Rashi's Daughters, Book II: Miriam (15 page)

Judah, ashamed to admit that he didn’t have a wife, nodded and returned to his soup.

Reuben hoped Judah would take his advice before it was too late, though it hadn’t kept him from sinning. Relations with his wife was like eating warm stirabout on a cold morning—nice, wholesome, and bland. Unfortunately Natan’s bed was a zesty stew in comparison, heavily spiced with garlic, saffron, and pepper. No matter how great his desire to repent each Yom Kippur, to be content with a diet of stirabout, Reuben’s
yetzer hara
would not let him forget that there were more savory alternatives.

But Judah hadn’t been with a man yet, hadn’t started playing the game. Reuben began speaking about the reward of bedding women—his two young sons, how clever and adorable they were, how much he missed them when he was away on business. They talked until someone called out that it wasn’t raining any more.

Judah suddenly noticed the setting sun. “Look how late it is. I promised Shmuli I’d help him with his lessons.”

“Your clothes are dry.” Reuben gathered Judah’s garments and handed them to him. “I’ll wait here while you change.”

When Judah returned, Reuben walked him to the door and wished him good luck. Judah mumbled his thanks and began the muddy walk home. The sun was low on the horizon, and he marveled at the most glorious sunset he’d seen in a long time. Reuben had just saved his life; perhaps his advice would save him from sin.

But Judah had no wife, and his prospects of acquiring one were growing dimmer with every passing day. He sighed. Just when having his own family looked so attractive. The sun disappeared in a blaze of molten gold and Judah’s spirits sank as well.

He arrived at the silversmith’s in no mood for company. He told Shmuli he needed to rest and nobody should disturb him. He had just begun to doze when he heard Shmuli calling for him.

“Go away,” he grumbled. “I told you to leave me alone.”

Shmuli opened the door to make sure that Judah heard him. He was grinning with excitement. “Wake up. Your brother’s here!”

Judah threw on his chemise and was struggling to pull up his hose when the bedroom door flew open.

His brother, Azariel, stood before him. “What are you doing in bed in the middle of the day? Are you ill?”

“Just a little tired.”

Azariel surveyed his brother’s thin frame. “You don’t look well. You’ve lost weight.”

“I’ve been fasting and staying up late studying,” Judah said. “In hopes that the Merciful One would notice my piety and make your quest successful.”

“Whatever you did, it worked.” Azariel triumphantly clasped Judah around the shoulders. “I’ve found her.”

Judah hugged his brother tightly. “Are you sure?”

Azariel nodded vigorously. “She’s your
bashert
, all right. She’s everything you wanted and more.”

“I can’t believe you’re here. I’d nearly given up hope.” Judah could feel the tears forming. “Tell me everything.”

“Please tell him at the table,” Shmuli said. “I want to hear everything too, but I’m hungry.”

Azariel sniffed the air, redolent with the smells of home cooking. “Now that you mention it, I’m famished.” He propelled Judah down the stairs. “Come. We’ll have my tale over supper.”

“Good.” Shmuli grinned. “Grandmama will want to hear all about it.”

Shmuli’s grandparents, Yosef and Hilda, were already at the table. They waited patiently as Azariel satisfied his initial hunger with a bowl of stew and several pieces of bread.

“My first thought in searching for Judah’s bride was that, as long as I was already in Mayence, I might as well look in Allemagne.” Azariel paused until Yosef finished slicing everyone some braised beef. “I surveyed Mayence, Worms, Cologne, every other city with a decent number of Jews. Reasoning that I would be more likely to find a learned woman where there were learned men, I made a special effort in the yeshiva towns, but to no avail.”

He helped himself to more stew. “So I decided that, since my goal was so elusive, I might as well be comfortable. I spent part of the winter in sunny Provence and the rest in Sepharad.”

“Is it true that it never snows in Sepharad?” Hilda asked.

“It snows sometimes, but never as much as it does here,” Azariel replied.

“Enough with the weather,” Yosef said. “What happened in Sepharad?”

“I had no difficulty finding learned women,” Azariel continued with a sigh. “But they were inevitably married, to rabbis. Undaunted, I returned to Paris for Passover.”

