Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel (63 page)

In my first book, I built upon two popular legends about Rashi’s daughters—that they studied Talmud and prayed with tefillin. But there is a less-well-known legend that says they wrote the commentary on Tractate Nedarim that has come down to us as Rashi’s, which is clearly not in his usual terse and pithy style. To this day, the author of this text remains unidentified, but my careful study suggests a feminine point of view.

Not everything written about Rashi’s daughters is legend. Much is recorded about Joheved and Meir, including when they died and what Meir said at her funeral. Less is known of Miriam and Judah. We know the names of their children and that their eldest son, Yom Tov, served as rosh yeshiva in Paris. And in Rashi’s commentary on Tractate Makkot 19a, we find the words Judah wrote upon his father-in-law’s death.

But so little data exists concerning Rachel and Eliezer that some scholars doubt Rashi had more than two daughters. The main evidence comes from a letter Rabbenu Tam wrote to his cousin Yom Tov that mentions the divorce of their aunt Rachel from Eliezer, plus the existence of a grandson of Rashi’s named Shemiah, who is neither Joheved’s son nor Miriam’s.

Not much from which to write a historical novel.

My first challenge was to create a plot involving Rachel and Eliezer’s divorce; yet I knew I had to take care in making them both sympathetic and heroic figures. There could be no villains in Rashi’s immediate family. Aware that some of the eighteenth century’s finest yeshiva students abandoned their Talmud studies when the Enlightenment opened the great European universities to them, I decided to make Eliezer similarly tempted by the ancient Greek knowledge being rediscovered in Spain during his lifetime. To my surprise, I learned that Arab astronomers had postulated a heliocentric planetary system hundreds of years before Copernicus.

With Eliezer committed to his secular studies, Rachel would be forced to choose between the two men she loved most—her father and her husband. She would face the choice of leaving her family and moving with Eliezer to Spain, where women were hidden away at home and certainly didn’t study Talmud, or staying to care for an increasingly enfeebled Rashi in Troyes, where the massacres of the First Crusade threatened the Jews’ very existence.

Ah yes—the First Crusade. Since I planned that my trilogy would end with Rashi’s death in 1105, there was no avoiding the First Crusade and its disastrous consequences for Rhineland Jewry. So I carefully salted the first two volumes with imaginary characters who’d be living in different Rhineland cities in the third—Catharina and Samson, Aunt Sarah’s son Elazar, Judah’s early study partners Daniel and Elisha. Then I took Jewish historical descriptions of the horrific events and had my characters experience them, using the original wording as much as possible. I apologize for the graphic violence, but I wanted to stay true to the eyewitness reports. It was a truly terrible time.

How the martyrs of Mayence, Worms, and Cologne died is factual, as is the fate of Emicho’s men and the pilgrims who followed Peter the Hermit. However, the legend of a dying Rabbi Amnon writing Unetanah Tokef, one of the most powerful prayers of the Days of Awe, is completely unfounded. In fact, the prayer seems to have been composed, not in eleventh-century Mayence, but in Eretz Israel hundreds of years earlier. But the legend is so pervasive and compelling that I reworked it into a version that might have happened, or at least cannot so easily be disproved.

My portrayals of life in Tunisia and Sepharad are taken from documents in the Cairo Geniza, but there is no evidence that either Eliezer or Rachel ever stepped foot out of Troyes. All of their travels are the product of my imagination, as are their occupations. Yet we know that in addition to being vintners, some of Rashi’s family earned a living from wool. Research showed that Rashi’s description of the horizontal loom in his
kuntres
is the earliest mention of such a device and that the first fulling mill appeared in northern France during his lifetime.

Also during the twelfth century, wealthy clothing entrepreneurs emerged who employed all the laborers involved in the production of these expensive fabrics, eventually eliminating the previous system in which workers bought their own raw materials and equipment and then sold their product to the next craftsman in the chain. Amazingly, 80 percent of international trade in the Middle Ages consisted of luxury woolens and silk.

