Rashi's Daughters, Book III: Rachel (6 page)

So of course it requires a blessing.”

Eliezer couldn’t contradict Salomon, his teacher, and he bowed graciously in her direction. “And what does Rabbenu Salomon say about this blessing of yours?”

“Papa told us that he saw it in the prayer book of Amram Gaon from Bavel and that Amram calls it a
minhag
, a ‘nice custom.’ So Papa didn’t stop the women from saying it.”

She gave her husband a seductive smile. Under the influence of the planet Venus, Friday night was considered particularly auspicious for marital relations. Sparring over Talmud first would make using the bed even more exciting.

Eliezer had returned her inviting gaze and chuckled: “As if any man in Troyes could stop the women there from doing what they want.” He turned and addressed his bewildered family, “Including, of course, studying Talmud.”

three

Rachel sighed as she recalled those heady days in Arles. Netanel knew which ships had the best reputations, and when one of the most seaworthy docked on the Sunday after Selichot, bound for Tunis, he arranged for their passage. If the wind held, they would board Tuesday evening and leave at dawn.

“You must be careful to step onto the ship with your right foot, never the left,” he warned them. “Don’t cut your hair or nails at sea either, and that includes trimming your beard.”

“Anything else?” Eliezer said.

“Don’t whistle: it brings on a storm. And don’t expect a ship to leave port on a Friday: it’s bad luck.”

Rachel twisted her sleeves with anxiety. “How long do you think the journey will take?”

“If you have a steady wind, perhaps a month. That reminds me . . .” Netanel paused and handed Eliezer a thick book. “Here’s an Arabic translation of the Bible, written in Hebrew letters. When you reach Tunis, you may be able to understand their language.”

“
Merci
.” Eliezer nodded at Rachel. They both knew the holy text by heart, so using it to learn Arabic shouldn’t be difficult.

“Speaking of the Bible, there are several verses from Moses’s Song at the Sea that you should remember.” Netanel leaned toward them and lowered his voice. “To calm a storm, recite:

And if, Heaven forbid, you’re attacked by pirates, pray:

Unlike some other biblical incantations she’d learned, Rachel thought these from Exodus actually made sense. Still her stomach had knotted with fear at the mention of storms and pirates. But their first ocean journey was like nothing she could have imagined. It was wonderful, with magnificent sunrises and sunsets, and enormous flocks of seabirds wheeling over the water in the wind. True, the ferocious east wind sometimes blew them off course, but the delay was slight and six weeks after putting out to sea they docked safely in Tunis.

 

Suddenly a commotion outside the inn interrupted her pleasant recollection. She jumped up and raced to the window.
Please, mon Dieu, let it be Eliezer.

But it was only a motley group of travelers dismounting in the courtyard. Including some wealthy ones, Rachel decided, as she noted the copious baggage and retinue of servants and men-at-arms. Just in time for
disner
too, if the smells emanating from the kitchen were any indication.

She took little Rivka upstairs to change her swaddling, and on the way down she could hear the innkeeper and his wife exchanging whispers in the hall.

“I don’t care if they are pilgrims,” the wife hissed. “Why should they eat for free? We’re not a hospice.”

“Because we’re good Christians,” her husband said. “It’s our duty to support them on their perilous journey while we stay safely at home.”

“But there are too many of them. We can’t give away all that food, not with business so poor this summer.”

“I know we don’t get so many merchants as we used to—curse those bandits in the forest—but it’s not right to charge pilgrims for their food.” The innkeeper’s voice was firm.

When Rachel entered the main room, the other diners were already seated, including several with crosses conspicuously sewed on their
bliauts
. A pair of well-dressed women, the likely owners of the luggage outside, sat at a table with a third woman in nun’s habit. They waved her over to join them.

“
Bonjour
, I’m Belle Assez of Troyes.” Rachel saw no need to advertise her Jewish identity and used the pet name Eliezer called her.

“
Bonjour
, I’m Lady Margaret of Norwood, and this is my daughter-in-law, Jane.” The elderly woman had an English accent. “This is my cousin, Prioress Ursula.” She indicated the nun.