Judah groaned. “Where I suppose you enlightened my mother and Uncle Shimson. As if I weren’t low enough in their opinion.”

“On the contrary, Alvina was thrilled,” Azariel said.

Shmuli elbowed Judah. “Stop interrupting. We must be just about at the good part.”

Azariel nodded, picked up his wine cup, and took a long drink. “From Paris, I headed north.” He turned to Hilda and winked. “They say the spring flowers are especially beautiful in Flanders.”

“You Frenchmen,” she said with a blushing smile. “Go on with your story.”

“I was staying in a small inn at the French-Flemish border, not expecting anything, but I told the story of my search anyway. Their reaction started out the same as everyplace else I had been.” He turned to his brother and shrugged.

“Pardon me, Judah, but first they said you were crazy for wanting to marry such a woman, and then that I was crazy for wasting so much time looking for one.” Azariel rolled his eyes at the insults he had suffered. “Finally they got around to deciding that my search was doomed, that no father would let his daughters study enough Talmud to know Hillel from Shammai, let alone who Ben Azzai was.”

Azariel was grinning now. “I doubt most of those men knew who Ben Azzai was anyway. Then, to my surprise, a man sitting quietly by the fire interrupted them and said, ‘Young women like that do exist, and I know because I just spent a week at Passover studying Gemara with three of them, daughters of a local rabbi. My brother is married to the eldest.’

“You could have knocked me over with a feather,” Azariel said. “The fellow’s name was Meshullam ben Samuel, and he told me that one of his sisters-in-law was a recent widow, and as far as he knew, not yet betrothed again. She’d been staying with his parents in Ramerupt-sur-Aube, and he suggested that, if I rode hard, I could reach their manor before the Sabbath.”

Azariel pleasurably took in the rapt expressions of those sitting around the table. “I couldn’t have ridden faster if Ashmodai, King of the Demons himself, was behind me, and may the Holy One forgive me, I reached Samuel’s estate just after sunset.” He turned to his hostess and asked for more beef. “This meat is delicious. Be sure and give my brother another piece.”

Hilda immediately handed him the carving board. “And was she there?”

“Alas no, she had already left with her family. But I spent a delightful Shabbat with Meshullam’s parents, who confirmed his information and couldn’t say enough wonderful things about her.”

So far Judah had eaten his food as in a trance, afraid that if he said anything he might wake up and find himself back upstairs alone in bed. Now he looked up and asked, “So who is she? Who is her father?”

“Her name is Miriam, and she’s the middle daughter of Salomon ben Isaac, the rosh yeshiva of Troyes,” Azariel said. “He has no sons, which is probably why his daughters are so educated.”

Yosef slapped his thigh. “That explains it. A rosh yeshiva could teach his daughters Talmud and nobody would dare to criticize him.”

“Miriam is around seventeen years old, a childless widow, and though she performed
halitzah
last fall after Sukkot, she has refused to consider another match.” Azariel leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

The room was warm, but the hairs on Judah’s arms stood up and he shivered. “She was performing
halitzah
at almost the same time I was challenging you to find her ...” His voice trailed off.

Hilda’s eyes widened. “She must truly be your
bashert
, Judah, the one fated for you.”

“That’s why you didn’t want any of those other women,” Shmuli said, smiling with excitement.

It is written in Tractate Sotah:

Yosef and Hilda sought out each other’s gaze. While it was tacitly understood that all matches are decreed on high, with each soul descending to the world already linked with another, few were blessed to see the Creator’s hand at work.

Even Azariel was not immune from the sense of being part of a larger plan. “So the following day I rode to Troyes, attended services, and stayed to study. I introduced myself to Salomon, a modest and kindly man, a good teacher. He invited me to dine with them, while warning me that he had promised Miriam that she could wait until summer before choosing a new husband.”

Azariel grinned at Judah. “But then he smiled and told me that nothing would make him happier than to see his daughter wed as soon as possible, and even more so if her husband was a yeshiva student.”

Without taking his eyes off his brother, Judah began eating another slice of beef.

“Walking into their courtyard, I knew I needed to make the biggest sale of my career,” Azariel said. “But I felt confident. After all, I had excellent merchandise.”

