Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel

by Anton, Maggie

  “Just because you’re exempt doesn’t mean you can’t do them.” Joheved tried to sound encouraging. “You’re just not obligated to do them.”

  “Wait until we read further, Hannah,” Rachel said. “You’ll see that the Gemara tries very hard to make women obligated for time-bound positive mitzvot.”

  Sure enough, the next Sage rejected the Torah study/tefillin connection and argued that tefillin could just as well be compared to mezuzah, since the verse about mezuzah immediately follows the one about tefillin.

  “That would make women obligated for tefillin like they’re obligated for mezuzah,” Hannah said triumphantly.

  “Or it might make a woman exempt from mezuzah, and maybe all positive commandments,” Rachel suggested, curious how her nieces would react to this disturbing idea.

  Hannah and Leah’s faces clouded, and Joheved shook her finger at Rachel. “Papa says it’s impossible that women should be exempt from mezuzah, which prolongs our lives,” Joheved explained. “He asks how anybody could even think that women don’t need life as much as men do.”

  Rachel chuckled. “If Papa is right, then women should be obligated to study Torah, because it also gives us life and length of days.”

  Joheved rolled her eyes. “You and Papa can debate this until the Messiah comes.” She turned to her daughters and said, “You two memorize what we studied today, and we’ll do more tomorrow.”

  It took a week for Salomon’s daughters and granddaughters to wade through the complicated debate of over thirty objections and responses. They were heartened as the Gemara’s anonymous voice seemed determined to overturn the rule that exempted women from time-bound positive mitzvot.

  It demanded proof that women were indeed exempt from sukkah, which it compared to Passover, and then argued that instead of deriving an exemption from “tefillin,” you could instead derive an obligation to perform time-bound positive mitzvot from “rejoicing at festivals.” Each time one of its contentions was rejected, along came another.

  It was almost time for everyone to return to Troyes for Rosh Hashanah, when they abruptly came back to the Mishnah:All negative mitzvot, whether time-bound or not, both men and women are obligated.

  Hannah and Leah looked at each other in surprise. Apparently the discussion of women and time-bound positive mitzvot was finished.

  “So despite a great effort to demolish it, our Mishnah still stands,” Joheved concluded. “Thus women are considered exempt from time-bound positive mitzvot.”

  “Yet we may perform them if we wish.” Hannah’s voice was firm. This year she would blow the shofar, not for her little sister in the forest, but for all her family to hear, in Troyes.

  However, by the time Joheved’s family arrived in Salomon’s courtyard, the old ram tied behind Meir’s horse, Hannah’s determination had wavered. Samson’s relatives were still there, as was Cousin Samuel and his father, Simcha. Judita’s parents were constantly dropping by to see their new grandson and check how Rivka was feeling, and often Zipporah and her mother, Brunetta, visited as well. Hannah soon realized that all these people would be dining there on Rosh Hashanah, making the audience for her shofar blasts larger than she intended.

  So she said nothing about the shofar when the midday meal was served—sheep stew with squash and leeks, pickled beets, whole fish fried with the heads still attached, followed by the magnificent ram’s head, with its severed horns tied on.

  Salomon explained that their menu was partly dictated by the Talmud, which said in two different tractates:At the beginning of the year one should prepare himself to eat squash, fenugreek, leek, beets, and dates.

  “Just as some of these are sweet and some grow quickly, so too may we enjoy a sweet year when our possessions and luck grow.”

  But his dour expression belied his hopeful words, for Rivka was now too weak to dine at the table, even on a festival.

  “We don’t have dates,” Miriam said. “So for sweetness we have raspberry preserves, apple tarts, and honey.”

  When the meal was finished, Meir stood up and Joheved handed him the ram’s horn that had adorned their main dish earlier. With Rivka too ill to attend services, Joheved asked Meir to blow the shofar for her.

  “Mama always looked forward to hearing it.”

  Skeptical of the unfamiliar ram’s horn, Meir examined it carefully before saying the blessing, “Baruch ata Adonai . . . Who has commanded us to hear the sound of the shofar.”