Rachel nodded and sat down.

“We just came from the Bethany abbey in Vézelay,” Margaret continued proudly. “We viewed the relics of Mary Magdalene.”

Rachel was sure she’d heard wrong. “Excuse me, but didn’t Mary Magdalene die in the Holy Land?” She carefully used the Edomite name for Eretz Israel.

Margaret sat up straight, as if imparting something of great import. “Not at all. During the persecutions that followed the death of Jesus, the Magdalene came to Provence with her sister Martha. Eventually she died and was buried there, but a monk rescued her relics when the area was devastated by Saracens and brought them to Vézelay.”

“It’s not so strange a story,” Ursula said. “After all, the body of St. James the Apostle was brought to Compostela from the Holy Land by his disciples.”

Rachel turned her attention to feeding herself and Rivka. What bizarre stories these gullible pilgrims believed. She tried to hide her boredom as Margaret expounded the family’s sad history and how she was on pilgrimage to atone for their sins.

It was much harder to hide her mirth when the garrulous old lady said, “And before Vézelay, we went to Coulombs for Jane to smell the holy prepuce.”

“The what?” Rachel nearly choked with suppressed laughter.

“The foreskin of Jesus,” she answered. “Its sweet scent enhances fertility and eases childbirth.”

The subject was preposterous, yet so intriguing that Rachel couldn’t resist asking how such a relic had come to Coulombs.

“Charlemagne received it as a wedding present from Empress Irene of Byzantium, and he in turn gave it to the Coulombs Abbey,” Ursula explained, while Rachel fought her urge to giggle.

Lady Margaret expressed concerned at how their party had grown as they traveled. “While there is security in numbers and most of these people seem pious enough, one can’t always tell about these things,” she said. “I expect most are merely going to Rome. They don’t look like they can afford the voyage to Jerusalem.”

Rachel looked at the dowager with respect. The majority of pilgrims visited local shrines, while those undertaking a long pilgrimage usually went to Compostela or Rome, and the roads leading to them were populated with monasteries and hostels devoted to succoring pilgrims.

Margaret must have interpreted Rachel’s expression as one of interest, because she began to explain how she’d decided on Jerusalem. Avoiding the riffraff who frequented the roads to Compostela and Rome was one of her motives, but she was also compelled by the greater spiritual reward she would receive for the more dangerous trip, plus the status she would attain on returning from the Holy Land, a place few pilgrims visited.

Rachel grew so irritated by the woman’s monologue that she couldn’t resist saying, “I traveled to Jerusalem three years ago. It is indeed a long and difficult journey.”

Immediately she regretted it. She was now the center of attention. Rachel couldn’t bring herself to disappoint her audience by reporting the Holy City’s squalid appearance—an earthquake fifty years earlier had left much of the city in ruins. In addition Turks had ousted the Fatimid rulers only fifteen years ago, destroying even more of the city, and
that
was followed by years of pestilence and famine.

Even worse, decades of infighting between the rabbinic communities of Jerusalem and Ramleh had undermined their financial support to the point where neither yeshiva functioned. She and Eliezer were horrified to see that a small study hall in Tyre was all that remained of the once great Palestinian Talmud academies.

Rachel put away thoughts of Jerusalem in ruins. “I won’t say anything about Jerusalem itself,” she began. “To fully appreciate the experience you must have no expectations.” She paused, grateful for not having to lie to these hopeful fools.

“But I can tell you about the journey, about what you can expect and how to best prepare yourself,” she offered as all faces turned to her expectantly. “You might think that no one would be so sinful as to try to injure a pilgrim, but there are evil innkeepers who will rob you in your sleep, while others are in league with thieves who will attack you once you leave. And not all who wear a pilgrim’s garb are what they seem.”

“But what can we do?” Margaret’s chaplain cried out. “We’re sheep among wolves.”

