by Maggie Anton
The congregation stood as she carried him in. “Blessed be he who enters,” they recited, although nobody was sure whether they meant the baby or Elijah.
Meir took his son while Joheved sat down. Once she was comfortable, he pronounced the father’s customary invocation, that he was ready to perform the mitzvah of Brit Milah. When he handed the baby back to her, her hands were trembling. As proud as she was to have given Meir a son, at that moment Joheved wished she could be anywhere except where she was. She grasped her son’s legs firmly, shut her eyes tight, and took a deep breath. She felt Meir’s hand squeeze her shoulder reassuringly. She dare not move a muscle.
Things happened very quickly at this point. The mohel, the ritual circumciser, made his blessing, “Baruch ata Adonai…Who commands us concerning circumcision,” and immediately, the baby gave out a howl. Joheved let out her breath and every man in the congregation relaxed his clenched thighs—it was done.
As the mohel bandaged the wound with a cloth smeared with olive oil and healing herbs, Meir made the father’s traditional blessing, “Baruch ata Adonai…Who commands us to bring our sons into the covenant of Abraham our father.” The mohel gave Joheved a wine-soaked cloth for the now-swaddled baby to suck on, which quieted him enough for the rest of the blessings to be heard.
Now Salomon joined them. Just as it had been his responsibility, representing the mother’s family, to host the first banquet, it was his privilege to chant the Brit Milah benedictions. First came the one over wine, and Salomon waited until a cup of the bubbly stuff found Joheved’s hand before he began. Then there were prayers of healing, one for the baby and one for Joheved. These were followed by the gomel blessing for Joheved, for her having survived childbirth, gomel being the special prayer of thanksgiving said at one’s first synagogue visit after escaping from great danger.
Meir added his “Amen” and shook his head in amazement. Had it only been ten months earlier that he’d recited the gomel blessing himself after his illness? Back then he’d barely been strong enough to climb up to the bimah.
Joheved, her terror beginning to dissipate, clutched the precious bundle that was her child to her shoulder and whispered soothing words. The cry of her son, so helpless and unable to pacify himself at her bosom, had produced an unexpected flood of milk from her breasts. Thank heaven for Johanna, who had handed her some absorbent material to place under her chemise and protect her beautiful silk bliaut from stains. Joheved also gave thanks that, unlike her rescuer, mother of twin boys, she had to endure only one Brit Milah at a time.
Surprisingly, her son seemed content with the wine-soaked cloth, so she turned to watch the ceremony’s conclusion. Salomon was on the last blessing now, the one announcing his grandson’s name. Joheved, indeed the entire congregation, waited with bated breath as Meir slowly leaned forward to whisper the boy’s chosen name in his ear. Her father’s tears began to flow immediately, and Joheved couldn’t help but cry herself as she watched him struggle to control his emotions and finish the benediction.
Salomon gave Meir a long hug and then cleared his throat. “May this child, named in the House of Israel, Isaac ben Meir, become great. Even as he has entered into the covenant, so may he enter into Torah, into the marriage canopy, and into the practice of good deeds.”
The congregation responded heartily, “Amen.”
afterword
ONE OF THE FIRST QUESTIONS people ask me when they finish reading Rashi’s Daughters is: What is real and what is fiction?
Rashi (Salomon ben Isaac, 1040–1105) is, of course, a real person, as are his mother, Leah, and his daughters, Joheved, Miriam and Rachel. He refers to his wife only twice, once in his kuntres, complaining how she threw the keys at him when she was niddah, and the other time in a responsum, when she interrupted him at afternoon services because a non-Jew was bringing them a gift of bread and cake before the end of Passover. Rashi doesn’t mention her name, but legends about him call his wife Rivka.
Rashi’s teachers in Germany included Isaac ben Judah, whom he calls brother. Since I knew Rashi had no siblings, I decided that this Isaac ben Judah was his brother-in-law. Rivka’s sister, Sarah, however, is completely imaginary, as is Miriam’s profession as a midwife.
Isaac, the Parnas of Troyes, appears in several responsa, and Rashi’s first two students were indeed his grandsons, Joseph’s sons. Joseph’s wife was, of course, nameless, as was Meir ben Samuel’s mother, so I invented other woman’s names, Johanna and Marona, for them. Marona wasn’t a complete invention; one of Meir’s granddaughters bore that name.
According to one of his sons’ commentary to the Talmud, Meir’s livelihood came from viticulture and raising sheep in Ramerupt. Both these occupations required a good deal of land, which implied that his father was a feudal lord. As seen in many responsa dealing with land transactions, other Jews held estates as vassals as well.
Jews were also involved in the slave trade that transported pagans captured in the Slavic lands to Muslim Spain and North Africa. While there is no direct evidence that Rashi owned Jewish slaves, other French Jews of his time did, and it seemed a likely explanation for how he managed to find Jewish servants to assist with his winemaking.
The great Champagne fairs were famous throughout Europe, and while there is some debate over when they began, we know they were held in Troyes during Rashi’s time because we have responsa that discuss them. Count Thibault, his wife Adelaide de Bar, and his advisors are historical figures, and Pope Gregory’s controversial reform of the Catholic Church is well documented. The great famine of 1030–33 killed much of the population of northern France, and the winter of 1076–77 was called the coldest in 100 years, with snow falling from November through April.
