Those with good memories may recall that several weeks ago I mentioned a plan D for deciphering the German in Krauss' Talmudische Archäologie. That plan consisted of hiring a research assistant, which I have now done. Fans often ask if I do all my research myself or do I have help. For Rashi's Daughters, I had help in translating various Hebrew texts, but I did all the research myself. Hiring someone else to do research still meant that I'd have to read all the material myself and decide what info would be useful.
With Rav Hisda's Daughter, however, I'm in a different situation. There's so much info in the Talmud about my main characters that I could spend years going through it and still not find the stuff that would allow me to create the most interesting scenes. My editors, my literary agent, and my family members all urged me to hire some help. But I was pessimistic; after all, where would I find someone with all the necessary skills, especially Talmud expertise, that I'd need in a research assistant would be willing to work part-time for a salary I could afford?
Well, I found him at my own synagogue [no names to protect his privacy] – a young prospective member who'd spent a couple of years studying Talmud in a yeshiva in Jerusalem before attending college. Fluent in Hebrew and Aramaic [plus 4 other languages], familiar with Talmud, and back living with his parents because, like many other recent grads, he couldn't find a job in today's economy. I must confess that I'd had plenty of scholarly discussions with him after services before it occurred to me to ask if he'd like to help me with my research.
So now he's my hevruta [study partner] as well as my assistant. It turns out that there's a Hebrew version of Talmudische Archäologie online, and he's going through it and taking notes for me. He hasn't read my other novels [yet], but he understands what kind of information I'm looking for. Hopefully he'll do all the sifting to find the wheat among the chaff. We're starting our Talmud study by going over all the passages that mention Rav Hisda and his family, beginning with Tractate Berachot. I expect that by the time we've finished Tractate Niddah, I should have a very good sense of Rav Hisda, his daughter and their family – lifestyles, personalities, opinions, and relationships. As well as quite a few scenes to populate my next novel.
Today was Tisha b'Av, the "black fast" as opposed to Yom Kippur's "white fast." One of three Jewish "holidays" that come from the Talmud, not the Torah [the other two are Purim and Hanuka], the origins of this mournful observance have roots in a far murkier past than the Talmud. According to Taanit 30b, " Five events befell our fathers on the Seventeenth of Tammuz and five on Tisha B'Av (the Ninth of Av). On the Seventeenth of Tammuz, the Tablets were broken, the Daily Offering ceased, the City (Jerusalem) walls were breached, Apostumos burned the Torah, and an idol was set up in the Temple. On Tisha B'Av, it was decreed that our fathers should not enter the Land, the Temple was destroyed the first and second time, Bethar was captured, and the City [Jerusalem] was plowed up. When Av arrives, gladness is diminished."
But according to Rashi's commentary, there's more to the story of how Tisha b'Av became associated with mourning when God punished those who believed the spies' evil rapport about Eretz Israel. Once it was decreed that the generation who fled Egypt would not live to enter the Land, the Hebrews didn't just die randomly throughout the year of illness or injuries, as people normally do. No. While wandering the desert, those who didn't die from a plague following their complaints, died only once a year - on Tisha b'Av. Midrash says that on that night, everyone dug a grave and slept in it, and in the morning, those that woke up discovered that one-fortieth of their original population had died during the night. So naturally it was huge day of mourning.
This continued for 39 years; each Tisha b'Av evening the Hebrews slept in graves and the next morning they buried those who hadn't survived the night. Finally the 40th year arrived and the morning of Tisha b'Av found everyone still alive. Sure that they'd made a mistake on the date, the Hebrews slept in their graves again; but everyone was still alive the next morning. Finally they got to the full moon of Tu b'Av and realized that indeed everyone who was supposed to die in the desert had done so, and that those alive were the generation who merited to enter the Land. This is why Tu b'Av became one of the happiest days in the Jewish calendar, associated with matchmaking and weddings.
But even older than this account is the Mesopotamian myth where the month Tammuz was established in honor of, and to mourn for, the eponymous god Tammuz, consort of fertility goddess Inanna/Ishtar. Because Tammuz died at the beginning of summer, Babylonians marked the decline in daylight hours and the onset of killing summer heat and drought with a six-day "funeral" for the god. Women in particular wept and grieved for weeks in sympathy with Ishtar, and all other women who had seen their beloved husbands and sons die young.
