I'd barely started my research when I realized that I've stepped into a minefield of controversy as to the historicity of what's written in the Talmud. Apparently there are two camps, which are divided into further subgroups. To the right are the mostly Orthodox and Israeli scholars who say all the sages mentioned in the Talmud did indeed live exactly as described there, that what's written in the Talmud is history as well as holy text. These scholars say that the Talmudic sages wielded great influence/power in the Babylonian Jewish community and that these sages were totally uninfluenced by the surrounding Sasanian culture.
To the left we have mostly American scholars who say that much, if not all, of what's written about the Talmudic sages is legend and thus cannot be taken as historical. The Talmud was redacted hundreds of years after Rav Hisda, his daughter and her two husbands lived, so stories about them are likely to be changed and embellished before they finally get written down. We need to take them 'with a grain of salt,' so to speak. Did Rav Hisda really die at age 92 or was this number chosen arbitrarily to indicate that he lived a very long life compared to most men of the 3rd century?
Modern scholars are looking at the Talmud in new ways and asking new questions. Feminists wonder what we can learn about the position and lives of Jewish women. Iranianists looking to discover how much the Zoroastrian and Susanian culture influenced the Jews of Babylonia compare the Talmud to Persian texts of the same time period and see many similarities. We know that most Jews living in Israel were Hellenized to some extent, so considering that Jews lived in Babylonia for over 1000 years, it makes sense that they were likewise influenced by the dominant culture of those who ruled them.
Some liberal scholars today go even further, suggesting that since we only have the Talmud's word for how prominent its sages were, it's possible that the rabbis in the Talmud were but a small and fairly insignificant minority of the Jewish community during the times they lived. In other words, perhaps the vast majority of Babylonia Jews regarded the Talmudic rabbis much as American Jews today view the Satmar Hasidim in New York.
Clearly I need to do a lot more research before deciding about when Rav Hisda was born and whether to give him one or two wives, especially since I've encountered more conflicting dates in the Talmud concerning my heroine, her parents, and her two husbands, Rami and Rava. Thank goodness I'm writing fiction. I can accept or reject any Talmudic "legend" as best suits my plot; I just need to make sure that everything I say is consistent with itself.
On to the next step in my research. I knew who Rav Hisda was and I had an intriguing story about his daughter marrying two sages. In addition the time and place they lived looked to be fascinating to research. Now it was time to dig a little deeper and develop a basic timeline. Obviously nearly all information concerning Rav Hisda and his family would come from the Talmud, which is not a historical document, but I was dismayed to immediately discover a serious problem.
According to Tractate Moed Katan 28a, Rav Hisda died at the age of 92, and later Babylonian sources place his death in 309 CE [so he was born in 217]. However Tractate Kiddushin 29a quotes him as saying that because he married at 16, he was more able to concentrate on his studies and not be distracted by his yetzer hara. Therefore he married in 233. Assuming that his wife was 14 when they married, and that my heroine is the youngest of their nine children, Rav Hisda's daughter could not have been born after 265 [when her mother would have been 45]. However tradition tells us that Rava died in 352 CE at age 82, which means he was born in 270. Yet we know that Rava was already a student of Rav Hisda's when our young heroine made her prophetic announcement about whom she wished to marry, so he had to be at least 5 years older than her.
What to do? It appears that all these dates and ages at death cannot be correct. I could give Rav Hisda a later birth date, say 230 CE, which means he marries in 246 and dies at the age of 79 - still at a ripe old age. I am writing fiction after all, and the stories of the Talmudic sages' lives are more legend than history. But there is another solution. My problem exists only if Rav Hisda has just one wife, if the woman he marries at age 16 is also the mother of his daughter. So I could postulate that his first wife [mother of Hisda's older sons] died, and remarry him to a second, younger wife, who bore him more sons and two daughters. The problem with this idea is that nowhere in the Talmud does it even hint that Hisda had more than one wife; although one cannot draw any conclusions from lack of mention, especially when women are concerned.
