Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel

by Anton, Maggie

  “Even worse,” Salomon continued, “and this is what ‘not your equal’ means, Rabbi Akiva was a descendant of converts.”

  They read further:She [Rachel] replied, “If my husband listened to me, he would stay at the yeshiva another twelve years.” [Hearing this] Rabbi Akiva declared, “Since she has permitted me, I will return.” So he studied there another twelve years.

  The text continued with Rabbi Akiva finally returning, this time with twenty-four thousand disciples. But when his wife went out to greet him in her tattered dress, his students pushed her away, thinking she was a beggar. Rabbi Akiva stopped them, telling them that everything he, and consequently they, had acquired was due to her.

  The happy ending, which Rachel and Miriam knew, followed. Kalba Savua, upon hearing that a great scholar has arrived in town, begged for release from the vow he made to impoverish his daughter. Rabbi Akiva reveals his identity, after which the grateful Kalba Savua gave his daughter and son-in-law half his wealth.

  The text in Ketubot concludes with Rabbi Akiva and Rachel’s daughter marrying Ben Azzai and sending him away to study, but in Nedarim there is no further mention of Kalba Savua’s daughter or granddaughter. Instead the Gemara cryptically lists six ways in which Rabbi Akiva became wealthy.

  Rabbi Akiva obtained his wealth from six sources: from Kalba Savua, from the figurehead on a ship, from a treasure chest, from a certain noblewoman, from the wife of Turnus Rufus, and from Ketia bar Shalum.

  “I’ve never heard of these.” And Rachel thought she knew all about Rabbi Akiva.

  Salomon explained how Rabbi Akiva found gold coins in a ship’s figurehead and a chestful of treasure that washed up on the seashore. In addition he profited from a noblewoman’s loan and from a Roman convert, Ketia, who left Rabbi Akiva half his estate.

  The tale of how he’d become wealthy through the wife of Turnus Rufus was more complicated, and for Rachel, problematic.

  “Turnus Rufus was the Roman governor of Eretz Israel, and he would often challenge Rabbi Akiva to debate the meaning of Torah,” Salomon began. “When Rabbi Akiva won, Rufus was embarrassed in front of his court.”

  Neither daughter had any questions so he continued: “One day when Rufus returned home in a particularly nasty mood, his wife asked why he was so upset. He complained about Rabbi Akiva, who taunted him, and his wife proposed a strategy to humiliate the scholar.”

  “What did she do?” Rachel asked.

  “She told her husband, ‘The God of the Jews hates lewdness. If you allow me, I will cause him to sin.’ Now Rufus’s wife was very beautiful, so she adorned herself and went to visit Rabbi Akiva. There she lifted her skirt to show her legs, in order to seduce him. But he recognized what she wanted and, in turn, spat, cried, and laughed.”

  “How strange,” Miriam said. “What was he thinking?”

  “That’s exactly what Rufus’s wife asked him,” Salomon replied. “He said that he would explain the first two, but not the third.”

  Rachel and Miriam leaned forward to hear more.

  “Rabbi Akiva spat with disgust because, despite her great beauty, she had come from a putrid drop of semen. He cried because her lovely body would one day lie rotting in the dirt.” Salomon paused and smiled. “What he didn’t tell her then was that he’d had a divine vision showing that she would eventually convert to Judaism and marry him.”

  “Marry him?” Rachel exclaimed in dismay. “What happened to his other wife, Kalba Savua’s daughter?” Surely Rabbi Akiva would not take a second wife in addition to his adored Rachel?

  “I don’t know. The Talmud tells us nothing more about her. Rabbi Akiva lived for 120 years: 40 as a shepherd, 40 studying, and 40 as a leader. Perhaps Kalba Savua’s daughter was already dead at this time.”

  “Is there any more to the story?” Miriam asked.

  “Indeed. When Rufus’s wife realized that her plan was obvious to Rabbi Akiva, she asked if she could repent. He assented, so she began to study for conversion. When Rufus died, Rabbi Akiva finally explained his laughter to her.”

  “So once she became a Jew, they wed.” Rachel glumly finished the tale. “Which is how he became rich from the wife of Turnus Rufus.”

