Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel (43 page)

The scribe took the items only after one of the judges ascertained that the parchment and ink truly belonged to Shemayah and were not merely loaned for the occasion. The scribe dutifully etched twelve parallel lines, as well as the date, names of witnesses, plus the place where the
get
was written, where Brunetta lived, and where Shemayah lived.

Then he, along with everyone in the room, waited for Shemayah to make the required statements out loud. “This
get
is from me to Brunetta of Troyes, formerly of Provins . . .” Finally the scribe indicated that he was ready to write again, and Shemayah turned to the soon-to-be divorcée and spat out the words
harei at muteret lekol adam
, meaning “may you be permitted to all men.”

Meir closely inspected the finished parchment after the witnesses signed it, and then gave it to Judah for further examination. Even the smallest irregularity could invalidate a
get
, and though he hated to believe his best friend and study partner was capable of such evil, Meir knew Joheved suspected that Shemayah hated Brunetta sufficiently to use his expertise in Jewish Law to make a tiny, yet significant, error—one that left her believing she was divorced when she wasn’t. Then, if Brunetta married again, she would commit the sin of adultery.

But Meir could find no errors, and neither could Judah. They returned the document to the judges, one of who gently dropped it into Brunetta’s outstretched hands. Joheved, Miriam, and Rachel simultaneously let out their breath. Zipporah’s sigh of relief had to be audible to her father, but he pointedly ignored the group of females hugging his ex-wife and strode out of the courtroom.

A week later he was gone, his house rented out along with all its furnishings except his books, and Shmuel was recalled from Paris to help his father in the yeshiva. A month later, Meir received a letter from Orléans: Shemayah was its new rosh yeshiva and had betrothed a new wife on Lag b’Omer.

 

“Yum, that smells wonderful.” Rachel sniffed the air appreciatively. “Is someone baking a cake for Leah’s betrothal?”

“Of course not, silly,” Hannah answered. Since Papa became friends with Guy de Dampierre, the bishop’s bakery provided their pastries. “I’m baking special cakes for my brother Shlomo’s first day of school on Shavuot; they have to be baked by a virgin.”

“What?” Rachel burst out. Despite her years of Talmud study, she’d never heard of this tradition.

“I didn’t know about it myself until Meir suggested that Shlomo go to school in town.” Joheved sighed heavily. “I wish I could teach our son myself, but between running the manor, planning for Leah’s betrothal banquet next week, plus caring for Judita’s children and little Jacob, I’m exhausted.”

Judita had begun to bleed midway through this, her third pregnancy, so Miriam had confined her to bed.

“Of course you are, Joheved,” Miriam said. “Most forty-year-old women are finished getting up with babies at night.”

“Meir insists that I make time for my own studies with Hannah and Leah,” Joheved said proudly. “But I worry that Shlomo’s too young to be separated from the family.”

“It will be nice for Shlomo to have friends his own age in town,” Rachel said.

“It’s a good thing I don’t have my flowers, since whoever bakes the Shavuot cakes is supposed to be
tahor
(ritually clean).” Hannah was eager to educate her aunts.

Rachel’s expression clouded. She too was between menses, but that meant she would likely be
niddah
when Eliezer returned in a couple of weeks. To hide her dismay, she thoughtlessly asked Hannah, “Since you’ve already flowered, why is it that your little sister will soon have a husband, and you don’t?”

Hannah’s face flamed, and Miriam quickly spoke before Joheved could vent her outrage. “There’s no need to be rude, Rachel. We’ve known for years that Joseph’s dying wish was for Samson to marry one of Papa’s granddaughters. Since Leah took a liking to the boy, she may as well marry him.”

“And if Hannah doesn’t like any of the suitors offered to her, she can remain unwed.” Joheved’s tone made it clear how unhappy she was about the situation.

Rachel couldn’t resist baiting her sister. “Perhaps your daughter refused all these suitors because she’s waiting for the one she wants to present himself.”

