Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel (2 page)

Last, but certainly not least, I offer heartfelt thanks and love to my husband, Dave, who had no idea that his chemist wife with a normal job would morph into an author who wrote late at night and on weekends, who traveled all over the country speaking, and who would get corralled by fans when we went out. Yet his encouragement never wavered. He gave me excellent advice to improve my first drafts, could always think of the right word when I couldn’t, and endured countless intrusions of my writing life into our personal lives. Without his support I would have given up long ago.

Now that my trilogy is at long last complete, I must also acknowledge my many fans: you chose
Rashi’s Daughters
for your book groups, invited me to speak at your organizations, and validated my belief that women, especially Jewish women, were hungry for books with real, historical heroines. Your e-mails told me how Rashi’s daughters touched your lives, taught you so many things you never knew about Jewish women’s history, even encouraged you to study Talmud. I tried to answer every one, even the complaints.

And though I have no plans for
Rashi’s Granddaughters,
rest assured that I intend to continue writing. I am currently researching a new era and location, with the goal of another historical novel celebrating an unknown Jewish heroine. My readers can look forward to more Love and Talmud, this time in fourth-century Babylonia.

time line

—Sefer Haggadah (The Book of Legends)

prologue

THE FINAL DECADES of the eleventh century saw the Jews of Troyes, France, entering a time of unparalleled financial prosperity, political security, and intellectual achievement. No armies had invaded the region for generations, and the last multiyear famine was already more than fifty years in the past. Under the enlightened sovereignty of Count Thibault and Countess Adelaide, the great fairs of Champagne attracted merchants from throughout the known world, fueling a local economic boom that would continue for almost two hundred years.

Elsewhere in Europe, discovery and innovation was likewise on the rise. European scholars had discovered the lost Greek philosophy and science that had been translated into Arabic and improved upon by their Muslim counterparts, setting the stage for what is now called the Twelfth-Century Renaissance.

Jews living in Muslim lands eagerly immersed themselves in this new knowledge, producing great poets, philosophers, astronomers, and mathematicians. Their compatriots in Ashkenaz (France and Germany) eschewed secular subjects and devoted themselves to Torah study. In particular, they established great yeshivot, advanced academies for learning and discussing Talmud, the Jewish Oral Law.

One of these yeshivot, albeit a small one in Troyes when our tale begins, was founded by Rabbi Salomon ben Isaac, who would be known and revered centuries later as Rashi, one of Judaism’s greatest scholars, author of commentaries on both the Bible and the Talmud. Having no sons, Salomon broke with tradition and taught Torah to his daughters, Joheved, Miriam, and Rachel. While his wife, Rivka, worried that no man would marry such learned women, Salomon had no difficulty finding husbands for them among his finest students.

His two older daughters entered into arranged marriages. Joheved was betrothed to Meir ben Samuel, a lord’s son from nearby Ramerupt, while Miriam agreed to a match with Judah ben Natan, a Parisian orphan whose mother had supported herself and her son by pawning jewelry and lending money to women. Rachel, Salomon’s youngest, insisted that nothing but a love match would satisfy her and married Eliezer ben Shemiah, the son of a wealthy merchant from Provence.

With the eleventh century drawing to a close, Salomon’s yeshiva thrived as more and more foreign merchants studied with him while attending the two seasonal fairs held every year in Troyes. And they sent their sons to him for the rest of the year, so these young men could one day learn sufficient Talmud to allow them to enter the upper echelon of Jewish society. Salomon’s sons-in-law helped with the burgeoning population of students, which gave Salomon time to write and edit his now authoritative commentaries. In addition he and his relatives worked in the family vineyard—tending the grapevines, producing wine from its fruit, and selling the vintage from his cellar.

Like her older sisters, Rachel continued to study Talmud with her father, though there was no longer need for secrecy. She bore Eliezer a son and a daughter, and partnered with Miriam to establish a jewelry and money-lending business in Troyes similar to the one Miriam’s mother-in-law still ran in Paris. Rachel’s future seemed nothing if not rosy and assured—after all, she was her father’s favorite, adored by her husband, and the eventual matriarch of a large family of scholars.

 

Regretfully for Rachel, however, fate seemed to have conspired against her.

Part One