, you stole my favorite brooch. You should be ashamed of yourself, stealing from the hand that feeds you. You ungrateful wretch, you thief.”

  “You’re mistaken, Mistress. I never took your brooch. I’ve never taken anything of yours.”

  In a few moments everyone except Rivka had assembled in Leah’s room. The grey-haired matriarch surveyed her audience with satisfaction. “Salomon, I insist that you fire this thieving girl at once.” Leah pointed at Marie. “She’s stolen my brooch and probably lots more besides that.” Leah addressed her son with the authority of one who brooks no arguments.

  Without waiting for his assent, she gave her orders to the sobbing maid. “Pack your things and leave my house this instant. I won’t share my roof with somebody who steals. For all we know, you’re in league with a band of rogues just waiting to cut our throats in the night and take away everything.”

  Marie broke into tears and tried to run from the room, but Salomon caught hold of her arm and led her into the hall.

  “Don’t worry, Marie. We know you didn’t steal anything.” He then addressed the distraught girl in a softer voice, “My wife and child must not be left alone. Please keep them company while I sort this out.”

  But it was too late. Rivka was limping down the hall towards him, the baby in her arms, her eyebrows knit with trepidation. Before she could speak, Leah began a new tirade, this time directed at Sarah.

  “What are you doing here? How dare you enter my bedroom!” Grandmama Leah pointed her bony finger at the midwife. “Don’t think for a moment that I don’t know what you’re up to. You’ve been putting a curse on Rivka for years to keep her from having any more children, so she’ll be barren like you.”

  This was so patently absurd that the family stood paralyzed, uncertain how to respond to Leah’s indictment. Arguments were futile, but Miriam realized that her grandmother’s latest grievance might be the key to distracting her.

  “Grandmama, Aunt Sarah’s here because Mama had the new baby last night.” Miriam made her voice sound as cheerful as possible. “She had a baby girl. Don’t you want to see her?”

  “What baby?” Grandmama Leah looked warily around the room, suspecting a conspiracy to keep this important information from her. “Nobody told me anything about a baby.”

  Miriam took Leah by the hand. “Aren’t you lucky, Grandmama? Now you have three granddaughters instead of two. After all, odd numbers are good luck and even numbers are bad luck.”

  “A boy would have been luckier,” Leah muttered, but she took the baby in her arms and allowed herself to be led from the room.

  “I guess I’ll be leaving too,” Aunt Sarah said, giving her sister a quick hug. “I’ll check on you after breakfast, when everyone’s gone to synagogue.”

  His mother and sister-in-law gone, Salomon sighed and surveyed the scene. Near the door, his diminutive wife was patting the distraught maidservant who towered over her. Rivka looked close to tears herself.

  He’d deal with Marie first, then they could look for the brooch. “Marie, please calm yourself. You mustn’t even think of leaving us, not now when we need you so much. Not with both the new baby and my mother to take care of.” He tried to keep the anxiety out of his voice. “How long will it be until your fiancé finishes his cobbler’s apprenticeship?”

  “Just a few more years, Master Salomon, not more than three.”

  “Surely, you can remain with us for that small amount of time. It would hardly be worth it for you to start again somewhere else when you’d be leaving in a couple of years anyway.”

  Marie nodded and headed for the stairs. Salomon turned to Rivka and asked, “Now where do you suppose my mother put that brooch? I suppose we’ll have to search her usual hiding places.”

  He had hoped that such clear confidence in Marie’s innocence would cheer those left in the room, but the mood only became more somber. Rivka and Joheved looked at each other apprehensively, as if each expected the other to save her. Salomon waited for a response, but the nervous silence continued and neither one would meet his gaze. His wife and daughter were hiding something.

  He fought to control his temper; if he frightened them he’d never discover their guilty secret. He held out his hands and appealed to Joheved. “Ma fille, please tell me what’s the matter. It can’t be that bad.” At least, he hoped it wouldn’t be.

  Joheved couldn’t refuse her father’s direct request. “Papa, Grandmama’s brooch isn’t lost.” She took a deep breath and spoke quickly, her eyes fixed on the floor. “Grandmama took it to the goldsmith last spring, before you came home. He loaned us enough money to make a nice Passover.”

  Salomon stepped backwards as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “I see,” he said slowly. “Is the goldsmith the only one in Troyes we owe money to, or are there more?”

  Rivka shook her head, too mortified to speak. Tears filled her eyes and began to slide down her cheeks.

  “Now, now. Let’s not be so glum. What’s done is done.” Salomon gave his wife an encouraging smile. At least they weren’t too badly in debt. “We should be celebrating the birth of our new daughter.”

  When they got downstairs, Miriam and Grandmama Leah were waiting for them at the breakfast table. Contentedly cooing at the sleeping baby in her lap, the old woman showed no signs of ill will towards Marie, who was ladling out the stirabout.

  Leah turned and admonished the latecomers, “You’d better come and eat, or we’ll be late for services this morning.”