To Rachel’s astonishment, Hannah’s eyes filled with tears and her face turned an even brighter red. Joheved’s mouth dropped as she realized that Rachel had inadvertently hit upon the truth, while Miriam reached out to hug her distraught niece.

“Is he one of Papa’s students?” Miriam asked gently. Surely he wasn’t one of the merchants.

When Hannah nodded, Joheved’s anger melted. “Don’t worry. We will let this shy fellow know that we welcome him into our family.” Surely any of Salomon’s students would jump at a chance to marry his granddaughter.

“He already is one of our family,” Hannah whispered.

Rachel squinted at Miriam. Could Hannah have set her heart on Yom Tov, only to see him wed to another in Paris?

Joheved smiled. “You mean your cousin Samuel ben Simcha?”

Hannah gave a shy smile and nodded again.

“Of course he hasn’t asked for her,” Miriam said. “He’s already lost two wives, one in childbirth and the other in a fire, so he’s probably afraid that Meir would object to his daughter being the third.”

Rachel gave Miriam a knowing look. “Which only proves that Hannah must be his
bashert
.” A Baraita in Tractate Taanit taught that women, and men, died early in marriage because their spouses were ordained in Heaven for others.

Joheved hurried to Hannah’s side and hugged her tight. “Meir will be thrilled to see his sister’s line continue through you.” Joheved smiled broadly. “I can’t wait to tell him.”

“I can’t wait to see Samuel’s face.” Rachel grinned at her red-faced niece. “I remember how he looked at you when you blew the shofar.”

“
Mon Dieu
, the cakes.” Hannah dashed to a pot on the hearth and poked the cake inside it with a straw.

Miriam took this opportunity to spare her niece further embarrassment. “Besides being baked by a
tahor
virgin, Hannah, what else is special about these cakes?”

“As I kneaded the dough, I recited a prayer, saying, ‘I am making these cakes for Shlomo, son of Joheved. May it be Your will, the Eternal One in Heaven, that he be open to the study of Torah and not forget anything he learns.’ ”

Joheved beamed with pleasure, imagining one daughter betrothed at the Hot Fair and the other at the Cold Fair. Both would be married in six months, while avoiding the bad luck that arose when two sisters married within the same year.

“Before I put the cakes on the fire, which must be made with wood from grape vines, I took grape juice and wrote the holy names Arimas and Avrimas on top and ‘sweet as honey’ below.” Proud of her knowledge, and thrilled at her sudden good fortune, Hannah smiled at her elders. “You remember, from the third chapter of Ezekiel.”

“It’s a good thing we grow grapes,” Joheved said, her eyes twinkling. Samuel ben Simcha was quite competent in the vineyard and thus a useful worker to have in Ramerupt.

“When does Shlomo get to eat these special cakes?” Rachel asked. “I assume he does get to eat them.” She knew that little boys started their formal Jewish education at Shavuot, but without a brother who’d undergone this initiation rite, she was only familiar with the holiday’s universal rituals.

Shavuot was the holiday when Jews commemorated receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. It was one of the three pilgrimage festivals celebrated in Jerusalem when the Holy Temple still stood. But observing Shavuot wasn’t as complicated as the other two: Passover with its elaborate seder and complicated dietary restrictions and Sukkot with the diversion of building booths and dwelling in them for a week.

Shavuot, celebrated for two days, seemed more like an extended Sabbath highlighted by a recitation of the Ten Commandments during the festival service. Even so, most yeshiva students went home for the brief holiday, which was often immediately followed by a wedding or betrothal. Because of a plague among Rabbi Akiva’s students, Jews avoided celebrations between Passover and Shavuot, a tradition reinforced by the recent tragedies in the Rhineland during the same months. Thus there were usually couples ready to be married immediately after the period of semi-mourning was over.