  He took a sip of wine before bringing it to his lips. But unused to a different ram’s horn, he sounded more like a donkey than a call for repentance. He cleared his throat and licked his lips to try again, but the result was no better.

  “I guess I’ll keep my old shofar.” He handed the curly new one to Shmuel.

  Shmuel tried his luck, but Rachel had to admit that even at his best, her nephew did sound like he was blowing his nose. She caught Joheved’s eye and tilted her head in Hannah’s direction. It was both frustrating and disappointing to endure such poor attempts when an expert was sitting at their table. Besides, since Mama was exempt from the mitzvah of shofar, it shouldn’t matter if a girl sounded it.

  When Joheved hesitated, Rachel’s impatience flared. She grabbed the shofar from Shmuel and thrust it at her niece. “Hannah, let’s hear how you blow it.”

  Hannah blushed to the roots of her hair and turned to Meir. “May I, Papa?”

  Meir looked at Joheved, and when she nodded, he did so as well. But before she had the shofar halfway to her mouth, Salomon stood and addressed her. “You may blow the shofar if you wish, but don’t make the blessing.”

  Joheved stood to face him. “But how can she perform the mitzvah without saying the blessing?”

  “You know very well that women are exempt from shofar,” he scolded her. “And since she is not commanded to do it, it would be a lie for her to say ‘commanded us’ when she does.”

  Hannah’s chin began to quiver and Meir, faced with the choice of supporting his teacher against his wife and daughter, sided with the latter. “But Michal, the wife of King David, made the blessing when she wore tefillin.”

  Shmuel, to no one’s surprise, supported Salomon. He was at the age when his parents were always wrong. “If she’s not commanded, it’s a useless blessing, which is prohibited.”

  “Yet if there’s no Levi in the congregation, the Cohen who did the first blessing over the Torah reading blesses again.” Judah’s was the calmest voice so far. When Torah was read in synagogue, the first readings were reserved for Cohens and Levis, descendants of the ancient temple priesthood.

  “If there’s doubt about saying the Holy One’s name unnecessarily, don’t we learn in Tractate Berachot that if you’re in the middle of Tefillah and you’re not sure if you said all the blessings, you must go back to the beginning and repeat the prayer?” Rachel asked.

  To see nearly his entire family, including his favorite daughter, aligned against him, was the last straw for Salomon. He slammed his fist down on the table, sending everyone to steady their dishes. “It is worse than a useless blessing for a woman to say ‘commanded us’—it is hilchul hashem, a desecration of God’s name.”

  The room was silent until Miriam said softly, “It’s Rosh Hashanah. Surely fighting with one another is not how we want the Heavenly Court to fill the coming year.”

  Everyone exchanged guilty looks until Eliezer raised his wine cup. “I can think of nothing better than for our family to spend the next year arguing Torah together.”

  While the others offered similar toasts, Rachel leaned over and whispered to Miriam. “Why is Papa so upset? We’ve been laying tefillin for years and saying the blessing.”

  “How can you be so blind?” Miriam hissed. “The wine harvest was a disaster and Mama has been sick for over a year. Of course he’s upset.”

  Rachel sat back as though her sister had punched her. Gazing across the table, where her father sat trembling, trying to control his rage, she was overcome with shame. Of cours
e the heat and drought that made wheat so scarce had decimated the vineyard, leaving more raisins than grapes. And Mama’s illness was getting worse.

  She walked to his seat and hugged him. “Don’t worry, Papa. Miriam and I will have more than enough profit from our wheat sales to make up for the poor vintage.” Then she addressed the company. “There’s no need for Hannah to make the shofar blessing. Meir has already said it.”

  Salomon patted her hand and sighed. “Though women are permitted to perform these time-bound mitzvot, and may certainly hear the shofar, blowing it is a man’s responsibility, just as a man should be the one to do circumcisions.”

  “But Papa,” Miriam began to protest.

  “Obviously a woman may, indeed must, perform a brit milah when no competent man is available,” Salomon continued. “But that’s not the case with blowing a shofar; many men here are capable.”

  Rachel kept her arm around him and whispered, “Poor Papa. It must be difficult having daughters, and now granddaughters, who refuse to leave all the men’s mitzvot to men.”

