Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel (59 page)

“Surely no Jew in Champagne is that poor.”

“Maybe not today. But Joheved told me that when Papa was away studying in Mayence they could only afford enough wine at Passover because their family were vintners.”

“According to three of the four gospels, Jesus’s last
souper
was on the eve of Passover,” Dovid said. “There Jesus explains that the wine represents his blood, and the matzah his body.”

Rachel shuddered at the idea, and Dovid quickly added, “I’m only telling you what the monks taught me.”

 

After they’d been studying a few weeks, Joheved caught up with Rachel on her way to the fulling mill. “You didn’t tell me you were teaching Dovid Mishnah.” Joheved’s voice wasn’t condemning, more as though Rachel had kept good news a secret.

“He wanted to learn more Hebrew, so I thought he could try the last chapter of Tractate Pesachim.” Rachel tried not to look like a guilty child. “How did you know?”

“Dovid asked me a question about the seder.” Joheved’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “But never mind that. Since you’re teaching him Pesachim, would you mind if Jacob Tam joined you? He’s been out of sorts since Shlomo started studying with Meir at the yeshiva.”

At that moment Rachel realized that she would mind a great deal, but she couldn’t refuse her sister’s request. “Not at all. It will give Dovid someone to review his lessons with.” If Joheved thought she and Dovid required a chaperone, they could do worse than young Jacob.

Rachel and her two students slowly worked their way through the Mishnah, sometimes in Dovid’s cottage and, as the weather warmed, more often at a table outside. To her relief, Dovid didn’t mind appearing more ignorant than an eight-year-old boy, particularly when the boy was a prodigy like her nephew.

“After the appetizers, the servants bring in the special festival foods,” Rachel said. “Matzah, of course, is explicitly commanded in the Torah. The lettuce is the
maror
, the bitter herb also mandated by Torah.”

“But
haroset
isn’t in the Torah,” Jacob pointed out. “Where does it come from?”

Rachel hesitated. If Jacob had been her only student, she would have given him the Talmud’s answer. But she was reluctant to do so in front of Dovid. “There’s more written about Passover than what I gave you, but it’s not in Hebrew.” She turned to Jacob. “It asks the same question you do.

“I assume Rabbi Yohanan means the mortar the Hebrew slaves used to make bricks for Pharaoh,” Dovid said. “But I don’t recall anything about apple trees in the seder.”

“Apple trees aren’t mentioned in the seder, but that’s where the Hebrew women gave birth without pain in Egypt, away from Pharaoh’s men who wanted to kill the baby boys,” Rachel explained. “As it says in Song of Songs:

Dovid stared at her in bewilderment, but before Rachel could respond, Jacob asked, “Is that why
haroset
is made with apples, to remind us of the brave Hebrew women who defied Pharaoh and kept having children despite the danger?”

Rachel nodded. Her gaze lingered on the curve of Dovid’s lips until she abruptly realized that Jacob might notice her lapse. “In addition
haroset
contains spices such as cinnamon and ginger because its sticks resemble the straw used for bricks.”

Her other concern, Dovid discovering Talmud, was realized when Jacob asked, “Is your answer from the Gemara on this Mishnah?”

“What is the Gemara?” Dovid asked, now more confused.

Jacob Tam looked at Dovid as if he had asked what bread is. “The Gemara and Mishnah together make up the Talmud, the Oral Law, which was given to Moses on Mount Sinai along with the written Torah.”

Rachel had no choice but to interrupt. “Jews only discuss Talmud with other Jews, Dovid. Then Notzrim can’t criticize us by accusing the Talmud of distorting our Torah, preventing us from realizing the truth about—” She caught herself just before saying “the Hanged One” and said, “Jesus.”

“Grandpapa says that Dovid is Jewish.” Jacob turned to the fuller. “But if you’re Jewish, why aren’t you married? Only Notzrim don’t marry.”

Rachel thought she’d die of embarrassment, but to her surprise Dovid smiled and tousled the boy’s hair. “Your grandfather isn’t married.”

“But Grandpapa is old,” Jacob replied. “And besides, he was married for a long time.”

“So who would you have me marry?” Dovid asked. “Jews consider me Jewish, and the Church considers me a Christian.”

Jacob squinted at Dovid. “What do you consider yourself?”

Rachel thought to chastise Jacob for such a personal question, but she was curious about Dovid’s answer.

“I don’t know, I haven’t decided.” He was silent a while before adding, “I suppose that’s why I’m not married.”

“Let’s get back to our studies,” Rachel broke in. Then she said to Dovid, “The Talmud is a fence around the Torah. Since all the commandments are spread throughout the twenty-four books of the Bible, a little here and a little there, one who learns a particular law may forget it before he reaches the next. Thus our Sages established tractates and arranged all the laws of Passover together in Tractate Pesachim, just as all the laws of Sabbath are explained in Tractate Shabbat.”

“The Mishnah contains the laws,” Jacob added. “And the Gemara answers the questions the Sages asked about the Mishnah.”

“To answer your question, Jacob Tam,” Rachel said sternly. “What I explained about the apple tree and spices did come from the Gemara on our Mishnah.”

Studying Mishnah with Dovid and little Jacob was both pleasant and frustrating. On one hand, Dovid and Jacob asked the most intriguing questions. But on the other hand, Rachel longed for the idyllic hours she and Dovid used to spend studying alone in his cottage, where there were no witnesses if she covertly admired his countenance while he spoke. In the weeks following Passover, her feelings grew more conflicted. Shemiah left for Sepharad, and she anxiously awaited the report he would bring.