This year Leah and Samson would be among them.

twenty-four

Shavuot came so late that year that Eliezer would have to celebrate the holiday on his return trip to Troyes. But he was determined not to forget his astronomy, no matter how Salomon’s family might object to secular studies. He carefully packed his new astrolabe, his feelings wavering between eagerness to make observations of the night sky above Troyes and trepidation over how Rachel would react when she saw the instrument he’d spent much of their profits on. Ibrahim ibn Said al-Wazzân, creator of the finest astrolabes in the world, had crafted it.

Advanced astronomy was impossible without an astrolabe, a model of the celestial sphere consisting of two circular brass plates that rotated independently around each other. One was engraved with gradations of time and the other with a detailed map of the zodiac that identified the most important stars. An experienced astronomer could accurately measure the time of night or year, as well as the position of celestial objects, and thus compute what part of the sky was visible at any time. He could also determine the altitude of any object over the horizon as well as his own current latitude.

Abraham bar Hiyya was delighted with Eliezer’s decision. Most astronomical observations had been made within a narrow range of latitudes around the Great Sea, and measurements of the sky as far north as Troyes should add significantly to their store of knowledge.

“I want you to take careful note of the planets’ movements,” he told Eliezer. “Especially Mercury and Venus.”

“Why?” Eliezer asked. Abraham had that smug secretive look. “Will it help you predict the Messiah’s coming?” Most rabbis prohibited such speculation, but that didn’t stop Abraham.

“Perhaps, but that’s not my main motivation.”

Eliezer raised an eyebrow. “Do you think you’ll finally be able to discern if the earth rotates, rather than the celestial sphere?” This was another of his friend’s special projects.

Abraham smiled but shook his head. “Ptolemy admits that the heavens’ motion would appear the same no matter whether the earth or the sphere rotated.”

“There must be some way to determine the truth.”

“One day you and I may discover it,” Abraham said. “But we will not need Mercury and Venus to do so.”

“You hope that observing their positions from a different latitude will enable you to determine if they orbit the sun.” Eliezer grinned triumphantly.

Abraham nodded. “Every astronomer in Toledo has noticed that these inner planets sometimes appear to move behind the sun, an impossibility if their spheres lie closer to the earth,” He clasped Eliezer by the shoulder. “Have a safe journey, my friend. And pay particular attention to the planets’ positions at the
tekufot
.”

Eliezer was left to ponder why their positions at the
tekufot
, the turning points of the sun, were so important. He would be in Troyes for three of them, the autumnal equinox plus the summer and winter solstices. Hopefully there would be no clouds on those nights.

 

On Sunday morning, the first day of Shavuot, three generations of Salomon’s family eagerly got up when the church bells chimed Prime. It was a beautiful spring day, perfect for showing off one’s holiday clothes. Despite the warm weather, Meir wrapped Shlomo in a large cloak and carried him to the synagogue.

“He can’t walk by himself like usual,” Rivka solemnly informed Rachel. “Because he might see a dog or pig on the way.” Her daughter’s low voice made it clear that this would be a very bad thing.

One young boy was waiting at the synagogue with his family and another soon joined them. Last to arrive was their teacher, Master Levi, whom Rachel recognized as one of the local undistinguished scholars Eliezer complained about. Levi led his new pupils to a small room, where, one by one, he took each on his lap and held up a wax tablet with the Hebrew alphabet written on it. When it was Shlomo’s turn, his family craned their necks to watch.

First the teacher read the alphabet forward, with Shlomo repeating each letter aloud; then they recited the letters backward, and finally various letters in paired combinations. After Shlomo finished, Levi smeared the tablet with honey for the boy to lick off. Cakes and eggs were distributed next, and after the teacher recited the words written on them, the three boys imitated him before eating their second sweet reward.

Finally the teacher made the boys repeat after him, “I adjure you, Potach, Prince of Forgetfulness, to remove from me a foolish heart and throw it far away on a high mountain, in the holy names of Arimas, Avrimas, Arimimas.”