Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel

by Anton, Maggie

  “Now that you mention it, one of your slave girls does interest me.” Eliezer hoped his flushed face wasn’t obvious. The idea of having two women was growing quite attractive.

  Dunash chuckled. “Let me guess—Gazelle.”

  “How did you know?”

  “My wife was not pleased when I bought her last year, and she made it clear that she would not tolerate a concubine under her roof,” he replied. “But Gazelle is such a good worker that my wife is loath to sell her. So she sent Gazelle to serve you, hoping you would find her attractive.”

  “I can’t take a woman you acquired for yourself.”

  Dunash sighed. “Gazelle was an old man’s passing fancy, and after considering the matter, I prefer peace in my house. A wife in Toledo and concubine in Valencia are plenty for me.”

  Eliezer raised an eyebrow in curiosity. He knew the man held some position in Alfonso’s court (favoring neither Christians nor Muslims, Spanish Jews used their neutral status to gain employment as diplomats and courtiers), but Dunash seldom spoke of his official duties.

  “How does Valencia fare under El Cid?” Eliezer tried to sound nonchalant. Valencia was a costal city that ought to be a safe port while the Berbers were attacking Granada. “Is he truly the hero that the stories paint him to be?”

  “Usually these great warriors are poor administrators, but El Cid rules Valencia competently, attracting both Edomites and Moors to serve in his administration.” Dunash cleared his throat. “Officially, of course, he governs in Alfonso’s name, but El Cid has always been his own man. I have enjoyed negotiating with him.”

  “You don’t sound like these negotiations will continue.”

  “El Cid is almost sixty. Who knows who will rule after him?” Dunash said. “But enough of politics. Shall I send Gazelle to you tonight?”

  “Let me think about it,” Eliezer replied. But his yetzer hara knew that, if not tonight, Gazelle would share his bed soon enough. After all, why should he suffer when it was Rachel’s decision to remain in Troyes instead of joining him in Toledo?

  Unaware of the threat to her own marriage, Rachel looked up in annoyance as the calm in Miriam’s cellar was shattered by the furious marital argument outside between Shemayah and Brunetta. Miriam and Zipporah paused from sorting their medicinal herbs, and Zipporah blanched as she recognized her parents’ voices. Shemayah was shouting his insistence that Brunetta leave their daughter’s house, where she’d been staying since Zipporah’s miscarriage several months earlier.

  None of Brunetta’s words reached the cellar, but she obviously refused his demand, for the quarrel continued.

  “Mama won’t go back to him, even though I’ve been fine for weeks,” Zipporah said. “She’s finally had enough.”

  Shemayah’s anger grew, filling the air with curses, until he was interrupted by Brunetta shrieking, “You can’t curse me, you foul dog. I’m already cursed.”

  Epithets flew back and forth until Brunetta taunted her husband, “Divorce me then; write me a get. I dare you.”

  “And give you the pleasure, you witch—never!” This was followed by a brief silence, which ended with the gate slamming as Brunetta stumbled down the cellar steps into their midst. Tears running down her face, she fell into her daughter’s outstretched arms.

  Miriam scowled. “To think that a talmid chacham like Shemayah would refuse his wife a divorce so as to increase her suffering.”

  “That’s not why he won’t give me a get.” Brunetta’s voice was bitter. “He has no intention of paying my ketubah. That’s what I get for marrying a poor man.” If a man died or divorced his wife, she received a ketubah of two hundred dinars before any creditor, even before his children.

  “But, Mama,” Zipporah said. “What need do you have for your ketubah ? Papa has already provided my dowry, and you still have money your father gave you.”

  Rachel faced Brunetta squarely, her hands on her hips. “If you don’t mind forfeiting your ketubah, you can initiate the divorce. Then the beit din will compel him to write you a get.”

  “Nobody can make that man do anything, not even a court of seventy judges.”

  Miriam smiled with assurance. “Your husband will do it when the beit din threatens him with herem. If he’s excommunicated, Shemayah will never be able to teach Torah again or even enter a synagogue. No Jew will speak with him or tolerate his presence.”

