A Year of Biblical Womanhood

by Rachel Held Evans

  “Watch Elijah the Prophet enter,” say the Seder instructions at Chabad.org. “Can’t see him? That’s precisely why you need another cup of wine.”

  This sounded like fun.

  I walked through the door of the liquor store to find a giant sheepdog lying across the entrance . . . because this is East Tennessee, after all . . . and a skinny blond woman sitting on a stool, reading last week’s edition of Us Weekly.

  “Hi. Can I help you?” she said in a long, raspy sigh without looking up from her magazine.

  “Yeah, do you have any kosher wine, like, for Passover?”

  “Max!” the woman suddenly shrieked. “MAX!!”

  I figured she was talking to the dog and looked to see what sort of trouble he’d gotten into.

  “MAX! We got anything kosher besides the Mogen David and the Manischewitz?”

  A voice from somewhere in the store shouted back, “Naw, that’s it.”

  “This way,” she said, slouching off her stool and taking me to the aisle with the fruity wines.

  “Them two shelves there,” she said, pointing to a row of bottom shelves filled with dark wine bottles, about half of which boasted a bunch of Concord grapes surrounded by a gold Star of David on the label. I kneeled down to study the selection, and the labels on each bottle said “Kosher for Passover,” a good sign. Varieties included Concord grape, pomegranate, and blackberry. A little fruity for dinner, I thought. Big bottles of Mogen David cost eleven dollars each. Small bottles cost seven. That seemed a bit on the cheap side.

  I realized then that the clerk was gone and I needed a cart—yes, a cart—for my bulk purchase. As I got up to find a cart, a short, curly-haired man with thin-rimmed glasses and a quiet voice passed by and offered gently, “You might want to try the Golan Moscato over by the dessert wines. It’s kosher, but very good.”

  “Thank you,” I responded politely, with no intention of following up. The Us Weekly chick with the dog told me this was the only kosher wine in the store; why ever should I believe the nice man with the New York accent?

  I drove home with the windows down and the radio on, feeling like a real woman of valor with my peasant skirt fluttering in the breeze, six boxes of matzah, and three bottles of Mogen David wine rolling around in the trunk. I didn’t even think to test the wine to see how it would pair with my chicken (and/or turkey) cutlets until the night before our Passover Seder, when I poured myself half a glass of Concord, took a sip, and nearly threw up in the kitchen sink.

  “Dan!!!” I cried out in despair.

  Dan came running, expecting to confront something truly disastrous, like the end of the paper towel roll.

  “This stuff is awful,” I cried. “I can’t serve this!”

  He took my glass and tried it himself. His nose did that thing it does when his senses are overloaded. He tried to control his face, but to no avail.

  “Well, it’s a little sweet,” he finally said after clearing his throat.

  “It’s awful!” I cried. “It tastes like spiked Kool-Aid . . . only with more syrup! The Jews make HORRIBLE wine!”

  “Well, now, you just sound like a racist,” Dan said before taking another sip. “But you’re right. It does kinda taste like Kool-Aid.”

  I fell to my knees to engage in a second round of kitchen floor crying that rivaled my previous bout with the butter-bleeding pie.

  The next morning I got up early, drove back to Chattanooga, and bought a bottle of kosher Golan Moscato, like the man I now suspected to be Jewish had recommended, and a bottle of semisweet kosher pomegranate wine at the liquor store, without uttering so much as a word to the clerk. The sheepdog wagged his tail like we were old friends.

  Fortunately, our friends Chris and Tiffany brought a bottle of Tishbi Cabernet when they showed up on our doorstep with their daughter, Early, a few hours later for the Passover Seder. The evening went beautifully. Every item at the table—from the wine to the matzah to the vegetables—carried special meaning, and assisted in the retelling of the story of the Exodus. The chicken (and/or turkey) cutlets were a success, as was my homemade matzah toffee that served as dessert.

