Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel
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Samson felt only a sting when the first arrow lodged in his thigh. The second arrow tore through his side, but he ignored the searing pain and fought on, determined to uphold his shield until no Jew remained who needed his protection. A third arrow grazed his cheek, but then another struck his calf and his leg buckled.
“What sons of adultery you are, believing in one born of adultery!” he goaded his attackers. “But I believe in the One God who lives forever. In Him I have trusted until this day, and in Him I shall trust until my soul leaves me. If you kill me, my soul will rest in the Garden of Eden, whereas you will descend into the very pit of hell.”
Arrow after arrow slammed into him, forcing him down and pinning him to the wooden floorboards. Agony threatened to overwhelm him until the torment abruptly disappeared and the room around him shone with incredible light. Dressed in white, brightness radiating from her body, Catharina beckoned to him. Smiling behind her, also in white, were their children, his old master Jacob, and, in the back, Abraham Avinu himself. They were all calling him, welcoming him, encouraging him to join them.
Samson let the sword drop from his hand.
Returning to Troyes with spices and dyestuffs from Toledo, Eliezer sensed something amiss as soon as he entered the Auxerre Gate. Normally excitement and eager anticipation were palpable as the Hot Fair approached. But there were no cheerful greetings from the guards, and the fairgrounds, while tidy and festooned, were too quiet. And shouldn’t there be more merchants around? The Cloth Fair was due to open at the week’s end.
Could rumors of attacks on the Jews of Speyer and Worms be true? Eliezer shook his head in disbelief. Even if so, riots in Rouen last winter hadn’t disturbed the Cold Fair. Still, he hurried his pace. It was nearly time for disner, and those at Salomon’s table would have the latest news.
His anxiety heightened when Rachel ran out to greet him, clinging to him with relief instead of passion.
“Oh, Eliezer, thank Heaven you’re home.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’ve been so worried.”
Before he could ask why, Salomon and Judah were bearing down on them, and Eliezer knew something dreadful had happened. It was difficult to say which man looked more miserable; both had lost weight and there were dark circles under their swollen eyes. Judah hadn’t looked this desolate since learning of Aaron’s death, and Salomon appeared worse than when Rivka died. Refusing to let go, Rachel kept her arm around Eliezer as he washed. Desperate for information, yet afraid of what her family would tell him, he silently accompanied them into Salomon’s salon.
Miriam spoke first, apparently the only one who could do so without breaking into tears. “We just received the most distressing letter from Cousin Elazar.”
Eliezer looked at her blankly, until she added, “Aunt Sarah’s son in Speyer.”
Eliezer relaxed slightly. Cousin Elazar was obviously well enough to write about the situation.
“He says that a horde of fanatical pilgrims, led by Count Emicho of Lorraine, may his bones be ground to dust, attacked the Jewish Quarter in Speyer on the eighth of Iyar,” Miriam began. “Bishop Johann’s men were able to protect most of his Jews, so the evil ones headed for Worms.”
Judah was trembling, and she reached for his hand. “Cousin Elazar tells us the Jews there weren’t so fortunate. In the few days it took the wicked Emicho to reach Worms, he attracted every villain in the vicinity, promising plunder and guaranteeing that whoever killed a Jew would have his sins pardoned.”
Judah began to weep, and Miriam paused to comfort him, leaving Rachel to continue. “Apparently half the Jewish community remained in their homes, while the rest took refuge in the bishop’s castle. When our cousin wrote this, he’d heard only that those at home were murdered. He had no word on the fate of those who sheltered with the bishop.” Her expression held more fear than hope.
“When is the letter dated?” Eliezer asked.
“The twentieth of Iyar. Almost a month ago.” Rachel’s face crumpled. “But no merchants from Worms have yet arrived in Troyes, and none from Speyer or Mayence either.”
Eliezer stared at Judah and Salomon, both of whom had barely touched their food. No wonder they’re so distraught.
“Giuseppe was here when we received the letter,” Miriam said. “No one could keep him from riding to Worms immediately.”
