Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel

by Anton, Maggie

  Rabbi Yohanan said: For an inflammatory fever let him take a knife made of iron, go to a thornbush, and tie a strand of his hair on it. Then he must notch the bush and recite the verses, The angel of the Eternal appeared to him . . . and Moses said, “I must turn aside to see.” On the second day he cuts another notch and recites the next verse, And when the Eternal saw that he had turned aside to look . . . The third day he cuts another notch and concludes with the verse that follows, And He said, “Do not come closer.”

  Salomon’s students scoured the neighborhood for the nearest rose bush, which was farther away than Rachel thought he should walk in his feeble condition. But he managed the effort each day, leaning heavily on her arm, and was twice able to invoke the miracle of the burning bush not consumed by fire. The third day was difficult, but Salomon was eventually able to recite the final verse that warned the fever demon to approach no closer.

  Then, sweating profusely, he chopped down the bush and said the Talmud’s incantation, “Even as the fire in the furnace for Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah fled before them, so too shall the fire afflicting Salomon ben Leah flee from him.”

  At first this magic remedy appeared successful, but the fever returned a few weeks later. Now the doctor recommended herbal infusions and more frequent bloodletting, but nothing could vanquish Kadachas, and each new attack only weakened Salomon further.

  For the first time in Rachel’s memory, her father did not visit the vineyard even once during the six weeks between Passover and Shavuot. He no longer woke at dawn but rose two hours later; plus he went to bed immediately after souper and took naps on weekdays in addition to Shabbat. Despite many prayers for his recovery, his health continued to deteriorate. Some of the scholars arriving for the Hot Fair recommended treatments detailed in the seventh chapter of Tractate Gittin, but others decried these as dangerous because nobody knew exactly how to prepare them anymore.

  “What Papa needs is a continuous treatment,” Rachel complained as she and Miriam walked home from synagogue. “Not something that wears off gradually.”

  Miriam shook her head. “But he can’t eat or drink a medicine continuously, and all prayers and incantations have a beginning and an end.”

  “I wish there was an amulet against fever.” Rachel paused to think. “Wait. Doesn’t a topaz protect against fever?”

  “You’re right.” Miriam increased her pace, Rachel right behind her. “How did we forget that?”

  At home, Rachel and Miriam sorted through their jewels, eventually settling on a large topaz brooch to be reset as a ring. And thank Heaven, after Salomon began wearing it, his condition stabilized.

  Still, Rachel approached Miriam and Judah about Rivka and Elisha marrying after the Cold Fair. “I think it would give Papa pleasure to see his two grandchildren wed.” She couldn’t bring herself to say that Papa might not live long enough to enjoy the wedding if they waited longer.

  “I agree that we can’t wait for Eliezer to decide to come home,” Judah said. “Elisha will be eighteen soon.”

  “Rivka has already told me she doesn’t care if her father attends the wedding.” Rachel made no effort to keep the bitterness from her voice.

  With Salomon out of danger, Rachel wanted to speak with him about Eliezer, but whenever she tried, he was either resting or deep in conversation with Shmuel or Judah. In her frustration, she would ride to Ramerupt instead.

  Meir’s nieces had written that Meshullam would no longer be traveling as far as Ramerupt since plenty of excellent wool was available in Flanders. “Are you sure you can take all our wool this year, now that my brother-in-law has no need for it?” Joheved asked.

  “Dovid says that if I can procure enough spinsters and weavers, he’ll provide the fullers,” Rachel replied, as much to allay her own anxiety as her sister’s. “Spinsters are plentiful, and we should be able to attract sufficient weavers if we supply them with horizontal looms.”

  Jehan had married Alette’s daughter and established his own weaving shop. Both he and Albert had apprentices, with Albert boasting that he could train others if he had additional looms.

  “It will need a large investment,” Joheved warned her.

  “One that should reap a large reward.” Rachel tried to exude confidence. “Don’t worry.”

  “How can I not worry when Papa has asked Shmuel to lead the yeshiva this summer?” Joheved said. “He’s barely twenty-four.”