  Tiffany and I only made it through two glasses of wine, but Dan and Chris managed to get down four. It was one of the best meals of the project so far. At the end of the night, just as Chris, Tiffany, and Early were headed out the door, I remembered to shout, “L’shana ha’ba-ah b’Yerushalayim! Next time in Jerusalem!”

  My period started three days later, on Good Friday. Dan was at home, watching The Universe on Roku when I came out the bathroom and declared, “Honey, it’s tent time!”

  Dan had taken it upon himself the week prior to air out the purpleand-beige umbrella tent that had been sleeping, undisturbed, in our attic for the past seven years, and to find a suitable location for it in our front yard. I guess I’d spent that morning in an undignified tizzy because someone dared to disagree with me on the Internet, prompting Dan to gently mention that I might be needing my tent soon.

  In East Tennessee, if it’s April, it’s either sunny, breezy, and seventy degrees outside, or your house is getting hit by a tornado—one or the other. Lucky for me, the forecast for Easter weekend called for partly cloudy skies, wind, and temperatures in the seventies. My plan was to camp out for the first three days of my period in order to truly separate myself as part of niddah and to pay homage to The Red Tent. I’d spend the remaining nine days of my “impurity” living in the guest room and using the guest bathroom (Leviticus 15:28), making sure to keep all my sheets, blankets, and clothes separate for washing (VV. 20–23).

  To avoid sitting on something and rendering it unclean (V. 20), I’d be carrying my handy-dandy Rhea County High School Golden Eagles stadium cushion everywhere I went. Throughout the twelve days, I was forbidden to touching a man in any way: no handshakes, no hugs, no pats on the back, no passing the salt (V. 19). Obviously, this meant no sex with my husband. I’d allow myself to go to church, but not participate in rituals, like Communion, until I was ceremonially clean again (VV. 28–30).

  So that afternoon we set the tent back up, and equipped it with an air mattress, sleeping bag, Coleman lantern, cell phone, and

  walkie-talkie. The walkie-talkie was to pacify my mother, who was convinced that putting me out in a tent in the front yard would invite every rapist in the tristate area to our neighborhood via some kind of untraceable telepathic system that they share. I gave her a hard time about it, but I confess that that night, when the wind was howling and the lantern light was flickering, I reached out to grasp that little transceiver in my hand, just to remember that it was there.

  Earlier we’d gone to Mom and Dad’s for dinner because my sister, Amanda, and her husband, Tim, were in town for the weekend. It was a classic Held affair: cheeseburgers, chips, homemade coleslaw, and theological discussions for dinner; Mom’s famous “buster bar” layered ice cream and Trivial Pursuit for dessert. None of this being kosher, I was left to nibble idly on leftover matzah while the rest of the family scarfed down their buffet of abomination. I still wore my slouchy head covering and peasant skirt, and poor Tim blushed every time I adjusted my stadium cushion before sitting down. Somehow the liberal in the family had turned into the religious freak, and no one knew quite what to do about that.

  It was weird not touching my own husband. I never realized, or appreciated, how often we communicated through the silent but assuring gestures of a squeeze of the hand, a head on a shoulder, a back-scratch, a high-five. The human touch is a powerful connective bond, and going without it can be strangely isolating. We kept forgetting about the rule, accidentally resting our arms on one another before one of us would suddenly shout, “No touching!” and we’d jerk our hands away like we were in a prison scene in Arrested Development.

  When it came time for bed, I trudged through the front yard, pillow and lantern in hand, and settled into my tent. Dan and I checked the walkie-talkies a few times, but I’m not sure we needed them. He’d left the bedroom window
open, and could apparently hear just about everything that happened outside, for, around midnight, when I caught a whiff of pollen and sneezed, he radioed in a cheery “Bless you.”

  This made me feel much better.