“Just because merchants from the Rhineland aren’t here yet doesn’t mean that a disaster has occurred there,” Eliezer said. “Surely none will dare to set out with Emicho’s men roaming the countryside; just as I wouldn’t leave Troyes until Peter’s pilgrims were gone.”
“That’s true.” Salomon sighed with relief and reached for a piece of bread. “And we did write to warn them of the danger.”
“Even so, I’m fasting on Monday and Thursday until Giuseppe returns.” Judah crossed his arms over his chest.
Rachel doubted that she’d see Giuseppe or her horse again, but she said nothing of her fears. Nor of the fact that there had been an eclipse of the moon only four months ago. Helpless to save their brethren in the Rhineland, she and her sisters threw themselves into their study of Tractate Taanit, which taught about fasts decreed to avert drought or other disasters. But this only increased her fright over the German Jews’ fate.
They soon reached the sixth Mishnah of chapter 4, which explained the two darkest fasts in the Jewish calendar: fasts the Jews of Troyes would be observing in a few weeks. Each commemorated a series of calamities befalling Israel.
Five events befell our fathers on the Seventeenth of Tammuz and five on Tishah b’Av [the Ninth of Av]. On the Seventeenth of Tammuz, the Tablets were broken, the daily offering ceased, the city [Jerusalem] walls were breached, Apostumos burned the Torah, and an idol was set up in the Temple. On Tishah b’Av, it was decreed that our fathers should not enter the land, the Temple was destroyed the first and second time, Bethar was captured, and the city was plowed up. When Av arrives, gladness is diminished.
For the benefit of Hannah and Leah, who listened to their mother’s Talmud study whenever possible, Joheved read from Salomon’s kuntres to clarify these tragic events, which eerily threatened to reflect those in Worms.
“It was on the Seventeenth of Tammuz that Moses came down from Sinai and saw Israel sinning with the golden calf, which caused him to smash the Ten Commandments.”
Leah looked at her mother in confusion. “How do the Rabbis know what day Moses broke the Tablets?” She was too young to understand why all the adults were so sad, and Joheved hoped to keep it that way.
“Listen to how the Gemara explains it,” Miriam said.
“The Law was given on Shavuot, the Sixth of Sivan, and Moses climbed Mount Sinai on the seventh, as it is written [in Exodus]: ‘He called to Moses on the seventh day.’ It is further written: ‘Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights’—the last twenty-four days of Sivan and the first sixteen of Tammuz. Thus Moses came down and broke the Tablets on the Seventeenth of Tammuz.”
“The Rabbis also deduce that the spies returned to Moses with their dire assessment on Tishah b’Av,” Rachel added. “Causing the Almighty to decree that the Children of Israel must wander in the desert for forty years before entering Eretz Israel.”
“Papa says that Bethar was one of the largest Jewish cities remaining after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem,” Joheved said. “They fought for fifty years before it fell.”
Rachel flinched as she mentally compared Bethar to Worms or Mayence, cities that would fall in days, not years.
It was Hannah, clearly not ignorant of the events in the Rhineland, who asked the question that occupied her elders’ thoughts as well: “Why do all these terrible things keep happening to us?”
As the monstrous news from the east trickled into Troyes, the fairgrounds grew subdued. By the Seventeenth of Tammuz, many Jews of Troyes were mourning relatives from the Rhineland, and when Giuseppe returned, throwing himself into Judah’s arms and bawling like a child, most already knew the worst.
Cousin Elazar’s community in Speyer was the only one to withstand Emicho’s marauders. In Worms the bishop had been as unsuccessful at saving the Jews hiding in his castle as in protecting those hidden in their homes.
“I went to Elisha’s, may his merit protect us.” Giuseppe trembled as he told Salomon’s distraught household, “The courtyard had been ransacked.”
“Perhaps his family escaped,” Judah said in desperation.
Giuseppe’s chin began to quiver so he could scarcely speak. “There were bloodstains on the floor . . . several of them.”
“Mon Dieu.” Miriam began to cry.