At the moment I'm not sure which route to take, although I'm leaning towards the later. My readers tend to get upset when I change what they perceive to be Jewish "facts," so I'm probably on firmer ground to invent a second wife than to change the date of Hisda's birth. And giving his daughter some stepbrothers could make for more conflict and therefore a more interesting story. But I'm only starting my research; maybe I will find other evidence that Hisda had two wives.
Who was Rav Hisda? Rav Hisda was a Babylonian sage of the third generation mentioned frequently in the Talmud. Descended from a priestly family, he first studied under Rav, who was his principal teacher. After Rav's death he attended the lectures of Rav Huna, his companion and the same age as himself. Poor in his youth, Hisda later became a wealthy brewer. At the age of sixteen he married the daughter of Hanan b. Raba and together they had seven sons and two daughters. One of his pupils, Rava, became his son-in-law.
Hisda's acute mind greatly enhanced the fame of Rav Huna's Talmud academy at Sura. But his acuteness caused a rupture between himself and Huna and forty years passed before they became reconciled. Hisda established his own school, built at his own expense, at Mata Mehasya four years before Huna's death, but he never published any decisions during Huna's lifetime. Eventually Huna came to recognize Hisda's merit, and recommended his son to attend Hisda's lectures.
Rav Hisda presided over the Academy of Sura for ten years following the death of Huna. Hisda's legal decisions are found frequently in the Babylonian Talmud, but he was also an authority in aggadah, non-legal Jewish lore, and employed special assistants to lecture in that subject. Hisda lives past ninety, and it is told that the Angel of Death, unable to approach Hisda because he never ceased studying Torah, finally cleft the trunk of a cedar-tree. Startled by the noise, Hisda interrupted his studies, whereupon the angel took his soul.
I can't resist sharing this video of my grandson Nathan doing his favorite puzzle.
I couldn't believe he that would finish it in time.
When considering whether to write about Rashi's daughters or Rav Hisda's daughter - once I determined whether or not anyone knew their first names - I needed to check out the time period when they lived. I wanted my novel to have a happy ending, or at least a satisfactory one, and that would be problematic if my characters lived where Jews were being horribly persecuted or where everyone was dying from some plague.
According to the Talmud, Rav Hisda lived in Babylonia [current day Iraq] from about 230 to 310 CE and his daughter, who appears to be the youngest of 9 children, was born around 275. Rava, her second husband, lived from about 270 to 350. So I did a quick search to see what was happening in the Middle East between those years. And wow - it was one of those centuries when incredibly important events were happening. In 226, the Parthians, who have ruled Babylonia for centuries, are overthrown by the Sasanian Persians, who go on to defeat the Romans in 260, capturing their Emperor Valerian and receiving tribute of one million dinars. In other words, Rav Hisda's family is living in the most powerful and prosperous empire in the world.
Perhaps more important, in 313 the Roman Emperor Constantine issues the Edict of Milan, which makes Christianity its official religion. This decree has disastrous consequences for Jews in Israel, as Rome recognizes Christians as the true "Israelites" and replaces Jewish control of the local government with Christian. Many Jewish leaders, including rabbis, flee Israel for Babylonia. Since the Sasanians are still at war with Rome, and will be for another fifty years, they begin persecuting Babylonian Christians, whom they view as allies of their adversary. The Jews, who have lived peaceably in Babylonia for over 1000 years, are recognized as fellow enemies of hated Rome and treated well.
So like for Rashi's community in 11th-12th century France, 3rd-4th century Babylonia was a very good time and place to be a Jew: Jews enjoyed relative affluence as farmers and merchants, good relations with the dominant power, and autonomy to run their own community affairs. And just as most Jews know very little about Jewish life in Ashkenaz during the 11th-12th centuries, they probably know even less about Jewish life in 3rd-4th century Babylonia/Persia. Yet both periods were crucial times in our history.
