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now revising ENCHANTRESS

After a digression to once again address the pressing question of women laying tefillin, an update on the progress of ENCHANTRESS towards publication. I posted in early January that I’d sent what I hoped was the final manuscript to my Penguin editor in NYC. With APPRENTICE, which had an earlier pub date, my editor found little to change, with the result that her edits were combined with the copyeditor’s. I received the copyedited ms a month later for my approval and off it went to the interior designers.

This time my editor wanted to do some heavy line editing, which means she goes over the entire ms with a fine-tooth comb and suggests lots of changes. I knew that ENCHANTRESS, which covers 60 years of my character’s life, was longer than my previous novels and that it started out slowly, but I thought I’d done my best under the circumstances. So I was rather nervous about my editor’s desire to do some major pruning.

It’s my novel, my agent reminded me, so I don’t have to accept every change the editor makes. With that in mind, I anxiously opened the file that contained the first 3 chapters worth of edits. Wow! The good news was that she cut out duplicate material, trimmed lengthy exposition, improved the flow, and removed just enough info that the reader would be hungry to know more. The bad news is that I’m not nearly as good a writer as I thought.

Rashi's daughters and tefillin

Some of you may have seen the online article about whether Rashi’s daughters really wore tefillin]. I have addressed this question many times and here is my answer:

As part of the extensive research behind my RASHI'S DAUGHTERS, no subject intrigued me more than the elusive [and ubiquitous] legend that they wore tefillin. Indeed, when I first started studying Talmud and was introduced to Rashi, I was told that legend held that they were learned and wore tefillin. I actually tracked the earliest mention of this back to the 18th century, but there was no evidence provided.

Ari Zivotofsky is entirely correct that to this day there is no hard proof that Rashi's daughters wore tefillin. However, there is evidence [Machzor Vitry, Avraham Grossman, Elisheva Baumgarten, and others] that a few women did wear tefillin in 11th-12th century Ashkenaz, just as some women wore tzitzit, blew the shofar, performed circumcisions, and had aliyah to the Torah in Rashi's community. Thus one might argue that if any woman was going to wear tefillin in that time, surely it would have been one of Rashi's daughters. As far as I'm concerned, the answer to the question "did Rashi's daughters" wear tefillin is 'maybe.'

I will offer an intriguing bit of circumstantial evidence from Tosofot to Tractate Rosh Hashana 33ab, where, as a commentary to the debate over whether women may blow the shofar or must be restrained from doing so, there is a long discussion about what it means for women to be exempt from time-bound-positive mitzvot. Rabbenu Tam [one of Rashi's grandsons] insists that women may perform these mitzvot if they want, and should say the blessing if they do. Interestingly, the example he uses is that of tefillin [which some rabbis argue is not time-bound at all]. I speculated that he chose tefillin because it was the one he saw a woman, that is his mother, do.

In any case, as a novelist, I am free to include any legends about my characters in my books, even those that are impossible, such as a wall opening to save Rashi's mother from a runaway cart when she was pregnant. That his daughters may have worn tefillin is much more likely.

3 biennial Maggies

Here’s a cute story from last month’s URJ Biennial. The main Shabbat morning services, including Torah reading, take place in the main hall for all 5000 of us to worship together. Early, however, there are several different small sessions for praying the morning blessings. Except for the getting up early part, this is my favorite service rubric, with lots of singing of psalms, etc.

I chose a session with cantors showcasing new music and when we were asked to introduce ourselves to those sitting nearby, I was amused to find that the woman behind me was also named Maggie. We were joking about the odds of finding two women there with such an uncommon Jewish name, when a man said that his wife was named Maggie. Next thing you know, he was taking a photo of the 3 of us, which I must say turned out pretty good.

So here we are: Maggie Anton, Maggie Cant, and Maggie Hand.

Questions from the URJ author panel

I took a week off to visit with my son’s family in Scottsdale AZ and came back to find that my Penguin editor had some revisions for me to look at. So a slight delay in blogging while I went over them, which I’ll post more about later. Meanwhile, back to the questions I was asked at my URJ Biennial author panel. In no particular order:

What made me decide to write about the subject matter of my books? After learning that Rashi had no sons, only daughters, and that they were reputed to be learned way back in the 11th century, I became curious about whether the legends were true. What I discovered in my research was so compelling I decided to write novels about them.

How did my writing get me more involved in Judaism? It made me a Talmud scholar and an expert on Jewish women’s history, knowledgeable enough that I have now spoken at over 600 Jewish venues about my expertise.

Do my characters have lives beyond my novels? My protagonists are all historical figures, albeit not well documented, so they have much fuller lives than what I wrote about.

What surprised me or was unexpected about my author journey? Since I had no aspirations to be a writer earlier, my entire author journey has been surprising and unexpected. Particularly that so many people have read what I’ve written and like it.

What response did/do I get from readers & how does it affect me? It amazes me to receive fan emails, which I try to answer diligently. Occasionally I get an email that moves me greatly, like from women who say my novels got them through chemotherapy or who read them to family in the hospital, or who want to know where they can study Talmud.

URJ biennial

Happy Secular New Year! Now that my editor at Plume has received my finished ENCHANTRESS ms, along with a Cast of Characters, I’m following up on my promise to describe my experience at the Union of Reform Judaism [URJ] biennial earlier this month in San Diego. It was both incredible and overwhelming to experience being with 5000 Jews, from worship to workshops to concerts. Believe me, you haven’t experienced Shabbat joy until you’ve sang and danced with thousands of people in a giant convention center hall [see photo below of the crowd, including me at the right in the red sweater]

The four days were also filled with connecting with old friends and new acquaintances from all over the Jewish world, many of whom I hope will invite me to speak at their synagogues after ENCHANTRESS comes out in Fall 2014.

I was both grateful and honored to be part of it. Huge thanks to WRJ [Women of Reform Judaism] for inviting me to speak on a panel with authors Anita Diamant and Zoe Klein before an enthusiastic audience of over 250. Instead of my usual topic of the research behind my books, I spoke about my journey from clinical chemist to historical novelist and how my being a Jewish woman impacted that. It was interesting that all 3 of us started out as secular Jews, with most of our religious education coming as adults. Next post I’ll share some of the questions we were asked.