For other events in Rachel and Eliezer’s life, I borrowed liberally from the medieval responsa literature. The incident where Joheved put the milk spoon in the meat pot is from Rashi’s own responsa, although he doesn’t state which daughter was responsible. Rashi also answered many questions about forced converts after the First Crusade, and I used the responsa from the man with an apostate brother to complicate Rachel’s life. Eliezer’s capture and self-ransom in the forest actually happened to another merchant, but it was too good a tale to ignore. Jewish women had little difficulty obtaining a divorce from their husbands at this time—unlike today—so I had Brunetta demonstrate the procedure.

I tried to incorporate many of the local political events. Young Count Eudes died mysteriously on New Year’s in 1093, his successor Hugues barely survived an assassination attempt by his favored servant, and Érard of Brienne launched his attack soon after. The scandal of King Philip leaving his queen for the beautiful Bertrade is well known, as is the influence of Countess Adèle in Champagne’s affairs.

In Spain, where Jews thrived despite (or because of) the constant battles between Spaniards and Moors, I placed Eliezer in the thick of the cultural and historical milieu. King Alfonso’s conquest of Toledo was a turning point in the Reconquista, and I couldn’t resist including El Cid as well as the poet Moses ibn Ezra, astronomer and philosopher Abraham bar Hiyya, and Arab mathematician Ibn Bajjah (the concentration of intellectual giants in Sepharad at the dawn of the twelfth century was extraordinary). It was quite an effort for me to assimilate the ideas of Ptolemy, Aristotle, and Philo well enough that I could then convey their essence to my readers.

As in the first two volumes, the magical and medical remedies, as well as the astrology and demonology, came from the Talmud itself or other medieval sources. I could never have invented such bizarre stuff.

Speaking of the Talmud, the passages quoted are: Berachot 10a and Shabbat 23b and 34a (chapter 2); Kiddushin 29b, Rosh Hashanah 33a, and Niddah 31b (chapter 4); Berachot 55b (chapter 6); Eruvin 100b and Shabbat 73a (chapter 7); Ketubot 51b (chapter 8); Shabbat 21 (chapter 9); Berachot 55a (chapter 10); Avodah Zarah 18a (chapter 14); Shabbat 66b and Kiddushin 33 (chapter 15); Shabbat 75a (chapter 16); Avodah Zarah 18a and Moed Katan 20b and 22b (chapter 17); Berachot 55a and Sukkah 29a (chapter 18); Taanit 30b (chapter 20); Rosh Hashanah 20-21 (chapter 24); more Rosh Hashanah 21 (chapter 25); Sanhedrin 38b (chapter 26); Nedarim 20b (chapter 27); Nedarim 50a and Sanhedrin 7a (chapter 29); Shabbat 67a (chapter 32); and Makkot 19a and Berachot 5a (chapter 33). All translations are my own.

For those readers interested in my many sources, a bibliography is located on my Web site,
www.rashisdaughters.com
, under “historical info.”

I thank you for sharing this journey with me. My hope is that, just as I enjoyed and learned a great deal from writing Joheved, Miriam, and Rachel’s stories, so you did as well while reading them.

glossary

Adar
Final month of the Jewish year: Purim falls on the Fifteenth of Adar. An extra month, Adar II, is added in leap years.

Allemagne
Germany

Angleterre
England

Baraita
A source cited in the Talmud that is not found in the Mishnah.

Bavel
Babylonia

Beit din
Jewish court

Bima
Pulpit. The raised platform in synagogue where Torah is read.

Bliaut
Tunic. The outer garment worn over a chemise by both men and women.

Brit milah
Ritual circumcision, performed when the baby boy is eight days old.

Chacham
Jewish scholar

Chalitzah
Jewish ritual that frees a childless widow from levirate marriage.

Compline
Last of the eight canonical hours, approximately 3:00 a.m.

Dinar
Gold coin. A unit of money equal to 240 deniers, silver pennies.

Disner
The midday meal in medieval France, usually the largest meal of the day.

Distaff
The stick that holds the raw wool or flax to be spun into thread.

Edomite
European non-Jew (Talmudic term for Roman)

Elul
Sixth month of the Jewish calendar, the month prior to Days of Awe.