  “I don’t know if I’m strong enough to face him in front of the court,” Brunetta replied. “And what will people say?”

  “People will say you should have done it long ago,” Zipporah said firmly. Then her voice softened. “Don’t worry, Mama. You’ll always have a home with Shmuel and me. Who else would watch our children when I’m out delivering babies?”

  “Of course you’ll be strong enough,” Miriam said. “Look how long you’ve been studying Torah with me; surely that has given you a great deal of strength.”

  “And you won’t have to face the beit din alone.” Rachel added her support. “We’ll go with you.”

  The following Thursday, the beit din of Troyes met without its eminent head or his sons-in-law, who were prohibited from judging cases involving relatives. But there was no need for their superior knowledge: the case was clear.

  “Why do you seek a divorce from your husband?” a judge asked Brunetta, his expression kindly.

  She forced her voice to remain steady and replied with the reason all women used, “I find this man repulsive. I can no longer live with him.”

  The other two judges nodded. The temporary head judge stared at Shemayah, who frowned back at him, and declared, “No one should have to share a basket with a snake. This court demands Shemayah to write his wife Brunetta a get and deliver it into her hand.”

  Rachel exchanged anxious glances with Joheved, who was in town to watch the proceedings. Shemayah had been Meir’s study partner for years, but Joheved still disliked him as much as the day they’d met, when he’d declared his disapproval of women who studied Torah. The cruelty he’d inflicted on Brunetta for not giving him a son, as if the poor woman hadn’t suffered enough watching her baby boys die, only infuriated Joheved further.

  But Shemayah smiled triumphantly. “As she has surrendered her ketubah claim, I will write it immediately, with this court as witnesses.” He produced a sheet of parchment, a quill, and a vial of ink.

  The scribe took the items only after one of the judges ascertained that the parchment and ink truly belonged to Shemayah and were not merely loaned for the occasion. The scribe dutifully etched twelve parallel lines, as well as the date, names of witnesses, plus the place where the get was written, where Brunetta lived, and where Shemayah lived.

  Then he, along with everyone in the room, waited for Shemayah to make the required statements out loud. “This get is from me to Brunetta of Troyes, formerly of Provins . . .” Finally the scribe indicated that he was ready to write again, and Shemayah turned to the soon-to-be divorcée and spat out the words harei at muteret lekol adam, meaning “may you be permitted to all men.”

  Meir closely inspected the finished parchment after the witnesses signed it, and then gave it to Judah for further examination. Even the smallest irregularity could invalidate a get, and though he hated to believe his best friend and study partner was capable of such evil, Meir knew Joheved suspected that Shemayah hated Brunetta sufficiently to use his expertise in Jewish Law to make a tiny, yet significant, error—one that left her believing she was divorced when she wasn’t. Then, if Brunetta married again, she would commit the sin of adultery.

  But Meir could find no errors, and neither could Judah. They returned the document to the judges, one of who gently dropped it into Brunetta’s outstretched hands. Joheved, Miriam, and Rachel simultaneously let out their breath. Zipporah’s sigh of relief had to be audible to her father, but he pointedly ignored the group of females hugging his ex-wife and strode out of the courtroom.

  A week later he was gone, his house rented out along with all its
furnishings except his books, and Shmuel was recalled from Paris to help his father in the yeshiva. A month later, Meir received a letter from Orléans: Shemayah was its new rosh yeshiva and had betrothed a new wife on Lag b’Omer.

  “Yum, that smells wonderful.” Rachel sniffed the air appreciatively. “Is someone baking a cake for Leah’s betrothal?”

  “Of course not, silly,” Hannah answered. Since Papa became friends with Guy de Dampierre, the bishop’s bakery provided their pastries. “I’m baking special cakes for my brother Shlomo’s first day of school on Shavuot; they have to be baked by a virgin.”

  “What?” Rachel burst out. Despite her years of Talmud study, she’d never heard of this tradition.

  “I didn’t know about it myself until Meir suggested that Shlomo go to school in town.” Joheved sighed heavily. “I wish I could teach our son myself, but between running the manor, planning for Leah’s betrothal banquet next week, plus caring for Judita’s children and little Jacob, I’m exhausted.”