  Salomon, while confined to bed, had consulted with Meir and Judah as to his successor. Both asked to retain their current responsibilities, Meir teaching the younger students and Judah editing his kuntres.

  That left Shmuel.

  “If the foreign merchants object to your son’s youth, Papa said to remind them that when he founded the yeshiva he was only a year older than Shmuel is now. And that Shmuel knows just as much Talmud as he did at that age.”

  Joheved smiled. “I’m not sure that’s true, but it’s a nice thing for Papa to say.”

  This would have been a good time to ask Joheved’s opinion on divorce, but Rachel couldn’t bring herself to broach the subject with her judgmental older sister. Instead she went to visit Dovid, telling herself that she’d make her decision after Shemiah and Pesach came home.

  But the news her son brought the following week left no hope for her marriage. Eliezer’s concubine was pregnant once again.

  Still Rachel waited until the Hot Fair closed, until the vintage was fermenting in the cellar, until the week before Rosh Hashanah, to take Eliezer’s conditional get to the beit din and officially accept it in front of witnesses. She would start the New Year a free woman.

  Her fears of shame and gossip turned out to be greatly exaggerated, mainly because everyone had more scandalous topics to discuss. In nearby Tours, Archbishop Ralph had prevailed upon King Philip to name as bishop of Orléans a young man named John. Normally such a mundane matter would be of no interest in Troyes, except that Ivo de Chartres had taken it upon himself to complain to both the papal legate and the pope that John was currently the archbishop’s lover, as well as a former bedmate of the French king.

  Worse, John was only twenty-two years old and therefore far more likely to act the part of Ralph’s puppet than that of an independent bishop. However much the new pope, Paschal, may have agreed with Ivo, he declined to challenge the king’s choice, seeing as Philip had finally returned to the Church’s good graces by putting Bertrade aside.

  Closer to home, Count Hugues’ wife, Constance, had left him and demanded a divorce, an annulment actually, based on consanguinity. Rumors abounded that she was smitten by Bohemond, Prince of Antioch, who had returned to France for reinforcements, enthralling audiences with tales of heroism and gifts of relics from the Holy Land.

  Some said that Constance wanted a manlier husband, that Hugues had failed to both give her a child and prove his courage by fighting the infidels. Others said that her father, King Philip, hoped to use her new availability to recruit more powerful allies than Champagne.

  Guy, who visited Salomon regularly now that the scholar was disabled, had his own opinion. “Count Hugues’ natural inclination is toward the ascetic. Unfortunately it is only now that we see that he should have been chosen for the Church.”

  “Who could know that Eudes would die so early in his sovereignty?” Salomon mused. “Otherwise Hugues might have become a bishop.”

  Rachel quailed at the thought of what else might have happened had someone not killed Hugues’ older brother.

  “Do you think Hugues will marry again?” Miriam asked.

  “I don’t know,” Guy replied. “Adèle of Blois must hope that he doesn’t, so her son Thibault will remain Hugues’ heir.”

  “Have you any news of Robert?” Salomon asked. “Is he content back at Molesme or does he intend to defy the pope and return to Cîteaux?”

  “Apparently Robert’s monks have accepted his discipline this time,” Guy said.

  Salomon sighed. “I hope that Robert finally finds th
e peace he seeks in Molesme.”

  “Robert thanks you for helping Étienne Harding establish the Hebraica veritas,” Guy said. “Étienne is confident that he will be able to produce an accurate Latin translation of the Bible.”

  “So I understand from my grandson and daughters,” Salomon said, followed by a yawn.

  “I have tired you.” Guy stood and bowed. “I will say adieu and visit another day.”

  Rachel accompanied Guy to the gate, where he had an odd question for her. “Does your husband by any chance know Latin?”

  “I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve heard that the king of Toledo is looking for scholars who know Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic,” he replied. “He wants to translate the ancient Greek texts in his library from Arabic into Latin so the Church can study them.”