  The sun was clearing the city walls as Grandmama Leah and Salomon set off for weekday services, Miriam and Joheved following behind them. Rivka and the new baby wouldn’t leave home for at least two weeks, not until the child had been safely named in the synagogue. From her kitchen window Sarah watched her nieces close the courtyard gate behind them, and then she slipped back to her sister’s house.

  “Oh, Sarah, what am I going to do about Leah?” Rivka put her head down on the table and wept. “After what she said here about you and Marie, I can’t bear to think of the things she might tell others about us.”

  “Don’t worry, Mistress,” Marie said. “Mistress Leah would never air her dirty laundry in public.”

  “And I’m sure I would have heard if people were gossiping about your family.” Sarah gave her sister a reassuring hug.

  Rivka allowed the two women to lead her upstairs. “But what about the shopping?” She let Marie take the baby while Sarah helped her use the chamber pot. “The grocers will cheat Leah if she can’t remember any prices.”

  “No they won’t,” Marie said proudly. “Mistress Leah may be forgetful, but she can tell right away if somebody is trying to cheat her. Besides, Joheved remembers all the prices for her…She’s a clever one, your Joheved is.”

  “Rivka, let your husband worry about Leah.” Sarah tucked her sister in bed and adjusted the fern fronds. “You need to relax or your milk won’t come in properly. Get some sleep now.”

  But Rivka wasn’t tired. She looked down at the sleeping baby and then up at her sister. “Who do you
think she looks like?”

  Sarah couldn’t help but smile. “With that curly hair and her cute little nose, I think she’ll grow up to be pretty like you.”

  “Joheved and Miriam may be plain, but they’re good girls, pious and hardworking—may the Holy One protect them.” Rivka’s voice was filled with pride. Then she lowered her voice so Marie couldn’t hear. “I am glad that they take after Salomon rather than me.”

  Both girls clearly had their father’s high forehead, strong jaw and thick brown hair. They also had his deep-set, intelligent eyes, but Joheved’s were blue like Rivka’s while Miriam’s were more hazel.

  Sarah looked at her in surprise and Rivka said, “That way no one will ever doubt that he’s their father, no matter how much time he spent away from home.”

  “Rivka, how can you possibly worry about such a thing?” Sarah shook her head in disbelief. “You’re one of the most virtuous women in Troyes.”

  “It doesn’t matter how chaste a woman is; people will still gossip about her,” Rivka said, covering a yawn with her hand.

  Sarah yawned herself, then strode over to the shutters and closed them tight. “That’s enough talk. You should be sleeping while the baby is asleep, and I want to catch up on my rest too.”

  Salomon’s family didn’t have to walk far to reach the Old Synagogue, as opposed to the New Synagogue in the market district that had been built during Grandmama Leah’s lifetime. Located on Rue de Giourie in the oldest part of Troyes, the Old Synagogue was constructed of stone, like the count’s castle, the cathedral and the Abbey of Saint Loup, all built before Charlemagne.

  As they hurried past the abbey, Miriam babbled excitedly about the birth she’d just witnessed, but her sister scarcely heard her. Grandmama Leah’s missing brooch was forgotten as Joheved remembered herself in front of the hearth, studying Talmud with Papa. She basked in her new knowledge, like a miser admiring a chest of gold.

  “Joheved, what’s the matter with you? Haven’t you heard a single word I’ve said?” Miriam was seething with indignation. Here she was, trying to tell her older sister all the amazing things that happened when a woman gave birth, and Joheved wasn’t paying the slightest attention. “You just don’t want to admit that there’s something I know that you don’t.”

  In fact, the few words Joheved did hear had convinced her that the less she knew about childbirth the better. Let Miriam prattle on about how babies were born; she knew something better. “You’re not the only one exciting things happened to last night.”

  “What are you talking about?” Miriam grew suspicious of her sister’s self-satisfied smirk.

  “Miriam, you’ll never guess. While you were helping Aunt Sarah deliver Mama’s baby, Papa was teaching me Talmud!” Joheved took a deep breath and waited for Miriam’s response.

  “What? Papa wouldn’t teach you Talmud; nobody teaches Talmud to girls. Girls aren’t supposed to learn Talmud!”

  Joheved reveled in her sister’s agitation. “He did too teach me Talmud. We studied the ninth chapter of Tractate Berachot, about prayers you say when a woman is pregnant. I read it myself and didn’t have any trouble at all. Papa even said he would teach us, both of us, more of Berachot, a little each night. So there!”

  Miriam was torn between admiration for her sister and shock at how their father had broken tradition. But no matter how scandalized she might feel, if Joheved was going to study Talmud, then she would too. Before she could say anything else, they reached the synagogue doorway. Under their grandmother’s watchful eye, Joheved and Miriam tried to adopt the proper attitude of reverence and thankfulness. And that meant no more talking.

  They entered into a small anteroom, which offered a view of the sanctuary a few steps below. The focal point of the room was the bimah, a raised area along the eastern wall. Here stood the ornate carved wooden cabinet that held the Torah scrolls, as well as a table on which the scroll was opened to read that week’s portion of scripture. A row of tall windows facing the central courtyard provided illumination.

