Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel (8 page)

Miriam gave Eliezer a sympathetic smile. He too had lost a sibling. “
Oui
. Simcha and Hannah were newlyweds when Joheved and Meir got betrothed. I met them at the feast and saw them regularly at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, since they lived at Ramerupt with Hannah and Meir’s parents.”

“She died in childbirth.” Eliezer’s words were more statement than question.

Miriam nodded. “Hannah went into labor in the middle of the night, and Meir rode to Ramerupt at dawn.”

Miriam’s audience was staring at her, their eyes wide. She took a deep breath. “Hannah’s womb was blocked by her baby’s placenta, and once labor started, nothing could prevent her from bleeding to death. Aunt Sarah had to deliver Samuel by cutting through Hannah’s belly.”

Rachel gasped and clutched her abdomen. She was sure she was pregnant.

Eliezer took her hand and squeezed it. “What happened to Simcha after that?”

“A widower with three small children needs a new wife, so he returned to Vitry and remarried.”

“Did they ever come back to visit?” Judah asked.

“They came to console Meir’s mother after his father died.”

“If Simcha was at all attached to Hannah, Ramerupt would hold terrible memories for him,” Judah said sadly.

Rachel rolled her eyes in annoyance. “But Hannah died fifteen years ago. Simcha and Meir must have stopped grieving, and Samuel never knew his mother. I don’t see why we all have to tiptoe around them now.”

Miriam and Judah stared at her in dismay, but it was Eliezer who spoke. “It’s been six years since my father and brother died, but I doubt I will ever stop grieving.”

“I intend to treat Simcha with the same welcoming demeanor I would display to any other relative arriving in Troyes,” Rachel declared. “If his past is too painful to discuss, I won’t bring up the subject.”

“I’d like to know how a man his age decides to start studying Talmud,” Eliezer said.

“I wonder what Papa is going to do with him.” Judah scratched his head. “I can’t imagine Simcha studying together with the thirteen-year-olds.”

Despite his son-in-law’s misgivings, Salomon placed Simcha and Samuel in the beginners’ class. When the Cold Fair ended with no sign of the pair returning to Vitry, Meir’s younger son, Shmuel, began to tutor his uncle and cousin in the vineyard while they pruned the vines together. Simcha and Samuel might have much to learn about Talmud, but they were experts when it came to viticulture.

The final day of the Cold Fair, Rachel stood shivering in the street, watching forlornly as Eliezer’s silhouette disappeared into the falling snow. Next month he would be in sunny Sepharad. Her advanced pregnancy would leave her housebound soon enough, so she tried to accompany Papa to the vineyard every day. This was the rare opportunity she had to talk with her father in relative privacy.

“Papa, I hate it when Eliezer is gone,” she said. “I want him back for Passover, or at least for the baby’s birth, but he has to go all the way to Córdoba to meet his agent.”

“
Ma fille
, I know it’s difficult for you, especially when your sisters’ husbands remain at home.”

“How do I get used to it?” She paused to study the vine in front of her, and then cut off several errant shoots. “You were away from Mama for all those years when you studied in the Rhineland, and the two of you were recently married then. Didn’t you miss her? I know Eliezer would rather stay with me than travel.”

Salomon sighed. “My situation was different. I loved my studies at the yeshiva, and when I came home for the festivals, I usually couldn’t wait to return to them.”

“You loved Talmud more than your family,” she accused him.

“I love Talmud
and
my family.” He gave her a quick hug. “But I knew I would only have a few years at the yeshiva, while I expected to spend the rest of my life with my family.”

“But Eliezer will always have to travel.”

“Will he?” Salomon turned to apply his full strength to cut through a thick branch. Only new wood was fruitful, so all the previous year’s growth had to be pruned away. “Your husband is the youngest child in his family; doesn’t he have some nephews who can take over for him eventually?”

“I suppose so, but that will be years from now.” Rachel’s frustration showed as she slashed at the vine in front of her.

“Be careful. Remember how my father died.”

“
Oui
, Papa.” She blushed with shame. When she was little, Papa had often reminded her that his father had died of blood poisoning after he cut himself in the vineyard.

She decided to change the subject. “I’m glad that Joheved had a healthy baby boy, but I would have liked to name a son Salomon after you.”

He smiled at her. “There’s nothing to prevent you,
ma fille
. Meir’s father has two grandsons named after him.”

“
Oui
, and now that they’re both studying here it’s confusing to have two Samuels, even if one does prefer to be called Shmuel.”

His expression clouded and his voice dropped. “Joheved’s baby seems well enough—may the Holy One protect him. But pairs are unlucky, and naming this boy Salomon after the previous one died of smallpox . . .” He stopped, reluctant to say anything to provoke the Evil Eye.

“I thought Miriam did the circumcision beautifully.” Rachel quickly found another topic to discuss.

Salomon shook his head. “She is adept at the procedure, but honestly I wish there were a qualified man in Troyes to be our junior mohel.”

Here was a topic they could debate all day. “But you have us sit in the sukkah and say the Shema; you bought us our own tefillin—you taught us Talmud. The Mishnah says that women are exempt from all these.”

He chuckled at her vehemence. “The Mishnah doesn’t say anything about women studying Talmud. But Tractate Kiddushin says:

Because Hebrew is written without vowels, different words can be spelled identically—in this case ‘teach’ and ‘study.’ The Sages of the Talmud regularly used comparisons of this kind for exegesis.