  Judita had begun to bleed midway through this, her third pregnancy, so Miriam had confined her to bed.

  “Of course you are, Joheved,” Miriam said. “Most forty-year-old women are finished getting up with babies at night.”

  “Meir insists that I make time for my own studies with Hannah and Leah,” Joheved said proudly. “But I worry that Shlomo’s too young to be separated from the family.”

  “It will be nice for Shlomo to have friends his own age in town,” Rachel said.

  “It’s a good thing I don’t have my flowers, since whoever bakes the Shavuot cakes is supposed to be tahor (ritually clean).” Hannah was eager to educate her aunts.

  Rachel’s expression clouded. She too was between menses, but that meant she would likely be niddah when Eliezer returned in a couple of weeks. To hide her dismay, she thoughtlessly asked Hannah, “Since you’ve already flowered, why is it that your little sister will soon have a husband, and you don’t?”

  Hannah’s face flamed, and Miriam quickly spoke before Joheved could vent her outrage. “There’s no need to be rude, Rachel. We’ve known for years that Joseph’s dying wish was for Samson to marry one of Papa’s granddaughters. Since Leah took a liking to the boy, she may as well marry him.”

  “And if Hannah doesn’t like any of the suitors offered to her, she can remain unwed.” Joheved’s tone made it clear how unhappy she was about the situation.

  Rachel couldn’t resist baiting her sister. “Perhaps your daughter refused all these suitors because she’s waiting for the one she wants to present himself.”

  To Rachel’s astonishment, Hannah’s eyes filled with tears and her face turned an even brighter red. Joheved’s mouth dropped as she realized that Rachel had inadvertently hit upon the truth, while Miriam reached out to hug her distraught niece.

  “Is he one of Papa’s students?” Miriam asked gently. Surely he wasn’t one of the merchants.

  When Hannah nodded, Joheved’s anger melted. “Don’t worry. We will let this shy fellow know that we welcome him into our family.” Surely any of Salomon’s students would jump at a chance to marry his granddaughter.

  “He already is one of our family,” Hannah whispered.

  Rachel squinted at Miriam. Could Hannah have set her heart on Yom Tov, only to see him wed to another in Paris?

  Joheved smiled. “You mean your cousin Samuel ben Simcha?”

  Hannah gave a shy smile and nodded again.

  “Of course he hasn’t asked for her,” Miriam said. “He’s already lost two wives, one in childbirth and the other in a fire, so he’s probably afraid that Meir would object to his daughter being the third.”

  Rachel gave Miriam a knowing look. “Which only proves that Hannah must be his bashert.” A Baraita in Tractate Taanit taught that women, and men, died early in marriage because their spouses were ordained in Heaven for others.

  Joheved hurried to Hannah’s side and hugged her tight. “Meir will be thrilled to see his sister’s line continue through you.” Joheved smiled broadly. “I can’t wait to tell him.”

  “I can’t wait to see Samuel’s face.” Rachel grinned at her red-faced niece. “I remember how he looked at you when you blew the shofar.”

  “Mon Dieu, the cakes.” Hannah dashed to a pot on the hearth and poked the cake inside it with a straw.

  Miriam took this opportunity to spare her niece further embarrassment. “Besides being baked by a tahor virgin, Hannah, what else is special about these cakes?”

  “As I kneaded the dough, I recited a prayer, saying, ‘I am making these cakes for Shlomo, son of Joheved. May it be Your will, the Eternal One in Heaven, that he be open to the study of Torah and not forget anything he learns.’ ”

  Joheved beamed with pleasure, imagining one daughter betrothed at the Hot Fair and the other at the Cold Fair. Both would be married in six months, while avoiding the bad luck that arose when two sisters married within the same year.

  “Before I put the cakes on the fire, which must be made with wood from grape vines, I took grape juice and wrote the holy names Arimas and Avrimas on top and ‘sweet as honey’ below.” Proud of her knowledge, and thrilled at her sudden good fortune, Hannah smiled at her elders. “You remember, from the third chapter of Ezekiel.”

