I have some big announcements this week!
1. My grandson, Nathan Robert Parkhurst Hoggatt, was born on Monday night, January 22, at 9:18 pm PST. Despite being 3 weeks early, he weighed in at 6 lb - 9 oz and was 20 inches long. As they did in Rashi's time (remember baby Leah in Book One), he was named after a living ancestor; in this case my father, Nathan George Anton, who turns 90 this year. Rashi himself had a grandson, Joheved's son Solomon, who was born during his lifetime.
2. Book Two - Miriam update: I got the finished manuscript back from the copyeditors, who corrected the typos, improved some of the wording, and found an occasional textual errors (for example: I refered to King Philippe as being childless in Ch.4 when he had actually finally fathered a daughter a few months earlier in Ch.3). I changed a few of their changes and sent my approved version back to them on Friday. The next thing I'll see will be what goes to the printer, which is my last chance to make any changes.
3. I completed in manuscript for the YA (young adult) book and sent it off to JPS (Jewish Publication Soc). Tentatively titled "Rashi's Daughter: Secret Scholar, it should be out in 2008.
Tonight is our last night in Israel and before we leave, I want to sum
up the hidden reason for visiting this country - a pilgrimage to
various Talmudic sites. And I certainly saw plenty of them (or at
least the ruins of them), which I list in order of historical occurance:
Caesarea - where R. Akiva was tortured to death by the Romans
during the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE.
Bet She'arim - after the Roman put down the above revolt, Jewish
life moved to the Galilee. During the 2nd century, the Sanhedrin ruled
in this town and many great leaders were buried in caves here,
including R. Chanina, Judah haNasi and his sons, R. Gamliel and R. Shimon.
Zippori - the Sanhedrin located to this large properous town,
which the Talmud states as having 18 synagogues, in the 3rd century.
Here is where Judah haNasi redacted the Mishnah in 200 CE.
Tiberia - Under R. Yohanan, the Sanhedrin moved here in the later
part of the 3rd century and the Jerusalem Talmud was redacted in 400
CE. R. Akiva is buried here, as is Rambam (Maimonides), the great 13th
century Sephardic sage, although he never lived in Tiberia.
Meron (near Tsfat) - here are buried a large number of Talmudic
sages; everytime we drove down a main road we saw signs for their
"kevers." These tombs are almost always painted a bright tourquoise
blue and white, and are often dug into caves in the hills. Among the
many 'kevers' we saw were: Shimon ben Yochai (the socalled author of
the Zohar), R. Yohanan haSandlar, R. Tarfon, R. Jose ben Josef, Resh
Lakish, R. Crespedai the Interpreter, R. Meir and R. Hillel haZaken.
But the most important for me was the tomb of R. Jose (pronounced
Yosi) haGalilee, because I consider myself one of his disciples even
today. Hillel and Shammai's schools are more well known, but R. Jose
won my allegiance by allowing a person to eat dairy with fowl. He
stated that when chickens grew breasts, then he would stop eating them
with milk. A rabbi who used his intellect and refused to make
unnecessary fences around the Torah - this is my kind of sage. I had
to slog through a muddy field, avoid cow pies, climb over a
barbed-wire fence, and hike up a hill to reach his tomb at the top.
The view was great, as was the feeling I had that I had actually found
his grave. Mission accomplished, I fly back to LA in peace.
It's almost time for Shabbat here in Israel, and it's been quite a week. On Jan 1 I spoke to a very enthusiastic group at an Orthodox shul in Ra'anana (sometimes known as "little America"), who were fascinated to learn about the high status that Jewish women had in Rashi's time (see the article on my website for more on this). And especially that in those days, women had the power and means to initiate divorce from their husbands. The next evening was with AACI (Assn of Americans and Canadians in Israel) in Haifa, followed by ESRA (English-speaking Residents Assn) in Netanya and AACI in Hertzliya on Jan 3. Luckily for my husband, we didn't have time to find the diamond wholesalers in Netanya.
Then back to Jerusalem where we hired a private tour guide to explore the Ir David National Park (the really old city, just south of the "old city") which is the newest, most exciting, excavations happening in the country. As we stood on grates above them, we could see at least 20 people filling labled buckets with dirt and sifting them thru giant screens). This area is the probable site of King David's palace, and at one point we stood at the likely spot where he looked down at Bathsheva bathing on her rooftop below. Our guide was great about reading to us from pertinent parts of Tanach whenever we came to a spot mentioned in the bible.
We walked DOWN to the waterworks tunnels, suspected to be how David and his warriors gained access to the city to conquer it. Amazingly, below that are huge stones of what was a major fortress or temple (or something important), which clearly predated David's time. Maybe where King Melchizedek lived, and blessed Abraham. This site is so new that there are still no signs or booklets explaining the place, which made our guide's presence essential.
That night I had my final program at Pardes, which was my largest audience and certainly the most scholarly. I must have stayed 45 minutes after my talk to answer questions and sign books. As usual, folks were amazed to hear that the Shabbat Lights blessing is derived from the Hanukah one, and postdates it by at least 500 years. I'm still researching the development of this ritual and will explore it more fully in Book Three: Miriam.