My friend, who ordered Rashi’s Daughters, Book I: Jocheved by Maggie Anton for our book club, asked me to read it and tell her my thoughts. Not having read any reviews I didn’t know what to expect.
Anton introduces us to the life of the renowned classical Biblical and Talmudic commentator Rabbi Salomon Isaac of Troyes (Rashi) and his family. The oldest daughter, Jocheved, studies Talmud with her father and borrows her father’s tefillin (phylacteries) to say morning prayers.
We learn about the family’s meals, bathroom habits (they collect moss to use for toilet paper), menstrual cycles, parchment making and wine-making (Anton assumes that Rashi is a vintner, although this may be a myth).
It’s fascinating to speculate on the daily life of an important Jewish family in the 11th century, even though the portrait of Rashi’s family is too intimate and completely unbelievable. But as Anton states in the afterword, “. . . because I am writing fiction, I can say whatever I like.”
The second half of the book, leading up to the wedding of Yocheved and Meir, includes long discussions about the characters’ sexual frustrations and quotations of what appear to be every existing Talmudic passage relating to sex. Anton throws in some quotes from Tractate Kallah (Bride), which her readers probably think is an ancient sex manual. In fact, after reading this book you might think the Talmud is entirely about women and sex with a bit of winemaking on the side.
In one scene, Rashi catches Meir and Yocheved kissing. (The yeshiva bachurim, or unmarried students, board in Rashi’s house.) After he orders her to review the fourth commandment (either Anton means the fifth commandment, honoring one’s parents, or she assumes her readers follow the Christian numeration), Jocheved blames Rashi for both delaying her wedding and being away so much when she was small. Thus chastised, Rashi takes Meir aside and shares in graphic detail the difficulties he experienced on his own wedding night, because he had relied on texts with no father or brother to explain things. Finally, Rashi indicates to the engaged couple that he will look the other way if they fool around in the future.
I couldn’t finish this book.
Nechama Leibovich z”l was one of Jerusalem’s most renowned teachers. For thirty years, she mailed out dozens, and later hundreds of weekly sheets on the Torah portion for self-study. Students sent in the completed sheets, which she marked and returned.
Yesterday, we received this email:
For those who are familiar with Nechama’s teachings, and for those who are not, all the “Gilyonot Parshat Shavua” that Nechama taught have been collected onto one website, together with references, commentaries and more.
In this (Hebrew) website you will find the complete collection of weekly lessons, wrapped in up-to-date technology.
The Nechama website: www.nechama.org.il
Hat tip: JH
First, Abacaxi Mamao gets a little nervous:
I went to the hardware store in search of an inexpensive pot for boiling water. My sister owns only fleishig [meat, or meaty if you're a Brit] pots for Pesach, and my aunt, the coffee devotee, needed something in which to boil water that would then be used to make coffee to which milk would be added. Hence, my quest.The clerk at the hardware store questioned my desire to purchase “the cheapest pot you’ve got,” so I (stupidly?) explained that I just needed it for Passover and it didn’t need to be anything fancy, just something that would boil water.
“Oh, Passover,” he said. “Where are you going to get the blood?”
Read the rest of the post to find out what happens.
And check out Lion of Zion, as he documents the once widespread practice of comparing bitter herbs to bitter women– at the Pesach seder.
He captions the picture above as follows:
The wife holds a double-edged sword, alluding to Proverbs (4:5): “But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.”
Hag sameach and Shabbat Shalom.
Apparently matzah isn’t the only food in low supply. On the radio this morning they interviewed an American about the grocery chain Costco, which is limiting the amount of rice people can purchase. She couldn’t remember anything similar since the second world war. They then interviewed an Israeli food expert. He was reassuring, saying that Israel produces 1.5 times the amount of food that it needs. Of the excess, half goes to the Palestinian territories and half to the US and Europe. And even though we don’t grow much wheat, we have more than enough potatoes to meet the country’s needs. (Pesach all year round?) That is, he continued, assuming the price of water doesn’t get too high. Israel’s water situation is at a crisis level and as usual our leaders aren’t paying much attention.
The thought of having excess food, while our neighbors (like Egypt) are having food riots because of rising costs, does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
We have been hearing about the undersupply of matzah in the US, and couldn’t find any in the store this morning here either. We could have scraped through our (one day–I can’t help rubbing it in again) of Yom Tov but managed to scrounge some extra from friends. I figure someone got smart and and shipped a big order from Israel to the US earlier in the week.
The shortage was all caused by my father-in-law. He bought 10 or 15 pounds of matzah on sale at the supermarket before Pesach, stored it in his basement, and flew to Israel to be with his children. Hopefully no one will raid his house.
Oy Bay is covering the story.
My husband and I both recall that our families would never rely on being able to find matzah in the middle of the week. Where he lived, you put in your Pesach order in advance and that was it. In my hometown you could find Pesach products in stores, but the supply was sketchy.
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