“I located one of the survivors.” Giuseppe forced himself to continue. “A few Jews from the castle agreed to sully themselves with the heretics’ smelly waters in order to bury those lying naked in the streets. Two weeks later they returned to bury the rest of them.”
The color drained from Salomon’s face. “Our people in Worms, the yeshiva, my colleagues there—all destroyed.”
“You’re sure Elisha is dead?” Judah couldn’t give up hope. “Perhaps he was away from home.”
“He was home for Shavuot.” Giuseppe put his arm around Judah for support. “I spoke with the man who buried him.”
“Is it true what they’re saying about Mayence?” Eliezer asked, hoping against hope that the rumors were false.
Giuseppe blinked back tears and nodded. “The entire community of Mayence . . . over one thousand pious souls . . . massacred. The last I heard, the evil ones were approaching Cologne.”
“Adonai our God! You are wiping out the remnant of Israel,” Salomon cried out, quoting the prophet Ezekiel. “All the great yeshivot are gone.” He buried his face in his hands and wept.
Rachel put her hand on his shoulder. “Not all of them, Papa. Your yeshiva is still here.”
The day before Tishah b’Av, Salomon’s household sat silently on the floor to eat their final frugal meal, the enormity of their grief heavy upon them. Like mourners, Rachel and Eliezer ate boiled eggs for their one cooked dish and vegetables and fruit served without sauces. Salomon and Judah ate only bread, water, and salt.
Its rituals were the same, but this year’s Tishah b’Av observance was nothing like those before the calamity in the Rhineland. In previous years most Jews worked at their occupations, acting out a mourning they did not deeply feel. After all, life in Troyes was good and the Temple had been destroyed almost a thousand years ago. Some tears were shed, and by mid-afternoon everyone was weak with thirst after fasting through the long hot day, but business negotiations continued even if no money changed hands.
This year, when Rachel entered the synagogue that evening and saw it stripped of adornment, even the ark shorn of its decorative curtains, she shrank back, envisioning the plundered German synagogues and their murdered occupants. Taking off her shoes, reclining on the floor, and gazing at the bare feet around her, Rachel could not dispel the horrible image of naked Jewish bodies lying on the synagogue floors of Allemagne.
When prayers were finished and the service leader began chanting Lamentations—not the hazzan because he sang too beautifully—it was impossible to hear the verses describing Jerusalem’s destruction and not mourn for Worms and Mayence. In a low voice, Joheved translated the text for the women, words that Rachel never imagined would describe a city in Ashkenaz.
Alas, lonely sits the city once great with people.
She has become like a widow . . .
All her friends betrayed her; they became her enemies . . .
When her people fell by enemy hands, with none to help her . . .
When enemies looked on and gloated over her downfall . . .
For these things I weep, my eyes overflow with tears . . .
Wails of grief issued from men and women alike, threatening to drown out the readers’ voices, and both Joheved and her male counterpart below had to pause when their own sadness overcame them. Rachel wept as she hadn’t done since baby Asher died. Yet the dreadful text of Lamentations continued:Outside the sword deals bereavement, inside like death . . . Prostrate in the streets lie both young and old. My maidens and youths have fallen by the sword . . .
None survived or escaped . . . Our enemies loudly rail against us. Panic and pitfall are our lot, death and destruction.
My eyes shed streams of tears over the ruin of my people.
The final verses of comfort, urging the Holy One to take His people back and renew their days, were overshadowed by a series of kinot, dirges and somber poems, each more melancholy than the last. When the final doleful note was chanted, the red-eyed congregants slowly stood and, heads down, made their way to the street. Then, without a word of greeting, they trudged home.
The next morning at services, Rachel’s bereavement was even stronger after praying at home stripped of her tefillin. Again the shoes came off and everyone sat on the floor; again the seemingly endless kinot, composed for the express purpose of searing the heart and grieving the soul, and again the congregation’s tears flowed copiously as they mourned the destruction of Jerusalem and the martyrdom of Mayence and Worms.