  His only response was a long sigh.

  She prayed that despite all this tumult, Hannah would have the kavanah to blow this unfamiliar shofar well. And whether Rachel’s prayer was answered or unnecessary, Hannah sounded the new shofar beautifully. Her listeners sighed with awe when she finished the complicated series of Rosh Hashanah blasts and the last long, clear note finally faded away.

  Leave it to Shmuel to complain. “I understand that a woman is permitted to blow the shofar for another woman, but what if a man heard her from the street? He’d assume it was a man and think he’d fulfilled the mitzvah.”

  “And what if he heard a donkey braying and assumed it was you blowing the shofar?” Hannah shot back. “He’d also think he’d fulfilled the mitzvah.”

  When everyone stopped laughing, they launched into a discussion over what constituted fulfilling a mitzvah, who could perform one on another’s behalf, and whether intent was necessary. This time nobody lost their temper, and the afternoon passed quite pleasantly.

  That night Salomon’s three daughters happily retired to bed with their husbands. According to the Rabbis, Rosh Hashanah was when the barren Sarah conceived Isaac and when the loved but barren wife Hannah conceived the prophet Samuel—which was why their stories from scripture were read in synagogue that day. Thus using the bed was considered a special mitzvah.

  Miriam and Judah hadn’t been intimate since her nearly lethal pregnancy with Alvina. But she wasn’t niddah, so she was able to snuggle with Judah and, pleasurably anticipating the New Year, fall asleep in his arms. After years of teaching Hebrew to children and Notzrim, Miriam had acquired her first women pupils. During midwife training, Zipporah asked if Miriam would continue the Torah studies Joheved started with her. Of course Miriam agreed, and soon Brunetta, Francesca, and several other women joined them.

  Rachel too was in a fine humor. Not only had Eliezer diffused a difficult situation to allow Hannah to blow the shofar, but Papa had shared a letter he’d received about Adam of Roanne, the drunken merchant who’d set the Evil Eye on her son Asher. The rogue had gone on one of his typical forays, following Duke Odo’s raids and buying his men’s pillaged items, but failed to return. There were no witnesses to his demise, but rumors abounded that he’d been killed either at the hands of those who goods were looted or by a greedy knight demanding a higher price than Adam was willing to pay.

  The question to Salomon was from Adam’s wife, claiming that she was now a widow with the right to remarry and to receive her ketubah from his estate. Obviously his captor would be demanding ransom if he were still alive.

  “How did you answer her, Papa?” Rachel asked.

  “Normally I’m sympathetic to a woman’s plight if her husband died without witnesses. If there is only one witness, even a woman, I will accept that testimony and free the wife to remarry.”

  “But if a man were in a battle and didn’t come back or wasn’t captured, he must be dead,” Rachel said. Surely Adam had finally gotten the end he deserved, and with his death, the curse he’d put on Salomon’s family might be lifted.

  “Adam had many enemies, so perhaps he disappeared in order to avoid them,” Salomon replied. “Under the circumstances, I cannot accept his death without a witness.”

  “But what about his widow—I mean, his wife?”

  “She enjoyed his ill-gotten gains for many years, and if she disapproved of his behavior and wished to dissociate herself from him, she had time to initiate a divorce.” Salomon’s voice was stern. “So now she must suffer the consequences.”

  Rachel appreciated her father’s answer, but she thought Adam was likely dead, killed on the battleground. It gave her pleasure to imagine his corpse trampled by Odo’s warhorses and buried ignominiously in some field, just retribution for the deaths of her and Joheved’s little boys. But she said no more. This was not the time of year to boast about how unforgiving she was.

  sixteen

  Joheved’s feelings at the New Year were both happy and sad. Just before bedtime, she checked Mama’s sickroom and was pleasantly surprised to find her mother awake. One would expect someone who ate as little as Mama to be thin; yet her chemise clung tightly around her swollen body.