  Stairs from the entry, their banister worn smooth by the hands of women climbing them for generations, led to the women’s gallery, a deep balcony along the width of the sanctuary opposite the bimah. As usual, the other girls had spread themselves over the back benches so that Joheved and Miriam would have to sit by themselves in the front row.

  “Just ignore them,” Grandmama Leah had advised her granddaughters when the other girls snubbed them. “You don’t want to associate with such ignorant people anyway. They’ll just distract you from important matters like learning to make wine and manage a scholar’s household.”

  That was easy for Grandmama Leah to say. Leah was learned enough to lead the women in prayer; she ran her own vineyard, and her son was a chacham. Well, let the silly girls gossip and giggle in the back. Joheved liked sitting in the first row, right at the balcony’s edge; then she could watch the services below.

  Word of Salomon’s newborn daughter swept through the congregation. Never acknowledged aloud, giving birth was a risky undertaking. Of the roughly one hundred Jewish families in Troyes, nearly every one had lost a baby, and many had a mother or sister who’d succumbed in childbirth.

  After services Salomon found himself surrounded by men he barely knew inquiring about Rivka and the baby’s health, while upstairs the women listened eagerly as Miriam related her experience at the birth. Eventually the crowd thinned as people began to return home for disner, the midday meal.

  Grandmama Leah kept tapping her foot and saying, “We really need to get going,” or “It’s time to leave.” But she refused to leave without Salomon, who was deep in conversation with Isaac haParnas and his son, Joseph.

  The Parnas, leader of the Jewish community, was probably the most important Jew in Troyes, and definitely one of the richest. He was responsible for paying the communal taxes to Count Thibault and for making sure that every Jewish family contributed their fair share. He also headed the committee that administered the community charity fund.

  Watching the three men in earnest conversation, Joheved didn’t dare disturb them. Perhaps her family’s financial circumstances were so dire that Papa had been forced to apply to the Parnas for assistance. Yet Grandmama Leah was growing increasingly agitated.

  It seemed like ages before Salomon finally noticed his daughters’ desperate glances and excused himself for a moment. “You can leave now and tell Rivka that I’ll be along shortly.”

  With this dismissal, Leah allowed Joheved and Miriam to walk her home. Along with other Jews in Troyes, their family lived in the Broce-aux-Juifs district, located at the center of a triangle formed by the Abbey of Saint Loup to the east, the count’s palace to the south, and his castle to the north. The Jews’ houses, like others in town, were timber post-and-beam structures surrounding a central courtyard. Each story jutted out above the other, and because they had a tendency to lean as they aged, it was sometimes possible for a woman on the third floor of one house to hand an item to her neighbor in the house across the street.

  The narrow alleyways below were graded like a V with the highest level immediately next to the houses and the lowest point in the center. Garbage of all sorts was thrown into the middle of the road, with the hope that a rainstorm would soon wash it into the nearest waterway. Pedestrians tried to walk as close to the buildings as possible, leaving the vile median to those on carts or horseback. Shopkeepers found this arrangement convenient since it forced passersby close to their open windows, from which they called to the potential customers to advertise their wares. Joheved and Miriam were used to ignoring the clamor.

  “Do you really think it will be all right for Papa to teach us Talmud?” Miriam was trying to recall exactly why girls weren’t taught such things, but she couldn’t think of anything except that it just wasn’t done. “What if somebody finds out?”

  “Who could possibly find out? I doubt Papa will tell anyone, and if we don’t say anything either…”

  Miriam was
not reassured. “Grandmama?” She pulled on Leah’s sleeve. “What happens to women who study Talmud?”

  Even knowing this conversation would be forgotten before they got home, Joheved was flooded with trepidation. But Grandmama Leah didn’t ask Miriam why she wanted to know. She merely wrinkled her nose and replied, “Any such masculine activity will certainly cause a woman’s womb to wander, probably so much so that she develops hysteria. Not that anyone teaches Talmud to girls.”

  Joheved had no idea what hysteria or a wandering womb was, but she was willing to risk them both. Once home she helped Marie prepare some baked fish and vegetable stew for souper that evening, to be eaten with the cheese pies and fruit pastries that a couple of women had dropped off earlier. The family was surely planning to retire early, but if she and Miriam tidied the kitchen quickly, Papa might still have time to teach them Talmud. Joheved steeled herself not to feel too disappointed if he was tired and wanted to put off more study until tomorrow.

  But Salomon was not about to skip what he anticipated would be a most gratifying experience. After souper, he surprised Rivka with his offer to put the girls to bed so she could rest, and as soon as she was upstairs, he got out Tractate Berachot. First they reviewed what Salomon and Joheved had done earlier. Then he instructed the two girls to help each other learn the text by heart, just as study partners in the yeshiva did.

  “Copies of Talmud are rare,” he told them, “and a yeshiva student is not considered proficient in a chapter unless he can recite it by memory.”

  From that night on, each evening after Rivka and the baby went to sleep, learning Talmud became Joheved and Miriam’s secret bedtime ritual. The door to higher Jewish education had been opened for them, and they were eager to enter. That this knowledge was traditionally reserved for males only made it more enticing.

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