Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel (23 page)

After all her worries about Eudes and about Eliezer’s travels, as well as the baby she’d lost because of them, Rachel just wanted to sit outdoors, surrounded by new growth, and soak up the silent sunshine. She’d start looking for fullers and dyers to hire once the Hot Fair was over. By then she’d likely be pregnant again, and the oh-so-compassionate tongues would stop wagging about poor Rachel.

But neither of her assumptions came to pass. The Hot Fair had scarcely begun when her flowers returned, and eleven days later she accompanied Miriam at sunset to a secluded pool where a small stream fed into the Seine. There the two sisters immersed in the
mayim chaim
, the “living waters,” which made this a natural
mikvah
. One month later they repeated the process, and again a month after that.

While she was waiting to be permitted to Eliezer again, word came that Érard of Brienne had attacked, and then overrun, one of the Count of Champagne’s more remote castles. Eudes’ successor, his youngest brother, Hugues, had most of his men occupied patrolling the fairgrounds or guarding the roads leading to Troyes, and thus Érard’s knights easily overcame the castle’s small squadron.

As usual Salomon’s household received the latest, and most correct, information from Guy de Dampierre.

“I don’t understand why Érard would risk a war over such a small fief,” Meir said at
disner
.

“And why now?” Joheved asked. “There’s been peace in Champagne for years.”

“Érard is testing our new young count,” Guy replied. “He’s hoping that either Hugues will not consider the castle worth fighting over or will prove unable to retake it.”

Salomon took a ladleful of stew and passed the bowl around the table. “Érard deliberately chose a time when Hugues was at a disadvantage.”

Guy nodded. “Hugues will have to wait until the Hot Fair is over before he can marshal a force large enough to attack Brienne. That gives some other baron, thinking similarly, an opportunity to assault another of Hugues’ castles.”

“What if King Philip or the Duke of Burgundy decides to test him?” Miriam voiced the worry they all felt.

“We must pray that they do not,” Eliezer replied. “Such an attack would entangle Count Stephen of Blois and perhaps even the king of Angleterre.”

“Don’t worry. Countess Adelaide is too wise and experienced to let that happen.” Guy smiled conspiratorially. “I’ve heard that she’s arranged for Hugues to marry Princess Constance, so we probably needn’t worry about King Philip.”

Rachel listened in silence, her dismay growing. Most woolen merchants wouldn’t share Guy’s knowledge or confidence, so they might not be keen on entering a risky new venture with her and Eliezer until the trouble with Brienne was settled. And if Hugues were as inept a leader as Érard hoped, that could be years away.

More disappointing, her flowers started again the day before Selichot, the Saturday preceding Rosh Hashanah, and she feared that getting pregnant again might not be so easy as before. Then to make matters worse, that afternoon the sun was almost totally eclipsed.

Part Two

thirteen

Toledo, Sepharad
Winter 4854 (1094 C.E.)

 

After following the Tagus River for several days, Eliezer gazed at last on the distant walls of Toledo and felt a surge of eagerness, followed immediately by a stab of guilt. The cloth enterprise was going to take longer to establish than Rachel had anticipated, and to ensure sufficient time for him to launch his business in Toledo in the meantime Rachel unhappily agreed not to expect his return to Troyes until summer.

Eliezer’s heart swelled with compassion for his lovely, sad, and overworked wife. Her mother’s health had declined precipitously after Yom Kippur, and when he returned from Mayence for the Cold Fair, the old woman was bedridden. Rachel had always enjoyed being Salomon’s favorite daughter, but now, in addition to her other duties, she was suddenly responsible for hosting yeshiva students and visiting scholars. Not that Miriam wouldn’t share the burden of running his household, but Salomon always asked for Rachel, who couldn’t bring herself to refuse him.

It seemed to Eliezer that his wife had changed after the stillbirth. Most men would be pleased if their wives stopped arguing with them, but now that she no longer teased or challenged him, Eliezer realized how much spice their verbal battles had added to their marriage.

Its loss only exacerbated the decline in their marital relations. Rachel still wasn’t pregnant when the Hot Fair closed, which had meant that for each of the next six months they were permitted to use the bed only during the two weeks between her immersions in the
mikvah
and when she became
niddah
again. According to Tractate Niddah, this was supposed to increase their desire for each other.

Indeed Salomon taught that if a husband can have his wife whenever he wants, he will lose his desire for her; while the forced abstinence makes him as eager for her as on their wedding night. But this wasn’t the case for Eliezer. Since
niddah
made Rachel more desperate to be pregnant with each ensuing month, their coupling became more an obligation than a pleasure.

When she flowered again just after the Hot Fair ended, he’d considered leaving immediately. But he followed the Talmud’s admonition that a man must “visit” his wife before he leaves for a journey and waited the necessary days until she was clean again.

As it was, he arrived in Mayence so late that many of the best pelts were already sold. Thank Heaven for Samson, uncle to Salomon’s servant Anna. Samson had saved some for him, because Eliezer had taken on an additional task that only added to his delay.

Anna’s husband, Baruch, had written to Samson, pouring out his frustration at not finding a bride for their son, Pesach. Baruch originally asked Salomon to approach merchants who frequented the Troyes fairs, hinting that Pesach would accept a bride with a few defects, but to no avail. Despite Pesach’s piety and Talmud knowledge, no Jewish father wanted his daughter to marry a vineyard laborer—no matter how exalted his master. It didn’t help that Pesach’s parents were converts and originally pagan slaves.

With all the young mothers who died giving birth, there were far more unmarried men than women. So in desperation, Anna begged her uncle Samson to allow his oldest daughter, Dulcie, to marry Pesach.