  “Eliezer knows Arabic,” Rachel said. “And he’s studied many of the Greek masters’ works in that language, so I suppose he could translate them into Hebrew for another Jew to translate into Latin.”

  “That’s the king’s intent.” Guy sighed. “Ah, what I wouldn’t give for a Latin version of Aristotle’s Metaphysics or Ethics.” His voice was full of longing. “Or even better, De Anima, his great treatise on the soul.”

  Dovid considered Hugues and Constance’s divorce the height of hypocrisy. “At least the Jews who divorce are honest about it,” he muttered as they studied the Mishnah from Tractate Sukkah in advance of that festival. “While our so-called Christian nobility change spouses whenever they please, in spite of the Church’s avowed prohibition of divorce.”

  “You disapprove of divorce then?” Rachel asked cautiously. She had told only her children and sisters that she’d accepted Eliezer’s get. If her neighbors knew, they hadn’t learned of it from her family.

  “The monks taught that marriage is a sacrament; that a husband and a wife must cleave to one another only, until one of them dies.”

  Rachel blanched at his harsh reply. “But what if a husband abandons his wife or treats her cruelly? Jewish Law says no one should be forced to share a basket with a snake.”

  “I don’t know. I’m not a scholar.” He looked at her pleadingly. “Can’t we discuss a more pleasant subject, such as our previous passage from Tractate Sukkah?”

  “You are a scholar, or at least you’re becoming one.” She smiled. “And I too would rather discuss sukkah building than divorce.”

  Listening as he ardently explained the difference between a valid sukkah and an invalid one, a daring idea came to her. She would encourage Dovid to study, just as the Talmudic Rachel had encouraged Rabbi Akiva. And then, when Dovid became a talmid chacham, she would marry him. Even better—unlike Rabbi Akiva, Dovid wouldn’t have to leave home for his education. And unlike Rabbi Akiva’s wife, Rachel, she wouldn’t be living in poverty.

  thirty-three

  Troyes, France

  29 Tammuz 4865 (July 13, 1105)

  Rachel stared out her window at the dark, moonless sky. Downstairs the last of the yeshiva students were climbing up to the attic. She had gone to bed early, soon after sunset, but again sleep eluded her. She ventured onto the landing, hoping that Papa was awake as well.

  To think that only a few months ago, at Rivka and Elisha’s wedding, she’d been so happy. Now her world was in ashes.

  Her relationship with Dovid had developed nicely as they continued to study together, with and without Jacob Tam, and she thought he acquitted himself well at the family seder. Two weeks later, she rode out to Ramerupt one Sunday morning, anticipating that Dovid would be alone at the fulling mill while the villeins attended church.

  When she arrived he was outside, inspecting a still-dripping cloth that had recently been tentered. He stopped to greet her, and they had closed perhaps half the distance between them when she heard a low rumbling noise. Rachel slowed to listen when she felt the first trembling beneath her feet. She told herself that it was just an earthquake, most likely a small one that would be over in an instant, but her mind screamed panic. Then the ground jerked abruptly and she stumbled forward—into Dovid’s arms.

  The shaking stopped a few moments later, but they continued to stand together like statues, Rachel’s heart pounding and Dovid’s eyes wide with terror, until the unearthly silence was broken by birdsong. They simultaneously let out their breaths, Rachel acutely aware that she hadn’t felt a man’s strong arms around her in far too long.

  Dovid immediately released her, apologizing, “I shouldn’t have taken hold of you like that. You’re a married woman.”

  Some demon must have possessed her, Rachel thought later, because instead of adjusting her veil, which had come loose in the quake, she removed it and replied, “I’m not a married woman. I accepted Eliezer’s divorce last summer.”

  Dovid stared at her flowing curls with undisguised appreciation, and Rachel felt her cheeks grow warm. She would never appear on the street bareheaded, but exposing her hair outside of home was part of acknowledging her new unmarried status.

  After that she began to tell Dovid about Eliezer, their courtship and early years together. He was fascinated by their travels and plied her with questions about the foreign lands she’d seen. Rachel increasingly found her thoughts returning to Dovid’s earthquake embrace, and it seemed that an affection was growing between them. She began to eagerly anticipate the future.

