Rashi’s Daughters Book I: Joheved

by Maggie Anton

  “Ouch! You kicked me. When was the last time you trimmed your toenails?”

  “Never mind my toenails. If you stayed on your side of the bed, you wouldn’t get kicked.”

  “How can I stay on my side of the bed when you always grab all the covers?”

  “That’s not true; you’re the one who hogs them all.”

  “No, I don’t. You do.”

  As her daughters’ disagreement degenerated into a litany of alternating accusations, Rivka sighed and pondered whether her intervention was necessary. She was so tired; taking care of Rachel and Leah, plus feeding all these guests and making her family’s new clothes kept her busy from dawn to dark, even with Marie to help. Joheved and Miriam tried to be useful, but they were more valuable in the vineyard than at home.

  There was a sudden holler from Leah’s bedroom. “You two girls keep quiet out there. I’m trying to sleep!” Silence resumed, and Salomon found his household asleep when he returned.

  Soon the days grew shorter and the Troyes Hot Fair was but a memory. Salomon’s family was busy with the grape harvest, but not his family alone. Most of the Troyes Jewish community was stomping on grapes, working the wine press, siphoning wine from one container to another or sealing the casks—all jobs that had to be performed by Jews. Everyone worked furiously to transform the ripe grapes into kosher wine.

  Once that task was done, they could turn their attention to the spiritual arena. The holiest days of the year, Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah, were almost upon them. The wine would ferment in its casks until winter, when the final result of the year’s labor would be known. Every so often, Grandmama Leah adjusted the cellar’s temperature by opening or closing its windows a bit, thus controlling the fermentation rate in the casks. No matter how Joheved questioned her, Leah could not explain exactly how she knew; she just announced that it was too warm or too cold.

  But Joheved did get Grandmama Leah to explain why she had never remarried. “The purpose of marriage is to have children. I was already past bearing when your grandfather died—may his merit protect us—and I wasn’t going to bring up somebody else’s brats,” Leah declared, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

  “Weren’t you lonely, Grandmama, living all by yourself?”

  Leah shook her head. “Of course not. I was teaching your mother to run a household, there was you and Miriam to raise, and I expected plenty more grandchildren to follow…” Leah’s voice trailed off as she scowled in the direction of Sarah’s house.

  “What about before Papa got married, when he was away studying all the time? Were you lonely then?”

  “I was too busy to be lonely, what with running the vineyard and selling the wine all by myself,” Grandmama Leah replied. “There were always merchants here during the fairs, not to mention all the other folks who stopped in to buy wine.” She stared up at the ceiling, as if trying to remember.

  “You used to run a tavern? In our house?” Joheved tried to assimilate this new view of her pious grandmother.

  There was a momentary silence before Grandmama Leah exploded. “What liar told you that I used to run a tavern? I’m a vintner, and there’s a big difference between selling the wine I make myself and running a tavern. Next they’ll be saying I ran a brothel,” she muttered. Leah wiped her hands on her skirt and Joheved knew the subject was closed.

  A few days before Rosh Hashanah, Johanna stayed a while after dropping her sons off for their studies. She had a package with her, a gift for the girls. Joheved and Miriam gathered around the dining table while Johanna unwrapped the most beautiful silk bliaut they had ever seen. It was such a vibrant blue that Joheved knew the color had to come from the rare dye indigo. The embroidery around the neckline and sleeves, a pattern of leafless trees done in silver thread, shimmered in the light. How could such a present be for them? This was clothing for a princess.

  “Johanna, thank you, but shouldn’t this stay in your family?” Mama asked.

  “My father-in-law gave it to me when I became betrothed to Joseph.” Johanna smiled softly as she smoothed out the blue silk. “I was Joheved’s size then, and, as you can see, it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to wear it. I want to give your girls a Rosh Hashanah present, to bring them a good new year.”

  Joheved and Miriam stared at Johanna, amazed that she had once been small enough to fit into the beautiful bliaut.