  “L’shana tova, Mama.” Joheved bent down to kiss her. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m tired, always tired.” Rivka took Joheved’s hand with her puffy fingers. “I think this will be the last year I hear the shofar. I’m glad Meir blew it so beautifully; I could almost imagine the angels blowing it to welcome me to Gan Eden.”

  Joheved fought back tears and sat down at Mama’s bedside. Should she divulge that it was Hannah? Mama was always so unhappy about her daughters wearing tefillin and studying Talmud; why upset her now? “I’m pleased you got to hear it.”

  Mama gave her a wan smile. “Don’t tell your father I said so, but I think it’s wrong that women are exempt from hearing the shofar. It doesn’t take much time, nearly all of us are in synagogue anyway that day, and women also need to be remembered for life at Rosh Hashanah, not just men.”

  “I agree.” Joheved recalled so many years spent upstairs with the women: how they cried and prayed during the shofar service for the Merciful One to remember them and their children, and for the New Year to be one of peace and prosperity.

  “I may not get another chance, so I want to ask your forgiveness before Yom Kippur,” Mama said between labored breaths.

  “Of course I forgive you.”

  “But you haven’t heard what you should forgive me for.” Mama squeezed Joheved’s hand tighter. “I’m sorry I fought you and your sister so hard over studying Talmud. You’re good girls and it hasn’t done you any harm. Maybe your learning even protected you from Lillit.”

  Joheved wiped away the tears running down her cheeks. Mama hadn’t been this alert in months. “Maybe it did.”

  “So, do you forgive me?”

  Joheved threw her arms around her mother. “I forgive you. And I ask your forgiveness for all the trouble and grief I caused you.”

  “Children are supposed to give their mother trouble and grief, especially daughters. But I forgive you . . . And tell your sisters that I forgive them too.”

  Joheved made her decision. She couldn’t let Mama die thinking Meir had blown that shofar. “Mama, it wasn’t Meir blowing the shofar for you. It was Hannah.”

  Mama chuckled softly. “Your father must have gotten angry.”

  “Oui, he did. But he calmed down eventually, like always.”

  “Thank Heaven for that. Otherwise I never could have lived with him.”

  Mama closed her eyes and lapsed into silence. Joheved watched her chest slowly rise and fall, and then quietly left the room. Meir was waiting in the hall.

  He smiled and whispered, “After hearing about the new rams, I decided to pay them a visit and see for myself. I thought I’d revitalize your special mirror while I was there.”

  Twenty yea
rs earlier, Joheved’s magic mirror had saved their marriage and led to the birth of their first child. She looked up at him and smiled. He was gazing at her with the expression that still, years later, could kindle her desire.

  She blushed and whispered back, “I don’t think you need any magic to strengthen your yetzer hara, but then again it couldn’t hurt.”

  That night it seemed as though Meir had just returned from a journey, so quickly did he and Joheved rid themselves of their clothes and wrap their arms around each other. Meir half caressed, half massaged her naked back as they kissed hungrily. Soon his hands slipped around to her breasts, tweaking her nipples as her tongue fenced with his.

  Though she was expecting it, the first flush of desire made her whimper, and when he continued to toy with her hardening nipples, her moans of pleasure grew stronger. Now his lips were on her neck, and the surging fire below made her squirm in his embrace.

  Joheved’s sensuous movements so close to his groin, coupled with thoughts of what he’d be doing next, soon had Meir fully aroused. He lifted her onto the bed and lay down beside her, his kisses forcing her head against the sheets, his hand fondling her breasts.

  Joheved couldn’t wait a moment longer. She pulled his hand down her belly, the ache below desperate for attention. Meir replaced his fingers on her nipple with his mouth, while his hand spread her thighs, stroking her gently. She rewarded him with more groans of delight.

  Meir continued caressing her opening until his fingers were wet. But instead of entering immediately when her passion flared, he searched until he found the small knob where he knew she would be most sensitive. He drew slow circles around it with his index finger, noting with satisfaction as Joheved’s breathing quickened and her hips thrust against his hand.

  When he finally pulled his hand away, he knew she was expecting him to enter, and he smiled at her surprise when he stood up and pulled her sideways on the bed, her derriere at the edge. Then he knelt and rested her legs on his shoulders.