  Until that unhappy day, just before Shavuot, when everything changed.

  As often happened, their scholarly discussion had veered into personal subjects.

  “I know my sisters envy that I’m Papa’s favorite,” she said. “But it’s not my fault that he was away studying when they were small and home while I was growing up.”

  Dovid’s eyes clouded as he recalled his parents. “As the youngest, I was my mother’s favorite. But my father preferred my oldest brother.”

  It took a moment for Rachel to realize the significance of what he’d said. “How many brothers did you have?”

  “Two brothers and one sister,” he replied, clearly unaware that anything was wrong.

  “What happened to them?” She tried to keep her voice from shaking. Why had she assumed he was an only child?

  His expression hardened. “The same as to me, I expect. After our parents were killed, we were separated.”

  “I meant did you ever see them again or do you know where they went?” Rachel held her breath waiting for his reply. Please let his brothers be dead.

  “Non. Our captors saw to that.” Dovid sighed. “My sister could be married already or she could be locked away in a convent. I suppose I’ll never know.”

  Or she could be in a brothel, Rachel thought. But it was Dovid’s brothers she cared about. “Do you think your brothers went to monasteries too?”

  “Perhaps. Though my eldest brother was big enough to make a useful worker, so some tradesman may have apprenticed him.”

  Rachel’s blood froze in her veins. Dovid had two brothers, in unknown locations, both raised as heretics. If she married him and he died without issue, she would become an agunah, never able to remarry. First it would be nearly impossible to locate the brothers to perform chalitzah, and, second, even if one were found, an apostate couldn’t perform the ritual. Eliezer had gotten his second wife pregnant twice, so Rachel had to be the barren one.

  Her stomach felt filled with rocks. Did she want to marry Dovid so badly that she would risk being chained to his corpse? She told herself that there was no hurry to decide; she could keep studying with him and see how she felt later. But deep inside she knew the answer, terrible as it was to contemplate.

  Better stop things immediately, because the longer they continued the more painful it would be at the end. And it was painful enough already that she cried herself to sleep for a week.

  As the Hot Fair drew closer, Rachel reluctantly left Dovid and Jacob Tam to study without her. When she did see the fuller, she kept their conversations focused on business, whose great success now gave her little plea
sure. Dovid never questioned her increasing absence, and if he were disappointed, he hid it well.

  She was desperate to see Shemiah again, to assure herself that nothing had happened to him and to hear news of her now former husband. So another blow struck when Pesach returned from Sepharad alone. The moment Rachel saw him washing up in the courtyard she ran to question him.

  “Your son is well,” Pesach replied. “But Eliezer is ill, so ill that Shemiah felt he shouldn’t be left alone in such a perilous state.”

  “Alone?” Rachel asked. “What happened to Gazelle?”

  “She died in childbirth some months back.” Pesach dried his hands on a towel hanging at the well. “And the child with her.”

  Rachel sank down on a nearby bench. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer, but she had to ask, “How serious is this sickness?” Is Shemiah planning to stay until Eliezer recovers, or until he dies?

  Pesach had been warned not to worry Rachel. “Your son thought Eliezer’s recovery would happen sooner if he were there to direct the physicians.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Shemiah assured me he would be home for the New Year.” When he saw Rachel’s face crumble, he added, “But he hoped that it would be much sooner.”

  The Hot Fair had been open a month with no sign of her son, and, worrying over him and Eliezer, each night Rachel got less sleep. Strangely enough, Papa was also staying awake longer. He too would go to bed after souper, but he’d get up when the students came home so he could question Shmuel about that day’s studies. Then, completely awake, he and Judah would work on his kuntres.

  Rachel discovered this activity late one night when she went downstairs for a cup of wine to help her sleep and saw the light in Papa’s room. He’d welcomed her company and she in turn had found a few hours of solace in the night, listening drowsily as Papa explained a complicated section of Gemara from the third chapter of Tractate Makkot.