“Send a servant ahead to determine which places have a good reputation. And be very careful who you trust on the road.” Rachel shivered. Eliezer, after all, had been captured by Geoffrey and might, at this very moment, be in grave danger from the bandits. Her listeners’ faces darkened at her display of fear, so she composed herself and added, “With any luck you will reach your port safely. Where are you leaving from?”

“Genoa.”

Rachel nodded. Venice and Genoa were common pilgrim ports. The ships headed south along the Italian coast, picking up fresh water and provisions as necessary, and leaving behind the corpses of anyone who died. Captains tried to avoid taking on sick people, who believed that dying on pilgrimage was a guarantee of salvation; yet there were always a few on board in their final days. It was one of many reasons Rachel and Eliezer tried to avoid ships carrying pilgrims.

She said nothing about death; the group looked frightened enough. “You will need to sell your horses before you arrive in port.”

One of the men-at-arms started to protest, but Rachel cut him off. “No captain will allow the beasts on his ship, and you will receive a better price if you don’t sell at the last moment. You should buy a mattress before you board; otherwise you’ll be sleeping on the bare wood.”

“What’s it like, inside the ship?” Margaret’s maidservant asked. “Do we all sleep together?”

“Passengers sleep below deck, in berths just wide and long enough to lie down in. Try to find a place on the upper decks; they don’t stink so much.”

Ursula was clearly a practical woman, because she asked, “What do we use for privies on board?”

“You bring your own pot, which you use for seasickness as well,” Rachel said.

One of the two white-robed canons nudged his companion. “After enough passengers spill the contents of their pots in the dark below, the stench must be horrific. I can well imagine why you recommend the upper decks.”

“You don’t have to go below. The sailors also rig up a basket overhanging the sea, which you sit in to relieve yourself.” She shuddered at the memory. “It’s terrible to use during a storm.”

“Are storms at sea very common?” Margaret’s chaplain asked, his brow creased with worry.

“No more common than they are on land,” Rachel said. In truth the most likely time for a ship to flounder was while negotiating the waves and rocks near port. “But if you do run into a storm, praying the Twenty-fourth Psalm can save you.”

Her audience looked at her expectantly and Rachel immediately regretted mentioning the powerful words of scripture. None of these people would understand the Hebrew, and of course the procedure wouldn’t work unless the psalm was chanted in the holy tongue. Before Rachel could decide what to do, the prioress rescued her by reciting in Latin:

The group nodded at each other in agreement, apparently understanding the Latin and approving of how the words both mentioned the sea and alluded to pilgrims. Rachel tried to hide her annoyance. How dare these heretics who worshipped the Hanged One consider Jerusalem their holy city and assume their sins would be forgiven by traveling there? And now she had given them encouragement by telling them about Psalm 24.

Rachel recalled Papa’s commentary on the psalm and was reassured that the Holy One would not listen to His psalms recited in a strange language by heretics. Papa pointed out that in the first verse,
ha-aretz
, “the earth,” refers to the Eretz Israel, which belongs to the Jews, while “the world” means the other lands and their peoples. As to “who shall ascend” and “stand in His holy place,” Papa said that while all people of the world are His, not everyone deserves to come near to Him.

Thank Heaven she’d mentioned that psalm only, not any of the many others said for protection on a journey. Each of the 150 psalms has a specific protective effect. And Rachel had learned all of them. Reciting Psalm 20 to a woman laboring in childbirth helped ease her pain, and birth amulets were inscribed with Psalm 126. With any luck she would never need Psalm 39, to thwart an evil design on the part of the king, or Psalm 73, against forced baptism. But the Eighth Psalm, to calm crying children, was useful, along with the Third, for healing a headache. There were many psalms for protection against the Evil Eye, as well as several to awaken love.

She grimaced as she recalled all the men who’d been attracted to her against her will—sailors who pawed her below deck, merchants who insisted on showing her special merchandise in private, strangers with a message that they needed to tell her in secret—every kind of excuse a man could invent to be alone with a woman. Why wasn’t there a psalm to stifle love? The closest thing was Psalm 11, against evil men.