Jews who lived in ancient Babylonia could hardly ignore the massive period of mourning going on around them, and eventually created their own, non-idolatrous, reasons to grieve with their neighbors.
I'm back from my travels and finally reconnected with all my luggage. Luckily I've only had suitcases get temporarily lost on flights returning home, where I have plenty of clothes in my closet to wear while waiting for the missing items to be delivered to my house. Just in case, when I travel on book tours, I always pack a nice outfit in my carry-on. I haven't needed it yet, but you never know.
We had a good time, with excellent weather, and I managed to get through much of the research materials I'd copied lately. The Olympic Peninsula has some incredibly gorgeous scenery and we hiked through quite a lot of it. Coincidently, we ended up spending some time in the two Washington state cities that have gained sudden prominence as locations in Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" novels. When we stopped in Forks [between our stays at Lake Quinault and Lake Crescent] to buy groceries, it took me a little while to realize why there was all this vampire-themed stuff for sale. I confess I haven't read any of Meyer's books, but I did enjoy the first movie on Netflix. A few days later, after one of the most beautiful hikes in my life up Hurricane Hill in Olympic National Park, we decided to have dinner in Port Angeles and coincidently ended up at the Italian restaurant where the two main "Twilight" characters had their first date. Of course the movie playing down the street was the latest in the "Twilight" series.
I mention all this "Twilight" stuff to remind you that it's because of authors like Stephanie Meyer [and J.K. Rowling] that kids become avid readers, and let's face it - the millions of copies that their novels sell are what supports the publishing business today [and apparently a good chunk of the movie business as well]. So hats off to Ms. Meyer and Ms. Rowling for getting those teenagers hooked on reading while they're young. Where would all us midlist authors be without superstars like them?
While I'm on a rare vacation with my husband [staying in historic lodges of
Olympia National Park], my daughter is keeping my blog going. One of my yahoo
Historical Fiction groups just posted a link to "The the impotence of
proofreading." It's a video of a stand-up comic's routine that is sure to make
all writers and editors both wince and giggle in recognition. Check out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OonDPGwAyfQ& and don't worry, it's PG13.
Despite what my last two posts may have suggested, I've done more than merely read for fun over the previous three weeks. A large part of my time was going through the indices of all three volumes of Samuel Krauss' 1912 Talmudische Archäologie, a classic description of every aspect of life as reflected in rabbinic literature. At first I thought that this invaluable source on the daily life plus economic and social conditions in Talmudic times, would be practically impossible for me to access since it was written in German. Paying someone to translate the entire 1000+ pages would be way too expensive, but I did get a friend to translate the detailed "Table of Contents." After deciding which exact subject I was most interested in, I tried scanning a few pages and sending them through the Google Translator. Unfortunately the process was not only quite time consuming, but the results were far from useful.
So I went to plan B. My English "Table of Contents" was sufficiently detailed that I could see that each subject covered only a few pages. Since the Talmud references on my subjects of interest would enable me to find the primary source, I set to work looking up each footnote in the appropriate section and writing down those that mentioned a specific Talmud page. For example, the House Garden was mentioned in Bava Kama 82b, Shabbat 30b, Menachot 33b, and Moed Katan 7a. It took me the better part of a week to create this list, and Heaven knows how long it will take me to check all these Talmud pages. But at least I know where to look.
Meantime, I also tried plan C. I'm a member of the H-Judaic Listserve, where students and scholars post internet queries and answers on Jewish subjects. I used it a few times while researching RASHI'S DAUGHTERS, and decided to see if perhaps anyone had an English translation of Krauss' work or knew someone who'd made one. Lo and behold, while nobody knew of an English translation, I received several replies informing me of other sources that were similar to Krauss, including one that was available online to download. Amazingly, I heard from Catherine Hezser about her new book, The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine, coming out this fall in honor of the 100th anniversary of Talmudische Archäologie. Now I just have to wait until a copy turns up in one of my local research libraries, or someplace they can get through interlibrary loan.
I also have a plan D, but I'll write about that in my next post, which won't be until I come back from vacation in two weeks. Can you believe that this will be the first vacation my husband and I have taken alone in over 5 years that has nothing to do with researching one of my books?