  She slept poorly that night, terribly disappointed at how Rabbi Akiva’s romance with Kalba Savua’s daughter Rachel had come to naught. How could the Sages retell the couple’s tender story and then not explain what happened to her? Rabbi Akiva was the greatest scholar of his generation—his colleagues must have known her fate. Could Rabbi Akiva have divorced her? Had she come to a bad end, like Meir’s wife Beruria, and thus they chose to ignore her demise? Rachel took comfort in the knowledge that Papa had never heard anything else about her, good or evil, although he had been taught about Beruria’s suicide.

  The next morning she decided to go to Ramerupt, where the sight of lambs frolicking in the new grass never failed to cheer her. She was not ready to admit that the sight of Dovid the Fuller also raised her spirits; yet she avoided stopping at the manor house and rode straight for the fulling mill instead.

  She could hear the hammers thumping, but the place looked deserted. Fighting her disappointment, she rode around to the back, convinced that she’d find no one there as well. Her heart leapt to see Dovid, alone, teaseling a woolen.

  As he helped her dismount, she asked, “Where is everyone?”

  Dovid showed no sign of resentment. “Now that the ground has thawed, the villeins are busy plowing furrows and planting spring crops.”

  “Can’t Joheved find you at least one helper?”

  “Not today. It’s the feast of the Annunciation.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes. The heretics had so many feast days it was impossible to keep track of them. “What is this one for? And why aren’t you in church?”

  “The feast of the Annunciation celebrates the revelation to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive a child without sin, who would be the Son of God. This Incarnation took place nine months before Jesus was born, and thus is observed on March 25.” Dovid ignored her second question.

  “How can you believe that a virgin, who had no relations with a man, conceived a child?” she demanded. The very idea of the Holy One impregnating a woman was repugnant.

  “Because the prophet Isaiah clearly states, ‘Ecce virgo concipiet, et pariet filium, et vocabitur nomen ejus Emmanuel.’ ” He emphasized the word virgo.

  “That can’t be what Isaiah said,” she retorted. “Isaiah spoke Hebrew, not Latin; and if he’d meant a virgin, he would have said betula, the Hebrew word that appears many times in the Torah and always indicates a virgin.”

  Surprisingly Dovid’s response was curiosity, not anger. “What word did Isaiah use? How would you translate the verse?”

  “Isaiah said almah, which means a young woman,” she said. “So the true translation would be, ‘Behold, a young woman has conceived and will bear a son. And she will name him Immanuel.’ ”

  “A young woman . . .” Dovid stopped to think.

  “Not merely a young woman, who might be a virgin or not.” Rachel added her father’s explanation. “But a young wife, a newly married woman, whom no one would expect to be a virgin.”

  “How do you know that?”

  She paused to think of another time almah appeared in scripture. “In the Song of Salomon, the king speaks of the sixty queens, eighty concubines, and alamot without number in his harem. Surely these are not virgins but merely young women.”

  “Even if you’re right, the Church would never admit it.”

  Rachel nodded. It would undercut their entire heresy that the Hanged One was conceived without a carnal father.

  “Suppose I were to grant that Isaiah does mean a virgin,” she continued. “Still the verse cannot refer to Mary, because the word harah is in the past tense. Thus the young woman meant here has already conceived the child in Isaiah’s time. If Isaiah were speaking of the future, he would say tahar, ‘she will conceive.’ ”

  “I believe you,” Dovi
d replied after some thought. “For even in the Latin, it is not virgo but puella and virginem that mean virgin. Virgo could mean just a young woman.”

  “How is it that you know Latin so well?” Rachel asked.

  “I was brought up in a monastery, remember?”

  “They taught you fulling and Latin, how very useful.”

  “Since the Bible was written in Hebrew, it would have been more useful to learn that language.”

  “I have it.” Rachel clapped her hands in excitement. “I’ll teach you Hebrew and you can teach me Latin.”

  Dovid’s smile lit his entire face. “With pleasure.”

  thirty

  As soon as her younger sister came through the gate, Miriam stopped weeding the herb garden and hurried to greet her. “It’s good that you’re home. Papa has been asking about you all afternoon.”