  I wasn’t scared so much as alert. My ears followed every snap of a twig or rustling in the bushes, transforming all the cats and squirrels of the neighborhood into rabid coyotes and mountain lions in my dreams. At one point, the motion-sensor light clicked on and I feared the worst. It didn’t help that every bear within a one-hundred-mile radius was supposedly drawn to my scent.

  No one likes to go camping during her period. In fact, I’d say that camping falls just below yoga, waterskiing, and tubing on my things-I’d-rather-not-do-with-Aunt-Flo list. The only thing worse than sleeping on a partially inflated air mattress on the ground is sleeping on a partially inflated air mattress on the ground with cramps . . . and a migraine . . . and an overactive imagination. And just when I’d finally start to drift off, the cursed train would barrel its way through downtown Dayton, announcing its arrival with a sudden shriek.

  Between the train and the wildlife and the buzz of the streetlight, I got maybe three hours of sleep. And between the hormones and the paranoia and the stash of matzah toffee I’d downed before going to bed, I had some crazy dreams.

  Dan’s Journal

  April 23, 2011

  It was a bit awkward when Rachel carried around the stadium cushion. Granted, it was more practical than having to ceremonially cleanse each piece of furniture she sat on, but still, it was kind of weird.

  As all adults know, women of a certain age have a period. It’s normal. It’s routine. It’s just a little weird when it’s public knowledge. Why? I don’t know . . . and I don’t really want to think about it anymore.

  Oh yeah, and in case people didn’t notice the stadium cushion, there was a tent in our front yard, so anyone familiar with the project who drove by probably figured it out.

  This month I experienced some things I never experienced before:

  1. We officially celebrated Passover.

  2. We attended an Ash Wednesday service.

  3. My wife camped out in the front yard.

  Rachel won’t know it until she reads this, but I slept with a crowbar and a hatchet under my bed, ready to fend off any attackers should the need arise.

  Why a crowbar instead of a shotgun? Noise level. I wouldn’t want to wake the neighborhood and have to explain why my wife was out in the tent in the first place . . . though I suppose it may have ended up in a police report. Yes. We guys think about that sort of stuff.

  Once I moved from the tent to the guest room, the days of my niddah seemed to stretch on forever. I longed for my husband’s embrace, and frankly, it wasn’t sexy, like the magazine said it would be. It was lonely and isolating, one of the most difficult tasks of the project so far. When Easter brought back memories of a beloved friend who had recently died, I cried alone in my bed with only Dan’s careful words, offered from the hallway, to comfort me.

  It was also awkward. Near the end of my time of impurity, we attended a wedding in Chattanooga. (I “accidentally” left my stadium cushion at home for that one.) People get really touchy-feely at weddings, so I was constantly dodging the outstretched hands of warmhearted men, even giving the groom an “air hug” in the receiving line.

  The upside was, Dan and I had an excuse not to dance. No one harassed us about seeing our (truly horrid) dance moves once we informed them that we couldn’t touch because “the way of women” was upon me. In fact, no one really talked to us at all after that.

  When the twelve days were finally over, I washed all my clothes and sheets, scrubbed down my stadium cushion, and took a long, hot shower meant to symbolize tevilah. (Non-Jews are not allowed to immerse themselves in a mikveh, and it was too cold to go skinny-dipping at the nearby state park.) Then I gave Dan a very long hug.

  There’s a story in the Gospels about a woman who had suffered from what appears to be a chronic uterine hemorrhage. “She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had,” notes Mark 5:26, “yet instead of getting better she grew worse.”

  The law makes no concession for women with bleeding disorders (Leviticus 15:25), so this woman was in a perpetual state of niddah, a condition that would have permanently cut her off from her husband and her religious community and that would prevent her from bearing children.

  No wonder she spent all she had to try and heal her body; as long as she was niddah, she was not considered whole.