When the closing dirge was done, the Jews of Troyes headed, not to their homes, but to the cemetery, where they would remain until it was time for the afternoon service. Salomon’s family gathered around Rivka’s grave, where he taught from his kuntres on Lamentations and Jeremiah. Like at a house of mourning, this was the only Torah study permitted on Tishah b’Av. But the tradition of not ending a study session with an unhappy text was too entrenched to violate, even on such a black day.
So when he explained the first verse of Lamentations, “She has become like a widow,” he emphasized the word “like.” “This doesn’t mean a true widow. Rather she is a woman whose husband has gone abroad on a journey, and he intends to return to her.”
Neither his words, nor those of the prophet Isaiah, whose consolations were read each Shabbat between Tishah b’Av and Rosh Hashanah, provided any comfort for Rachel. The Sages taught that Jerusalem was destroyed because of the Jews’ sins, their needless hatred for each other. But what sins had the pious Jews of Worms and Mayence committed?
Her dread only heightened when the Fifteenth of Av brought, instead of the day of great happiness described at the close of Tractate Taanit, another eclipse of the moon.
twenty-one
Salomon’s yeshiva received an unusually large infusion of new students at the start of the Cold Fair, many of them older youths who’d previously studied in Mayence or Worms and who, by fortuitous providence, were away celebrating Shavuot when Emicho’s marauders descended on those cities. But many of them, filled with grief and rage, found their studies difficult, and instead of a source of pride for Salomon, the increased number of students was a heartrending reminder of his people’s loss.
Even more depressing, merchants brought responsa questions from communities that had never written to him before.
“What’s wrong, Papa,” Rachel inquired gently when she observed him weeping while reading one of these missives.
“This letter comes from Rome.” Salomon cradled his head in his hands.
“But it’s an honor for Jews so far away to recognize your wisdom and seek your advice.”
“Ma fille, I have no more wisdom now than last year.” He brushed away his tears. “They consult me only because the more knowledgeable scholars are dead.”
Rachel sighed and placed her hand on his shoulder. She, better than most, should know how devastating a loss Judaism had sustained.
Eliezer and Pesach had just returned from their autumn trip east for furs. At Dulcie’s insistence, they stopped in Mayence to ascertain what, if anything, remained of her family’s home.
“The Jewish Quarter was plundered.” Eliezer couldn’t hide his outrage. “The only thing Pesach brought back for Dulcie was a letter written by one of the martyrs who died in the bishop’s castle along with her parents and siblings.”
“Are there any Jews left in Mayence?” Rachel asked in di
smay. She still could not accept the enormity of the community’s destruction.
“Only a few anusim who said they’d had no choice but to abandon the faith.”
“So the Talmud academy won’t be rebuilt.”
He shook his head. “Probably not in Worms either.”
“Oh, Eliezer.” Her chin began to quiver. “So many yeshivot have disappeared.”
The once great Babylonian Talmud academies were emptied by the Turks, Bedouins had destroyed Kairouan’s Jewish district, and the few schools left in Andalusia were closing as the Berbers forced the Jews to flee.
But Salomon and the Jews of Troyes were too troubled by their own quarrels to consider the fate of foreign communities. Cursing the marauders, now far away, was a poor outlet for their rage over the destruction of Rhineland Jewry, and none would publicly vent their frustration that God had let it happen. So their feelings were displaced onto arguments about how to deal with those Jews who’d apostatized when confronted with the choice of baptism or death. With the threat over, many anusim were eager to return to Judaism, and some were desirous of enrolling their sons in Salomon’s yeshiva.
Yet not everyone was eager to accept them.
Salomon’s daughters and their husbands mirrored every side of the vehement debate in Ashkenaz—should a Jew die rather than violate the Torah prohibition against idolatry? To his growing irritation, they argued continuously for the three weeks it took the grapes to ferment into wine in his courtyard.
Joheved was adamant that death was the only acceptable alternative to apostasy, and that the Rhineland Jews should be praised for refusing to violate Jewish Law. “It says so clearly in the eighth chapter of Tractate Sanhedrin:All transgressions in the Torah—if they tell a man to sin and then he will not be killed, he should sin and not let himself be killed. Except for the sins of idolatry, forbidden sexual relations, and murder.”