  “I was in Ramerupt,” Rachel replied, as though that explained everything.

  “I know where you were, and so does Papa. He wants to know what you’re doing there all the time.”

  “Why?” Rachel made no attempted to hide her irritation. “Does he think I’m neglecting my duties here?”

  “I haven’t complained, if that’s what you mean,” Miriam said. “I just wanted to warn you.”

  Although Miriam had observed Rachel’s frequent absences of late, she couldn’t deny that her sister was performing an appropriate share of familial responsibilities. Certainly Rachel’s woolens brought in far more of the family’s income than Miriam’s midwifery. But their father was not so tolerant.

  Miriam gave a nod toward the front door, where Salomon stood waiting. “Merci,” Rachel replied, taking her sister’s hand. At least she wouldn’t be facing Papa alone.

  The kitchen was empty, so they sat down at the table. Miriam poured them each a cup of wine.

  “You must try this cheese.” Rachel unwrapped the parcel she’d been carrying. “It’s fresh from Joheved’s sheep.”

  “Is that what you’ve been doing in Ramerupt these days?” Salomon’s tone was skeptical. “Making cheese?”

  Rachel took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to hide what she’d been doing; it was nothing to be ashamed of. “Non, Papa. I’ve been teaching Dovid Hebrew and he’s teaching me Latin.”

  Salomon and Miriam were taken aback by her proud reply. “Teaching him Hebrew is much easier than with Guy and Étienne Harding,” Rachel added.

  “How so?” Miriam asked.

  “True, Dovid had to learn the Hebrew alphabet, just as a small child does.” Her face lit with enthusiasm as she continued, “But speaking Hebrew comes so easily for him that I’m convinced his family must have spoken it at home.” She was in the same position learning Latin; the letters were unfamiliar, but the language resembled her own vernacular French.

  So far Papa hadn’t objected, so she turned to him and added, “Since we use scripture as our text, I also teach him your explanations.”

  “How does he respond?” Salomon asked, his curiosity stronger than his disapproval. “Does he argue with you like Guy and Étienne did with Shmuel?”

  Rachel shook her head. “Dovid finds it interesting. He says your exegesis is very different from the monks’.”

  Salomon stroked his beard and squinted at Rachel, who felt as though he were trying to peer into her heart. “Ma fille, you are a married woman whose husband is far away. You must be vigilant against the yetzer hara.”

  Miriam patted his shoulder as if he were a child. “Rachel is an expert at thwarting a man’s yetzer hara.”

  “Don’t worry, Papa. We always study outdoors where people can see us,” Rachel assured him. Although not where they could be overheard, thank Heaven.

  He smiled wanly. “You can’t expect a father to stop worrying about his daughter just because he’s gotten old.” It was Rachel’s yetzer hara he was worried about. Still, he couldn’t deny the fuller the opportunity to repent his apostasy, despite the risk to her reputation.

  Rachel gave an inward sigh of relief. Papa might not be happy with her teaching Dovid, but he wasn’t going to forbid it.

  To avert their father from lecturing Rachel further, Miriam made an announcement that was sure to change the subject. “Speaking of getting old, Avram the Mohel has asked me to consider taking on a new apprentice. He’s concerned that his fingers aren’t as nimble as they used to be and that it will take years to train another mohel.”

  Rachel groaned. Finding the last apprentice mohel had been so difficult that Troyes had been forced to accept Miriam. The community had been torn apart and was only now recovering. “Can’t we import one?”

  Miriam shook her head sadly. “There are even fewer mohels now than when I began training.”

  Rachel blanched at her own stupidity. Of course there are fewer mohels—the German ones are dead.

  But Salomon had a twinkle in his eye. “You’ve chosen an apprentice already, haven’t you?”

  “Oui. Now that our woolen business is established, there’s no need for Elisha to leave Troyes other than an occasional visit to his brothers in Paris.”

  Rachel gasped with pleasure. “My future son-in-law is going to be our next mohel? What an honor for Rivka.” Now neither of her children would be moving away.

  “I assume my grandson has agreed,” Salomon said.

  “Elisha is eager to begin his circumcision training,” Miriam replied. “Judah is so proud.”