Once my RASHI'S DAUGHTERS trilogy was finished, readers started asking what I'm writing about next. At first, perhaps to fool the Evil Eye, I avoided answering, other than stating that it wouldn't be RASHI'S GRANDDAUGHTERS. After all, I have no contract with Plume for any more books, so in theory I could just stay home and enjoy my grandchildren. Except that I enjoy both researching Jewish women in history and imagining how they lived. And more important, way back in 1996, when I was thinking of writing a novel about women and Talmud, I considered two very different possible subjects.
One possibility was Rashi's daughters, and the other a woman mentioned many times in the Talmud, Rav Hisda's daughter. I chose the former, partly because the 11th century was nearer to today and hopefully easier to research, and partly because we actually knew Rashi's daughters' names. But the second option continued to intrigue me. Rav Hisda's nameless daughter was quite a gal. Her father was the head of one of the foremost rabbinic academies in Babylonia [], and while she was young, his two finest students [Rami bar Hama and Rava] came to court her. Rav Hisda couldn't chose one over the other, so he asked his daughter which man she wanted. She replied that she wanted to marry both of them. Rava, who eventually came to head the rabbinic academy in Babylonia's capital city, announced that he would take her last. And that's what happened. Some of my readers may recall that in BOOK I: JOHEVED, I have Rashi teach the Talmud sugia where Rav Hisda explains to his daughters how to have good sex with their husbands. Thus I had another intriguing anecdote about this woman.
In the end, I realized that I was tired of 11th-12th France, that I wanted to immerse myself in another place and time. So for my next historical novel, tentatively titled RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER, I'm moving back in time to 3rd-4th century Babylonia [Persia/Iraq]. I waited for the new year to let you all know, and I plan to devote most of 2010's blog posts to describing my research, and eventually, my writing process. I expect to devote myself to research for at least a year before beginning to write, although I already have some scenes in mind.
It should be an interesting exercise to document my progress as my new novel takes shape.
Happy New Year!
I got a 'google alert' the other day about an IESB [whoever they are] interview with Mayim Bialik, the actress who optioned RASHI'S DAUGHTERS. Here are the pertinent questions and answers, which occur near the end of the interview.
IESB: What do you look for in projects these days? Is it about the script, the people you're working with or something else?
Mayim: I'm not terribly picky, at this point, but I like to do things that are different from what people expect of me. I love Jewish projects, but I love all projects. I'm still as unusual looking now, as I was when I was 14 and you compared me to other 14-year-olds. I love projects that allow unusual women to be showcased, and to also be attractive and part of society in a way, other than just being the character actress.
IESB: Would you like to move into production to make those sorts of projects happen?
Mayim: I actually bought the rights to Rashi's Daughters, which is a series of historical fiction, set in the Middle Ages, and it's about a Jewish family. That was one of the first producer-like things I've done, where I said, "Gosh, wouldn't it be great to do a period piece about a Jewish family in medieval France."
It sounds kind of kooky, but since people can make period pieces about non-Jewish families in medieval times, so why not? That was my first foray into producing. I never thought I'd be a producer. I don't write. I don't want to direct. I'm really an actor. But, it is nice, as an adult, to be able to say, "Gosh, I would love to see this turned into a screenplay, and I'd love to get it to someone who might believe in letting Keira Knightley play a Jewish medieval princess."
This series of novels, the author really did her research, in terms of the politics, and especially the clothing and the food, of medieval France. It's really just a phenomenal set of novels with very strong female characters. It's just really a fascinating set of books.
IESB: Did you acquire the rights just so that you could put the story out there for people, or are you also looking to put yourself in it?
Mayim: I would love to put myself in it, but if Natalie Portman or another prominent, classic Jewish actress would be interested, then that would be great, too.
So what do think? Keira Knightley or Natalie Portman? Who are your choices to play one of Rashi's daughters?