Many of the foods I describe appear in Rashi’s kuntres, and the clothing Jews wore are detailed both there and in Machzor Vitry, an 800-page anthology of Jewish law, liturgy and customs whose primary author was Simcha ben Samuel of Vitry (Meir’s brother-in-law). In fact, Machzor Vitry was my primary source for knowledge of how Rashi’s community observed Jewish holidays and life-cycle events. The chapters on marriage and Brit Milah were particularly illuminating, as were those describing Sukkot and Passover. All the magical and medical remedies I used in Rashi’s Daughters, as well as the demonology, were culled from medieval sources; I could never have invented such bizarre stuff.
Many of Rashi’s responsa are known today, including Rashi’s angry response to his teachers and his private letter to Meir over kosher slaughtering. Rashi’s students wrote of their surprise when he ignored tradition and mourned for a little girl during a festival, causing some historians to speculate that she was his daughter. Leah’s petition, protesting taxes on her vineyard, is a rare example of a Jewish medieval woman’s actual words, and I couldn’t resist including it.
At this time there was a great controversy over whether a woman should say a blessing over the Sabbath lights, which was settled only after Rashi’s death when one of his granddaughters wrote responsa explaining how the ritual was performed in her mother’s home.
This brings up a touchy subject. Nearly every biography of Rashi states that his daughters were learned women who reputedly prayed with tefillin, and I wouldn’t have had much of a book unless I presented them that way. But is there evidence of this?
Besides the Shabbat lights responsa, there is another one, written late in Rashi’s life, that begins by stating that the reader will not recognize his handwriting because, due to his incapacity, it is being written by his daughter. Thus at least one daughter was learned enough to compose legal responsa in erudite Hebrew, and probably the others were too.
The evidence for Joheved wearing tefillin is less clear. In the Tosefot to Tractate Rosh Hashanah 33a, Rabbenu Tam (Jacob ben Meir) mentions that Michal, King Saul’s daughter, wore tefillin. He then states that in his time, women not only performed these time-bound mitzvot, but when they did so, they said the blessing (thanking God for the commandment). But tefillin were not wor
n outside the home, so Jacob could know only that women said the blessing over them from watching his mother, Joheved, or perhaps his older sisters. In any case, because I am writing fiction, I can draw whatever conclusion I like.
Speaking of tractates, some of the Talmud passages quoted in Rashi’s Daughters are Berachot 60a (ch.2), Pesachim 112a (ch.4), Ber 57b (ch.6), Bava Metzia 65a (ch.7), Shabbat 21b (ch.9), Pes 116a (ch 10), Ber 20b (ch.11), Ketubot 62b (ch.12), Yevamot 63b (ch. 12), Pes 114a (ch.13), Shab 140b (ch.17), Rosh Hashanah 33a (ch.20), Ber 18b (ch.24), Shab 31b (ch.26), and Eruvin 100b (ch.27).
For those readers who are interested, a partial bibliography is located on my Web site, www.rashisdaughters.com. For those who are very interested, I can provide a complete bibliography of my over 250 sources.
glossary
Allemagne Germany
Angleterre England
Bavel Babylon
Bet Din Jewish court
Bimah pulpit, raised platform in synagogue where Torah is read
Bliaut tunic, outer garment worn over a chemise by men and women
Brit Milah ritual circumcision, performed when a baby boy is eight days old
Chacham Jewish scholar
Challah special bread eaten on the Sabbath, also that portion of dough that belongs to the priests and is burnt outside of Israel
Compline last of the seven canonical hours, approximately 9 p.m.
Denier silver penny; a chicken costs four deniers
Disner midday meal, usually the largest meal of the day
Edomite European non-Jews (Talmudic term for Roman)
Erusin formal betrothal that cannot be annulled without a divorce but does not allow the couple to live together
Havdalah Saturday evening ceremony that marks the end of the Sabbath
Kapparah ceremony performed the day before Yom Kippur where a fowl is waved over a person’s head and his/her sins are passed on to the bird
Ketubah Jewish marriage contract given by the groom to the bride specifying his obligations during the marriage and in the event of divorce or his death
Kuntres notes and commentary explaining the Talmudic text
Lillit demon responsible for killing newborn babies and women in childbirth, Adam’s first wife
Livre one pound, unit of money equal to 240 deniers
Matins first canonical hour, midnight
Matzah unleavened bread eaten during Passover
Mazikim demon, evil spirit
Midrash genre of rabbinic commentary that expands and explains the biblical text, generally used to refer to nonlegal material
Mikvah ritual bath used for purification, particularly by a woman when she is no longer niddah
Minim heretics
Mitzvah (plural mitzvot) divine commandment, also a good deed
Mohel man who performs the ritual circumcision
Niddah menstruating woman
Notzrim polite Jewish word for Christians, literally those who worship the one from Nazareth
Nisuin ceremony that completes a marriage, followed by cohabitation
Parnas leader, or mayor, of Jewish community
Potach demon of forgetfulness
Seder ceremony and ritual meal observed in a Jewish home on the first two nights of Passover
Selichot prayers for forgiveness
Sepharad Spain
Sext noon
Shiva seven days of mourning following the death of a relative
Shofar ram’s horn sounded on Rosh Hashanah
Sotah married woman suspected of adultery by her husband
Souper supper, evening meal
Sukkah booth in which Jews dwell during the harvest festival of Sukkot
Taharah preparation of a corpse for burial
Talmid Chacham great Jewish scholar
Tefillin phylacteries, small leather cases containing passages from scripture worn by Jewish men while reciting morning prayers
Trencher piece of day-old bread used to hold meat (instead of a plate)
Vespers sixth of the seven canonical hours, approximately 6 p.m.
Yeshiva Talmud academy
Yetzer Hara evil inclination, usually refers to the sexual urge