  “That’s a relief.” Rachel said aloud what they were all thinking. “I may prefer a woman circumciser myself, but the Jews of Troyes don’t need any more troubles than we have already.”

  Between the busy springtime vineyard, her studies with Dovid, and readying their woolens for the Hot Fair’s cloth market, Rachel was busy from dawn to dark. Dovid had accepted Joheved’s invitation to the family’s Passover seder, where he sat in silence like the child too young to ask questions. He declined to attend Shavuot services in Troyes, but Rachel was still pleased with his progress.

  She had a feeling that Eliezer, loath to leave his astronomical calculations, would be late again this summer. So she was astonished when Shemiah walked into afternoon services a full ten days before the opening of the Hot Fair. Thank Heaven they’d returned safely, but curse her bad luck: she’d just begun her flowers.

  Rachel was leading services for the women that day, but she hoped that Eliezer would be at home unpacking for some time and not notice that she hadn’t rushed home to greet him. Not that they could do much greeting with her being niddah. Shemiah was pacing back and forth at the bottom of the stairs to the women’s gallery, and immediately, when his troubled gaze met hers, she knew something was wrong. As soon as services were over, instead of hurrying to embrace her, he led her into an alley near the synagogue.

  “What’s the matter?” Rachel’s heart was pounding. “Why aren’t we going home to Eliezer?”

  Shemiah swallowed hard. “He’s not at home, Mama. He didn’t come back with me and Pesach.”

  Rachel’s knees began to buckle, and she would have fallen if her son hadn’t supported her. “Why not? What happened to him?”

  “Nothing happened to him.” Shemiah’s voice was bitter. “Gazelle is due to give birth next month, and he didn’t want to desert her at such a time. He said you’d understand.”

  Overcome with outrage and pain, Rachel stood speechless in her son’s arms. How could Eliezer choose a concubine over her? Because she had never forgotten how he’d left her to suffer a stillbirth alone, did he imagine that she’d appreciate him not allowing his other wife the same fate?

  “I understand that he’s a selfish cur,” she spat out the words. “Putting his own needs above those of his family, even missing his own son’s wedding—”

  “He’ll be here for the wedding,” Shemiah interrupted her tirade. “He’ll leave Toledo as soon as the baby is safely born.”

  “And how long will he stay here if he won’t arrive until August?” She burst into tears.

  “Mama, please
don’t cry so loud. People are stopping to see what’s wrong.”

  Part of her wanted to scream. Let them watch me cry! Let them see what kind of fiend I married. But she came to her senses. Eliezer coming late to their son’s wedding would be cause enough for gossip; who knows what people would say if they learned he had another wife in Sepharad? Heaven forbid his despicable behavior make her an object of ridicule and pity.

  Rachel choked back her sobs and blew her nose into the dirt. “We mustn’t let anyone know that I was surprised by his late arrival.” She paused to clear her mind. “Let them believe that some business opportunity delayed him.”

  “What about Grandpapa?”

  “Unless he asks directly, we say nothing,” she declared. Then she gave her son the hug he deserved and took his arm. “So how did you enjoy traveling? What did you think of Toledo? Tell me everything.”

  They walked aimlessly through the streets, sharing stories of Sepharad, until they arrived at the courtyard gate. Rachel hurried to the well and splashed her face with cold water. Somehow she would survive the next two months until Eliezer arrived. And if he doesn’t show up for the wedding? Her blood froze at the thought. Then she might just take her conditional get to the beit din and make it a real divorce.

  When the wedding week arrived with no sign of Eliezer, Rachel made Shemiah and Pesach agree to say as little as possible about his absence. Thankfully it was no falsehood to say that they’d expected him for the ceremony and were now concerned at what could have delayed him. But she needn’t have worried. The population of Troyes, indeed of the entire province of Champagne, was more concerned with the politics of their feudal lord’s succession.

  After braving another trip to the Holy Land, Count Étienne had died there in May. This time he’d reached Jerusalem, so instead of the wife of a coward, Countess Adèle was now the proud widow of a knight who’d fallen defending the Holy City. She further cemented the family’s position by sending their ten-year-old son, Thibault, to the Troyes court as presumptive heir of childless Hugues and Constance.