“But this assumes that women are not commanded to study Torah,” Rachel objected.

Salomon smiled and raised one finger in the air as he made his point, quoting more of the Gemara.

“That argument is circular and you know it.” Rachel’s voice began to rise.

“True. This contention hinges on the premise that a father is not commanded to teach his daughter Torah.” He looked Rachel in the eye. “You know the next line as well as I do,” and they quoted the text together:

Rachel looked at him, an earnest expression on her face. “Papa, why did you teach us?”

“Some interpret
benaichem
to mean children, and thus fathers without sons can perform the mitzvah of
v’limad’tem
by teaching a daughter Torah.”

“Maybe they teach only one daughter? You taught all three of us.”

“You and your sisters are all competent to study Talmud. You’re not light-headed like most women.”

“Most men are no better.”

“Which is why their fathers are obligated to teach them Torah,” he said. “If not for Torah, a man would be unable to control his
yetzer hara
. Look how violent the Edomite lords are, always attacking each other.”

She smiled and shook her finger at him. “You’ve managed to avoid answering my question about women doing mitzvot they’re exempt from.”

“If women want to fulfill the men’s mitzvot, if it gives them
nachat ruach
, ‘spiritual satisfaction,’ then they are of course permitted.” He playfully shook his finger back at her. “Not that we could prevent them.”

“But in Maghreb they do prevent them.” Rachel’s voice was suddenly serious. “You should have seen the way the women looked at me when I put on tefillin—like I was some kind of demon.”

“Every community has its own customs, which eventually take on the force of halachah.”

Their conversation ceased as they saw Simcha approaching. “Excuse me, Rabbenu. I have a question about this morning’s lesson.”

Rachel discreetly backed away, but not out of hearing distance. Papa treated every student’s questions with respect, which is why the older man often came to him. She hadn’t heard Simcha ask a silly question yet, and sometimes they were quite interesting.

This time Simcha’s question was easily answered by encouraging him to be patient; the Gemara would address his issue a few pages later. And when several young pupils quickly followed with questions of their own, Rachel realized that they had been reluctant to interrupt the conversation she’d been having with her father.

It seemed that Papa’s answer to Simcha was her answer too. Somehow she must wait and keep herself from becoming bitter like Mama, who, despite Papa’s words to the contrary, never resigned herself to her daughters performing the men’s mitzvot, a situation she hated but couldn’t change.

 

The days went by and Passover concluded with no sign of Eliezer, but Rachel refused to give up hope that he might return before their child was born. And when she gave birth to a boy on May Day, she still harbored hopes that he would arrive in time for the brit.

But that was not to be. It was Papa who held the baby while she climbed up to the
bima
and took her seat on one of the two elaborately carved chairs. The other was reserved for Elijah the Prophet; the only people who used it were bridegrooms. The bride sat in its mate, everyone hoping that she would soon occupy it again with a son to be circumcised.

While Papa recited the father’s traditional introduction, “Behold, I am prepared to fulfill the mitzvah of circumcising my son, as the Creator, blessed be He, commanded us,” Rachel sighed. She regarded the empty chair and recalled how Eliezer had filled it on their wedding day. But then she brightened; less than ten months later, she was sitting on the bride’s chair again with newborn Shemiah on her lap. And now there was another son for them.

She gently settled the baby on her lap and spread his legs. Papa might prefer that a man perform the brit, but Rachel was glad that it was a woman leaning in so close to her thighs. When she felt comfortable, she nodded at Miriam, who made the mohel’s blessing and picked up the
azmil
, the two-sided circumciser’s knife.

Rachel was determined to keep her eyes open; yet when the moment came, instinct made them close. Only the sound of her son’s cry made her realize that she had missed his brit milah as well as Shemiah’s. She looked down in time to see Miriam take a swig of wine and then bend over the howling infant. This was
motzitzin
, drawing the blood, and according to the Talmud, any mohel who did not cleanse the baby’s wound with his mouth is a danger and must be dismissed.

Now Miriam was smearing the cut with a salve of olive oil and cumin, the same as she applied after cutting his cord. Since no father was present to whisper the chosen name to Papa before he made the final blessing, Rachel had told him earlier that the boy would be called Asher. When the ceremony was complete, tears of disappointment wet her eyelashes. The cumin Eliezer had imported was here, but he was not.

Seven days had passed since the birth of her son, and though she was still bleeding, she was no longer considered
niddah
. According to Torah, her blood was
dam tahor
, “the blood of purity,” and she was permitted to her husband. Talmudic Sages wondered why a woman giving birth to a boy was impure for seven days, while a girl made the mother impure for fourteen days, and give the answer in Tractate Niddah:

Papa explained that if the circumcision were done earlier, while the mother was impure, the guests could enjoy themselves at the feast afterward while the parents were forbidden even to touch each other.

So instead of snuggling close to Eliezer, Rachel sat between Papa and Mama at the banquet, baby Asher asleep in her arms, as all her guests ate and drank and danced and laughed and enjoyed themselves—and as she tried to hide the tears welling up in her eyes. She was rescued by Miriam, who had seen quite a few new mothers grow inexplicably melancholy.