  Johanna laughed at their consternation and patted her broad belly. “You can see how much marriage has agreed with me.” Then she became serious. “The twins’ birth was so difficult that Sarah doubted I’d have any more children.” She sighed. “So I thought I’d let Joheved wear it, and then Miriam after her.”

  “Very well, but we will have to return it if my husband doesn’t approve.” Rivka reached out to caress the bliaut’s softness. When Joheved wore this dress, she would also have to wear a red ribbon, to protect her from the Evil Eye.

  On the afternoon before Rosh Hashanah, Joheved found herself dressed in blue silk with a red ribbon tied under each sleeve. It was important to start the year wearing one’s best clothes and having eaten a lavish meal since “He who has spent less is given less, and he who has spent more is given more.” She could smell the traditional New Year’s stew of squash, beets and leeks cooking on the hearth. She wasn’t fond of the dish, but because those vegetables grew rapidly, Jews ate them this time of year with hopes that their possessions would also multiply quickly.

  This was the Day of Judgment, when the Almighty opened the Book of Life and decided whose names would be inscribed there for the coming year and whose would not. Joheved tried to meditate on her behavior of the previous year, to remember the good deeds and resolve to add to them, to regret the evil deeds and repent of them. For the whole month of Elul, she had not quarreled with Miriam over the bedclothes or whose turn it was to wash first.

  For the most part, Joheved was excited and proud of her magnificent new holiday bliaut, but sometimes she felt fraudulent, at best like a little girl dressing up in her mother’s clothing, and at worst like the small round pieces of mud mixed into black peppercorns by dishonest merchants. But heaven forbid she should give Satan, the Accuser, an opening, so she tried to concentrate instead on how nice her family looked in their new outfits.

  At first Mama insisted on tying the red ribbon around her neck, as protection from such envy, but Joheved had protested so vigorously against such a conspicuous splash of red that Mama finally agreed to let her wear the ribbons more discreetly. Miriam had no such worries. She was thrilled with her own soft wine-colored wool bliaut, expertly embroidered by Rivka with a pattern of vines and grapes, and she thought her sister looked positively royal.

  “Joheved, the other girls will be fit to be tied when they see you all dressed up in indigo silk.” She grinned as she sewed up the sleeves on her sister’s chemise. “They don’t dare be envious or covetous on Rosh Hashanah.”

  “Well, at least we won’t be envious or covetous this year,” Joheved said seriously. With all their new clothes, she didn’t feel quite so ashamed at services anymore.

  Miriam was enjoying her musings too much to be serious. “Everyone will have to think generous thoughts, to compliment you on your new outfit and wish you a good year. And if they don’t, well, that’s why you’re wearing red ribbons.” She laughed out loud at Joheved’s appalled expression.

  If anyone was jealous of Salomon’s family’s sudden splendor, they hid it well. But Salomon was not the only one whose business had done well this year. The entire congregation seemed to be dressed in colorful new wear.

  “May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year,” they complimented each other. Cheerfulness and good will abounded, to assure the Holy Judge that they were worthy of another year of goodness and blessing.

  In fact, the year had been so bountiful that the congregation didn’t know what to do about kapparah. As long as anyone could remember, Jewish families slaughtered fowl on the eve of Yom Kippur, a cock for a man and a hen f
or a woman. Each person passed their bird three times overhead while reciting the following declaration: “This fowl is my substitute, this is my surrogate, this is my atonement. May it be designated for death, and I for life.” The ritual was completed by presenting the bird to the poor, in accordance with the words from Proverbs, “Charity delivers from death.”

  As much as she enjoyed eating chicken, Joheved resented getting the rich man’s sins along with his bird. Salomon may have felt the same, for when the community found itself with too few poor Jews willing to take its many fowl, he instituted an alternative procedure. This year, after the chickens made the usual progress around their proxies’ heads, a family would give their monetary value to charity and then eat them themselves.

  Yom Kippur dawned quietly in Salomon’s courtyard. Much to Joheved’s relief, she and Miriam had to prompt Grandmama Leah only occasionally during the lengthy services for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. But the best thing about the new year was that, with the harvest finished, Papa had time to study Talmud with them every day.