As a servant brought out dessert, stewed fruit and
grimseli
, strips of dough baked in honey, Azariel silently recalled the meal he’d shared with Miriam’s family. Surrounded by students debating and asking questions about the morning’s lesson, it had been a lively meal. He’d expected Salomon’s daughters to join in, but it was still odd to hear women’s voices discussing Torah in such a scholarly fashion. Through it all, Azariel felt himself being watched, wondered about.

He, in turn, surreptitiously inspected his host’s three daughters. The youngest was an exquisite child, but she was too young. The eldest, with a squirming toddler in her lap, was obviously married to the fellow who was staring at Azariel with undisguised curiosity. That left the middle daughter, the object of his search.

“Her father merely introduced me as a stranger he’d met at services, leaving me to tell my tale over
disner.
” Azariel dipped his second
grimseli
into a dish of preserves. “I had just begun when the older daughter’s husband interrupted me and said, ‘I’ve got it. You’re Judah ben Natan’s brother. I studied with him my last year in Worms. No wonder you look familiar.’ ”

Meir ben Samuel
—
it had to be him
. Judah said the name aloud. “An excellent student and a pious one too.”

“You’re right.” Azariel nodded, impressed with Judah’s memory. “He said almost the exact same thing about you. I added that you didn’t gamble, didn’t drink excessively, and rarely lost your temper. When Meir’s wife insisted that you must have some vice, I admitted that you were stubborn as a mule, which is why you were still unmarried at age nineteen.”

“Never mind who said what,” Shmuli said. “What did Miriam look like?”

“My brother once told me he didn’t like plump women.” Azariel chuckled. “Well, he won’t have that problem with this one. She’s almost as skinny as he is. She’s neither a great beauty nor hideously ugly; her hair is a nondescript shade of light brown, she has a high forehead, grey eyes, a decent-looking nose, a wide mouth, and small chin. There—did I leave anything out?” He thought for a moment and then added, “She did have a pleasant voice.”

Judah gulped. “What did she say? Did she ask any questions about me?”

“She didn’t ask any questions. She listened attentively, which I considered a good sign. When I got to the part about you wanting a wife who was familiar with Ben Azzai, she smiled and said, ‘Ben Azzai, how interesting. In the third Mishnah of Tractate Sotah, he states that a man is obligated to teach his daughter Torah so its merit will protect her, while Rav Eliezer disagrees and says that anyone who teaches his daughter Torah teaches her lewdness.’ ” Azariel paused at the memory. “I must admit that when she smiled, she was rather attractive.”

“That’s all she said?” Judah frowned. She hadn’t asked what he looked like or how he intended to support her?

“She did say one more thing.” Azariel grinned at his audience. “When her father asked her what she thought, she answered that she thought she would be interested in meeting a man who admired Ben Azzai so highly.”

Judah pondered Miriam’s response. Not that he disagreed with Ben Azzai’s opinion on educating women, but he felt guilty for gaining Miriam’s approval under false circumstances. But perhaps it was fate that caused them to both admire the same sage, albeit for different reasons.

Azariel’s expression became serious. “Now, Judah, I am concerned about your appearance. You look like a peasant. Your clothes are covered with mud, and when was the last time you trimmed your beard?”

“What beard?” Judah had barely spoken when his brother reached over and tugged playfully on the tufts of hair growing from his chin.

Judah stroked the unfamiliar growth. “I had no idea.”

Azariel started laughing. “Quick, get my brother a mirror.”

Yosef rummaged through his workroom and came back with a large silver mirror. Judah took in his gaunt features and the dark circles under his eyes, but he could scarcely believe the scraggly beard sprouting on his cheeks and chin. “Tomorrow, without fail, I’ll find a barber.”

“You can wait and get barbered in Troyes,” Azariel told him. “We’re leaving at first light.”

“But you just got here,” Hilda objected.

“It’s already taken me longer to get here than I expected,” Azariel said. “We’ve got to get to Troyes before merchants start arriving for their Hot Fair, before one of them betroths your
bashert
first. Miriam said she wanted to meet you, but she didn’t say she’d wait for you. We’re leaving at dawn.”