  “It’s a good thing we grow grapes,” Joheved said, her eyes twinkling. Samuel ben Simcha was quite competent in the vineyard and thus a useful worker to have in Ramerupt.

  “When does Shlomo get to eat these special cakes?” Rachel asked. “I assume he does get to eat them.” She knew that little boys started their formal Jewish education at Shavuot, but without a brother who’d undergone this initiation rite, she was only familiar with the holiday’s universal rituals.

  Shavuot was the holiday when Jews commemorated receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. It was one of the three pilgrimage festivals celebrated in Jerusalem when the Holy Temple still stood. But observing Shavuot wasn’t as complicated as the other two: Passover with its elaborate seder and complicated dietary restrictions and Sukkot with the diversion of building booths and dwelling in them for a week.

  Shavuot, celebrated for two days, seemed more like an extended Sabbath highlighted by a recitation of the Ten Commandments during the festival service. Even so, most yeshiva students went home for the brief holiday, which was often immediately followed by a wedding or betrothal. Because of a plague among Rabbi Akiva’s students, Jews avoided celebrations between Passover and Shavuot, a tradition reinforced by the recent tragedies in the Rhineland during the same months. Thus there were usually couples ready to be married immediately after the period of semi-mourning was over.

  This year Leah and Samson would be among them.

  twenty-four

  Shavuot came so late that year that Eliezer would have to celebrate the holiday on his return trip to Troyes. But he was determined not to forget his astronomy, no matter how Salomon’s family might object to secular studies. He carefully packed his new astrolabe, his feelings wavering between eagerness to make observations of the night sky above Troyes and trepidation over how Rachel would react when she saw the instrument he’d spent much of their profits on. Ibrahim ibn Said al-Wazzân, creator of the finest astrolabes in the world, had crafted it.

  Advanced astronomy was impossible without an astrolabe, a model of the celestial sphere consisting of two circular brass plates that rotated independently around each other. One was engraved with gradations of time and the other with a detailed map of the zodiac that identified the most important stars. An experienced astronomer could accurately measure the time of night or year, as well as the position of celestial objects, and thus compute what part of the sky was visible at any time. He could also determine the altitude of any object over the horizon as well as his own current latitude.

  Abraham bar Hiyya was delighted with Eliezer’s decision. Most astronomical observations had been made within a narrow range of latitudes around the Great Sea, and measurements of the sky as far north as Troyes should add s
ignificantly to their store of knowledge.

  “I want you to take careful note of the planets’ movements,” he told Eliezer. “Especially Mercury and Venus.”

  “Why?” Eliezer asked. Abraham had that smug secretive look. “Will it help you predict the Messiah’s coming?” Most rabbis prohibited such speculation, but that didn’t stop Abraham.

  “Perhaps, but that’s not my main motivation.”

  Eliezer raised an eyebrow. “Do you think you’ll finally be able to discern if the earth rotates, rather than the celestial sphere?” This was another of his friend’s special projects.

  Abraham smiled but shook his head. “Ptolemy admits that the heavens’ motion would appear the same no matter whether the earth or the sphere rotated.”

  “There must be some way to determine the truth.”

  “One day you and I may discover it,” Abraham said. “But we will not need Mercury and Venus to do so.”

  “You hope that observing their positions from a different latitude will enable you to determine if they orbit the sun.” Eliezer grinned triumphantly.

  Abraham nodded. “Every astronomer in Toledo has noticed that these inner planets sometimes appear to move behind the sun, an impossibility if their spheres lie closer to the earth,” He clasped Eliezer by the shoulder. “Have a safe journey, my friend. And pay particular attention to the planets’ positions at the tekufot.”

  Eliezer was left to ponder why their positions at the tekufot, the turning points of the sun, were so important. He would be in Troyes for three of them, the autumnal equinox plus the summer and winter solstices. Hopefully there would be no clouds on those nights.

  On Sunday morning, the first day of Shavuot, three generations of Salomon’s family eagerly got up when the church bells chimed Prime. It was a beautiful spring day, perfect for showing off one’s holiday clothes. Despite the warm weather, Meir wrapped Shlomo in a large cloak and carried him to the synagogue.