The Jewish Festival of Freedom served to drive home the message that neither she nor Dovid were free to marry. He would not find a bride until he settled in one religion or the other; she was tied to Eliezer until she accepted his
get
. As the weather warmed, she was increasingly presented with the enticing sight of Dovid’s muscular body, clearly outlined beneath his wet chemise in the fulling tank. At night, when she grew restless and her hand slipped between her thighs to give her relief, it was often Dovid she imagined in bed with her, not her husband.

Yet when she thought of accepting Eliezer’s divorce, she couldn’t see how she could break the news to Papa until he’d regained his health. For no sooner had he returned home from Passover at Ramerupt than he was attacked by the fever demon Kadachas. Moses haCohen recommended a diet rich in wine and red meat to strengthen his blood, but Papa insisted on following the regimen found in the Talmud at the end of Tractate Shabbat’s sixth chapter, a cure based on reciting verses from Exodus that describe Moses’s encounter with the burning bush.

Salomon’s students scoured the neighborhood for the nearest rose bush, which was farther away than Rachel thought he should walk in his feeble condition. But he managed the effort each day, leaning heavily on her arm, and was twice able to invoke the miracle of the burning bush not consumed by fire. The third day was difficult, but Salomon was eventually able to recite the final verse that warned the fever demon to approach no closer.

Then, sweating profusely, he chopped down the bush and said the Talmud’s incantation, “Even as the fire in the furnace for Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah fled before them, so too shall the fire afflicting Salomon ben Leah flee from him.”

At first this magic remedy appeared successful, but the fever returned a few weeks later. Now the doctor recommended herbal infusions and more frequent bloodletting, but nothing could vanquish Kadachas, and each new attack only weakened Salomon further.

For the first time in Rachel’s memory, her father did not visit the vineyard even once during the six weeks between Passover and Shavuot. He no longer woke at dawn but rose two hours later; plus he went to bed immediately after
souper
and took naps on weekdays in addition to Shabbat. Despite many prayers for his recovery, his health continued to deteriorate. Some of the scholars arriving for the Hot Fair recommended treatments detailed in the seventh chapter of Tractate Gittin, but others decried these as dangerous because nobody knew exactly how to prepare them anymore.

“What Papa needs is a continuous treatment,” Rachel complained as she and Miriam walked home from synagogue. “Not something that wears off gradually.”

Miriam shook her head. “But he can’t eat or drink a medicine continuously, and all prayers and incantations have a beginning and an end.”

“I wish there was an amulet against fever.” Rachel paused to think. “Wait. Doesn’t a topaz protect against fever?”

“You’re right.” Miriam increased her pace, Rachel right behind her. “How did we forget that?”

At home, Rachel and Miriam sorted through their jewels, eventually settling on a large topaz brooch to be reset as a ring. And thank Heaven, after Salomon began wearing it, his condition stabilized.

Still, Rachel approached Miriam and Judah about Rivka and Elisha marrying after the Cold Fair. “I think it would give Papa pleasure to see his two grandchildren wed.” She couldn’t bring herself to say that Papa might not live long enough to enjoy the wedding if they waited longer.

“I agree that we can’t wait for Eliezer to decide to come home,” Judah said. “Elisha will be eighteen soon.”

“Rivka has already told me she doesn’t care if her father attends the wedding.” Rachel made no effort to keep the bitterness from her voice.

 

With Salomon out of danger, Rachel wanted to speak with him about Eliezer, but whenever she tried, he was either resting or deep in conversation with Shmuel or Judah. In her frustration, she would ride to Ramerupt instead.

Meir’s nieces had written that Meshullam would no longer be traveling as far as Ramerupt since plenty of excellent wool was available in Flanders. “Are you sure you can take all our wool this year, now that my brother-in-law has no need for it?” Joheved asked.

“Dovid says that if I can procure enough spinsters and weavers, he’ll provide the fullers,” Rachel replied, as much to allay her own anxiety as her sister’s. “Spinsters are plentiful, and we should be able to attract sufficient weavers if we supply them with horizontal looms.”

Jehan had married Alette’s daughter and established his own weaving shop. Both he and Albert had apprentices, with Albert boasting that he could train others if he had additional looms.

“It will need a large investment,” Joheved warned her.

“One that should reap a large reward.” Rachel tried to exude confidence. “Don’t worry.”

“How can I not worry when Papa has asked Shmuel to lead the yeshiva this summer?” Joheved said. “He’s barely twenty-four.”

Salomon, while confined to bed, had consulted with Meir and Judah as to his successor. Both asked to retain their current responsibilities, Meir teaching the younger students and Judah editing his
kuntres
.

That left Shmuel.

“If the foreign merchants object to your son’s youth, Papa said to remind them that when he founded the yeshiva he was only a year older than Shmuel is now. And that Shmuel knows just as much Talmud as he did at that age.”

Joheved smiled. “I’m not sure that’s true, but it’s a nice thing for Papa to say.”

This would have been a good time to ask Joheved’s opinion on divorce, but Rachel couldn’t bring herself to broach the subject with her judgmental older sister. Instead she went to visit Dovid, telling herself that she’d make her decision after Shemiah and Pesach came home.

But the news her son brought the following week left no hope for her marriage. Eliezer’s concubine was pregnant once again.