Thus Eliezer had been charged with bringing Pesach to Mayence with him, where the young couple would meet and, assuming all went well, become betrothed. It was the least he could do to repay Samson, who’d not only risked life and limb to bring news of the death of Eliezer’s father and brother but also accompanied him all the way to Prague to retrieve their personal effects.

Regretfully, young Pesach was somewhat poor company. The surly adolescent spent much of the journey vacillating between worries that Dulcie would find him no better husband material than other potential brides had, and fear that she must have some flaw that repulsed other suitors, so that he’d be stuck with the choice between a defective bride and none at all.

To distract him from these worries, Eliezer made Pesach concentrate on the Talmud he would need to teach at the
erusin
banquet. Samson’s acquaintances were unlikely to be learned, so Eliezer offered to share some of his learning as well. Pesach kept muttering “what
erusin
banquet?” but when he finally saw his intended, tall and slim with a crown of reddish blond braids, there was no more talk of defective brides. Thank Heaven Dulcie did not refuse the match, and the next day Eliezer was buying Pesach new clothes for the ceremony, something nobody in Troyes had remembered to do.

Samson and his wife, Catharina, looked ready to burst with pride as their courtyard filled with scholars who were curious to find out if Salomon ben Isaac’s third son-in-law was as much a
talmid chacham
as the other two. And Pesach, who hadn’t grown up in a yeshiva without learning something, was able to acquit himself well enough that Dulcie began looking at him with interest instead of apprehension.

Thus with a sufficient supply of beaver, ermine, and sable, and his debt to Samson repaid, Eliezer left Mayence with the promise that he and Pesach would return next year for the wedding. The two men’s mood was celebratory on the journey home, and Eliezer began to hope that his luck had changed—perhaps he would even arrive home to find Rachel pregnant.

But she had been
niddah
. Again.

 

Eliezer sighed with regret, and then sat up straight in his saddle. Toledo loomed larger as he approached the city, and he was determined to banish all but optimistic thoughts. Unlike his first trip to Sepharad, this time he had an introduction to a prominent Jewish merchant in town, Dunash, whom Hasdai had written last spring.

Eliezer couldn’t help but smile as he recalled his great haste to reach Córdoba the previous year, eager for knowledge and new ideas to replace all thoughts of Count Eudes’ premature demise. Eliezer felt no remorse for his actions, and his decision had been immediate, as was his need to leave Troyes as soon as the Cold Fair ended. He’d looked forward to hiding in Hasdai’s library for six months, studying Philo. Here, at last, was a Jew among the ancient philosophers, who was determined to reconcile Torah with their beliefs, yet not afraid to reject the great Aristotle on the crucial subject of Creation.

Eliezer was convinced that once he understood Philo he would no longer be ashamed to open his mouth at a gathering of Sephardic Jews. But as he delved deeper into Philo’s works, he realized that he still had much learning to do. For Philo insisted that the highest perception of truth is possible only after a thorough study of the sciences, which meant that Eliezer would have to find a mathematics tutor after all.

Months later, he’d returned from one of his lessons and was disconcerted to see Hasdai sitting alone at the dining table. The boys and their mother ate separately except on Shabbat, but usually there were guests in attendance.

Hasdai handed Eliezer the platter filled with dried fruits, the customary first course. “I hear that you’re an excellent mathematics student, that you can solve al-Khwarīzmī’s most difficult equations. What are you going to study next?”

“I thought I’d follow Philo’s advice and study more science.” Eliezer was surprised by his host’s interest in his studies.

“I have some advice for you,” Hasdai said. “As much as I enjoy your visits, Córdoba grows too risky for Jews. If you wish to continue doing business in Sepharad, I suggest shifting your efforts to someplace safer . . . like Toledo.”

“Why not Barcelona?” Trying to hide his dismay at having to start over in a new Sephardic city, Eliezer casually helped himself to the second course, fish with lettuce and carrots.

“While there are many communities in the north where a Jewish merchant may prosper, in Toledo you will be able to study astronomy.”

“Astronomy?” Al-Khwarīzmī’s writings on astronomy were intriguing, but Eliezer didn’t want to spend so much effort learning something only sailors needed to know. Better to study philosophy and impress the merchants he would meet in his new place of business.

“Wouldn’t you like to learn how the stars move in the heavens and determine the future?”

“Even if a man understood how to do this, the calculations would be impossibly difficult,” Eliezer replied. Salomon taught that these kinds of studies were forbidden, like asking about what came before Creation or after death. Yet here in Córdoba, Creation was one of the Jews’ favorite topics.

Hasdai chuckled. “Some think that memorizing and understanding the entire Talmud is impossibly difficult.”

“Supposing that I did want to study astronomy, why should I do so in Toledo?”

“Al-Zarqālī of Toledo was the finest mathematician and astronomer of our time. His death a few years ago was a great loss, but his students carry on his work.” Hasdai sighed. “Ah, the discoveries they must be making at his observatory . . .”

Eliezer could hear the longing in Hasdai’s voice, and his curiosity was stirred. What would it be like to learn among the best astronomers in the world, to study subjects that most men couldn’t fathom? Maybe in Toledo they could discover the secrets of the stars, comprehend the mystery of Creation. And if he were among them, he’d have knowledge that only a few men shared.

“The Jews of Toledo must be rich now that Alfonso has made their city his capital,” Eliezer said.

“Not just the Jews,” Hasdai encouraged him. “Should you decide to visit Toledo, I’ll write you an introduction to several families there. You will have no difficulty finding lodging—and business opportunities.”