  Several miles north of Troyes, at his family’s manor in Ramerupt, the new year had not gotten off to a good start for Meir ben Samuel. His first year in Mayence, he had missed his family terribly, especially his sister, Hannah. The second year wasn’t so bad. No longer overwhelmed by the change from child’s schoolroom to scholars’ yeshiva, he’d begun to enjoy his studies.

  This year everything changed. He supposed that things had first become different in June, when he returned to celebrate the festival of Shavuot and his sister’s wedding. For years after the marriage of their older brother, Meshullam, Meir and Hannah were the only children at home. Every evening in bed, they shared their day’s activities with each other, and on Shabbat, they took long walks in the fields around the manor.

  He hadn’t had time to be lonely during that previous visit, not with the house crowded with wedding guests. His visit was a whirlwind, and returning to his studies in Mayence was a relief. Meir knew he and Hannah wouldn’t have the same relationship after her marriage, but he never imagined how different things would be. Of course, she would sleep in another room with her new husband, Simcha, but he didn’t expect to be so bereft when he found himself alone at night.

  Meir briefly considered asking his parents to let one of the servants share his room, but he already had enough of Marona, his mother, treating him like a little boy. So he nervously lay in bed the first few nights, noticing for the first time the myriad of sounds that disturbed the evening’s silence. Sometimes he could hear Hannah and her new husband whispering in the next room, and he missed her.

  The day after Rosh Hashanah, Hannah got up from the dinner table, exchanged an intimate look with Simcha, and announced that she was going for a little walk. When Meir jumped up and offered to join her, she blushed and said it wasn’t necessary, that her husband would accompany her. But this was Meir’s first chance to be alone with his sister since her wedding, and he would not be dissuaded. Simcha gallantly relinquished his position; the siblings set off on a path along the Aube River, and it was almost like old times.

  Hannah gushed on about how happy she was, how kind and gentle her husband was, how she couldn’t wait until they were blessed with children. That’s why she was going to the river tonight, to immerse there. Jewish communities large enough to build a synagogue always constructed a mikvah, the ritual bath, underneath it, but rural Jewish women had to use a local stream.

  Jewish men are forbidden to have marital relations with their wives during their menstrual period and for seven clean days afterwards. When that time, during which she is considered niddah, has elapsed, the woman immerses herself in the mikvah and is again permitted to her husband. Some say that a Jewish man never grows tired of his wife, because he is not allowed to lie with her whenever he likes.

  Meir stood guard while his sister dunked herself in a small pond created where the river turned a bend. Once they returned, Hannah and her husband could scarcely restrain their eagerness to excuse themselves and go to bed. Samuel and Marona smiled benevolently as the newlyweds hurriedly bid everyone goodnight, then Samuel suggested that he and Meir study a bit of Talmud before bedtime. There was a small section of Tractate Berachot he had a question about, and he was curious how his son’s teachers had explained it.

  Meir had memorized nearly all of Berachot and knew his father would derive immodest pleasure from his erudition. So he obligingly asked what part Samuel had in mind.

  “I believe it’s in the last chapter, something about several groups of three items each, how they affect a man,” Samuel said slowly, scratching his head.

  “Oui, Papa. I remember something like that,” Meir answered with pride. “Is this it?”

  Three things enter the body, but the body does not enjoy them—cherries, poor dates and unripe dates. Three things do not enter the body, but the body does enjoy them—washing, anointing, and using the bed.

  Meir tried to say, “using the bed,” a Talmudic euphemism for sexual relations, in the same tone of voice he used for “washing.”

  “That’s the text, all right.” Samuel beamed with satisfaction. His son had not failed him. “Please continue.”

  Three things resemble the World to Come: the Sabbath, sunshine and usage. Using what?! If you say using the bed, surely not because it weakens the body. Rather it means using one’s orifices for defecation.

  Samuel waved at Meir to finish the passage.