  Jesus showed little regard for the Levitical purity codes. Word had spread around Galilee that he had recently healed someone with a skin disease by reaching out and touching him (Mark 1:41), an act forbidden by the purity laws that made lepers ceremonially unclean. Perhaps the woman had heard this rumor, for she gathered up the courage to join the large crowd that was following Jesus, pressing in around him.

  If I but touch the hem of his garment, the woman resolved, as she fought her way closer to Jesus, I will be made well (from Mark 5:28).

  So she stretched out her arm, and in an act of brazen defiance against the laws that made her unclean, touched Jesus’ cloak with her fingertips.

  “Immediately,” Mark reports, “her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease” (V. 29 NRSV). Hers is the only healing in the Gospels that occurs without the express intent of Jesus.

  At that same moment Jesus himself sensed that “power had gone forth from him,” so he stopped, turned to the crowd, and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” (V. 30 NRSV).

  The incredulous disciples reminded Jesus that he was in the center of a mob at the moment, so there was no way to know who had touched his clothes, but the woman, “in fear and trembling,” fell down before Jesus and told him what had happened (V. 33 NRSV).

  Jesus responded with words of tenderness.

  “Daughter,” he said “your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your disease” (V. 34 NRSV).

  It is no coincidence that immediately after encountering the “untouchable” man and the “untouchable” bleeding woman, Jesus rendered himself unclean yet again by bringing back to life the “untouchable” corpse of the daughter of Jairus, whom he “took by the hand,” and told “Talitha koum!” (“Little girl, get up!”) (V. 41).

  There was a message behind these healings, and it sounded throughout all of Galilee, Judea, and the known parts of the world: When God became human, when he wrapped himself in our blood and skin and bones, his first order of business was to touch the ones that we would not touch, to fellowship in our sufferings, and to declare once and for all that purity is found not in the body, but in the heart.

  READ MORE ONLINE:

  “The Passover Seder”— http://rachelheldevans.com/passover-seder

  “A Sabbath for the Birds” — http://rachelheldevans.com/sabbath-birds

  LEAH, THE UNLOVED

  Genesis reports that Rachel was beautiful, with a lovely figure, but that her sister, Leah, had “weak eyes” (29:17). The exact meaning of the word rakot (literally, “soft”) is unclear. Some midrashic interpretations say that Leah had fair, beautiful eyes and that the text sought to contrast the sisters’ best features. Others say that Leah’s eyes were soft from weeping.

  Leah was never as loved as Rachel, at least not by their shared husband. Jacob had wanted Rachel from the beginning, but he got Leah as part of a sour deal, and he made his dissatisfaction known to her, presumably through the quiet, lethal wounds that only a spouse can inflict. The writer of Genesis stated matter-of-factly what must have consumed Leah’s thoughts and dreams, dragging like a millstone on her heart: “His love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah” (V. 30 UPDATED NIV).

  But Leah had a strategic advantage, a gift for which her sister so longed it nearly drove Rachel mad. Leah bore children.

  “When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved,” the text reports, “he enabled her
to conceive, but Rachel remained childless” (V. 31 UPDATED NIV). The unloved wife was fertile, while the favored one was barren. Each wanted what the other had.

  So when Leah gave birth to her first son, she named him Reuben, meaning “Look! A son,” and said, “It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now” (V. 32).

  When she gave birth to her second, she called him Simeon, meaning “One who hears,” and said, “Because the Lord heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too” (V. 33).

  Then, with the third, a boy named Levi, meaning “Attached,” she declared, “Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons” (V. 34).

  It was not until the birth of her fourth child, a boy she named Judah, meaning “Praise,” that Leah was content in the validation of a higher lover. “This time,” she resolved, “I will praise the Lord” (V. 35).

  Meanwhile, Rachel struggled to conceive, at one point relinquishing a night with Jacob to Leah in exchange for a handful of mandrake roots, thought to aid in fertility. One can sense the tension between Leah and her husband when she informed him of the transaction. “You must sleep with me,” she said. “I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes” (30:16).