Erusin
Formal betrothal that cannot be annulled without a divorce but does not allow the couple to live together.

Flowers
Medieval French term for menses, used both as noun and verb.

Ganymede
Mythic prince of Troy seduced by Zeus, and a medieval word for male homosexual.

Gemara
Questions and discussion about the Mishnah, later part of Talmud compiled between 200-500 CE.

Get
Jewish bill of divorce

Halachah
Jewish Law

Havdalah
Saturday evening ceremony that marks the end of the Sabbath.

Heddle
Any of the vertical cords in the frame of a loom used to guide the warp threads.

Herem
Excommunication

Heshvan
Eighth month in Jewish calendar, the month after Days of Awe.

Kavanah
Serious intention before praying or performing a mitzvah.

Ketubah
Jewish marriage contract given by the groom to the bride, specifying his obligations during the marriage and in the event of divorce or his death.

Kislev
Ninth month of the Jewish calendar; the month in winter when Hanukkah occurs.

Kriah
Tearing one’s clothes as a symbol of mourning.

Kuntres
Notes and commentary explaining the Talmudic text.

Lillit
Demon responsible for killing newborn babies and women in childbirth; Adam’s first wife.

Matins
The first canonical hour: midnight.

Matzah
Unleavened bread eaten during Passover.

Mazikim
Demons or evil spirits.

Midrash
Genre of rabbinic commentary that expands and explains the biblical text, generally used to refer to nonlegal material.

Mikvah
Ritual bath used for purification, particularly by women when no longer
niddah
.

Minim
Heretics, derisive Jewish word for Christians.

Mishnah
Second-century collection of Jewish Laws, arranged by topic; earliest part of Talmud.

Mitzvah
(plural: mitzvot) Divine commandment

Mohel
(feminine:
mohelet
) One who performs a ritual circumcision.

Niddah
A menstruating woman.

Nissan
First month of the Jewish calendar; Passover starts on the Fifteenth of Nissan.

Nisuin
Ceremony that completes the marriage, followed by cohabitation.

None
Sixth of the eight canonical hours, approximately 3:00 p.m.

Notzrim
Polite Jewish word for Christians; literally those who worship the one from Nazareth.

Pâques
Easter, also the French word for Passover.

Parnas
Leader, or mayor, of Jewish community.

Prime
Dawn, third of the eight canonical hours, approximately 6 a.m.

Responsa
Questions sent to a rabbi asking for a legal decision and his reply.

Rosh yeshiva
Headmaster of a Talmud academy.

Ruchot
(singular:
ruach
) Ghosts, spirits of recent dead.

Seder
Ceremony observed in a Jewish home on the first two nights of Passover.

Selichot
Prayers for forgiveness, also the special religious service that takes place at midnight on the Saturday night preceding Rosh Hashanah.

Sepharad
Spain

Sheloshim
First thirty days of mourning following the death of a relative.

Shema
Central creed of Judaism, verses from Deuteronomy said twice a day and ideally upon one’s death: “Hear O Israel, Adonai is our God, Adonai is One.”

Shiva
First seven days of mourning following the death of a relative.

Shuttle
Bobbin of thread that goes back and forth through the loom’s warp, weaving in the weft.

Souper
Supper, evening meal.

Sukkah
Booth in which Jews dwell during the harvest festival of Sukkot.

Tahara
Preparation of a corpse for burial.

Talmid chacham
Great Jewish scholar

Tefillin
Phylacteries, small leather cases containing passages from scripture worn by Jewish men while reciting morning prayers.

Tekufah
Solstice or equinox, one of the sun’s four turning points in the Jewish year.

Tierce
Fourth of the eight canonical hours, 9:00 a.m.

Villein
French serf, a slave belonging to whoever owned the land he lived on.

Warp
Threads running lengthwise in a fabric, crossed by the weft.

Weft
Threads running from side to side in a fabric, crossed by the warp.

Yeshiva
(plural: yeshivot) Talmud academy

Yetzer hara
Evil inclination, usually refers to the sexual urge.