  Three things restore a man’s heart: sound, sight and smell. Three things lift a man’s spirit: a beautiful house, a beautiful wife, and beautiful furnishings.

  “I’ve always had misgivings about that section,” Samuel said, frowning. “Considering that entire passage enumerates pleasurable activities, I don’t see how the ‘usage’ that resembles the World to Come can mean ‘faire caca.’” He looked hopefully at Meir. “Did your teachers ever mention this inconsistency?”

  “I’m sorry, Papa, but we didn’t discuss this text in depth.” Meir felt ashamed that he couldn’t satisfy his father’s query. “It seemed straightforward at the time, but I can understand your difficulty now. It does seem incongruous for a line about caca to be followed by one about how sight, sound and smell restores a man’s heart.”

  “My point exactly.” Samuel paused and put his arm around Meir’s shoulder. “Mon fils, please don’t feel discouraged if Hannah prefers Simcha’s company to yours these days. The joys of marriage are new and wonderful for her.”

  “Well, who wouldn’t prefer a semblance of the World to Come to ordinary conversation?” Meir said. He suddenly understood that his father had delayed him to give the newlyweds some privacy. Just then Marona came into view and Meir saw his opportunity for escape. “Is it all right if I go upstairs now? I’d like to use my own bed to get some sleep.”

  Samuel joined his wife, and the two of them walked upstairs together with an intimacy that disconcerted Meir. He appreciated that his father thought him mature enough to discuss adult subjects, but the notion that his parents actually used the bed discomforted him greatly, and he was relieved to seek solace in his own room. He took off his clothes and hung them on the hooks near his bed. Naked, he slipped between the sheets and recited the evening Shema.

  But as soon as he finished his prayers, he heard them, and if Meir found his sister whispering with her husband disturbing, that night he discovered what was worse. At first he tried to ignore their bed’s creaky noises, then he covered his head with the pillow. Nothing helped. Meir alternated between fascination and acute embarrassment as their moaning grew louder, and at one point his sister’s cries became so intense that Meir had to restrain himself from jumping out of bed to rescue her from her tormenter.

  Then, all was quiet. Dreading that they would start up again, it was a long time before he could fall asleep. In the morning, he discovered that a visit from Lillit, the night demon, had caused him to have a nocturnal emission.

  And so it continued, with only a break on Yom K
ippur when eating, drinking and marital relations are forbidden. During the day, Meir studied Talmud and took long walks through the hills, where views of white sheep dotting the green pasture had always soothed him. He rode his horse far into the forest, to tire himself as much as possible. He considered riding into Troyes to visit the scholar, Salomon, who lived there, but felt awkward about showing up uninvited. Meir even stayed up late talking with his parents, trying to delay his own bedtime until Hannah and her husband finally finished using the bed.

  Yet he rarely had an undisturbed night. People said that sleeping alone was dangerous because of demons, and now he knew why. In Mayence, when the other students teased each other about Lillit’s visits, how she stole young men’s semen at night to produce her demon children, Meir tried to avoid their vulgar conversation. Lillit’s visits were exciting, but he felt defiled afterwards, and tried to get to morning services early so he’d have time to immerse himself in the mikvah first.

  When his father suggested that they spend a few days in Troyes together before he returned to the yeshiva, Meir jumped at the idea of leaving Ramerupt early.

  The night before their departure, Meir was still packing when his parents joined him. This was a normal part of his leave-taking ritual, although his parents usually spoke to him individually. Samuel would say how proud he was of his scholarly son, encourage him in his studies, warn him to be careful on the road, and give him money for expenses. Marona echoed her husband’s pride, hugged Meir and told him how much she was going to miss him. And in addition to slipping him money, she also provided some treats to eat on the way.

  This time his parents stood together in his room. Samuel shifted from one foot to the other, apparently reluctant to begin the conversation, and Marona looked back and forth from husband to son, nervously waiting to see who was going to speak first. Meir was trying to think of something to say that didn’t mention their odd behavior when Samuel broke the silence.