Now a word from my sponsor: I just heard from my editor at Plume that they've ordered another printing of BOOK 1 - JOHEVED. I believe this is their 10th printing now; and that's on top of the 6 self-published printings I did as Banot Press. Hurray! By the way, BOOK 2 - MIRIAM is also in its 10th printing.
Also last week, Plume put the following announcement in "Publisher's Marketplace:"
Maggie Anton's RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER, Book 1: Apprentice and Book 2: Enchantress, set in the third-century Persian Empire and inspired by one of the few women of that time mentioned in the Talmud, the legendary youngest daughter of a learned rabbi, who became a powerful and influential sorceress, again to Denise Roy at Plume, by Susanna Einstein at LJK Literary Management.
I am up to Chapter Thirteen in the first draft, and my main character is finally going to leave childhood behind to become a wife, and soon after that, a mother [and unfortunately, too soon after that, a widow].
Enjoy this fabulous video of Purim highlights at my shul.
My husband is the first reader, chanting in Hebrew. I'm in the army uniform later, reading the Megillah in Klingon.
Here are a few "facts" about Rav Hisda that not only define his personality, but also make him an interesting character to write about. According to the Talmud [Moed Katan] lived into his nineties, but taking into account the ages of his wife and children, he was more likely born in approximately 230 CE and died around 309, still a nice long lifespan. He lived in Sura, where he was a judge on their Beit Din [rabbinic court], and eventually he came to head the Talmud school there. He was so pious that rain came when he prayed for it, and so fortunate that he fathered 9 children [including 7 sons], his house celebrated 60 weddings instead of funerals, and his wealth, which came from brewing date beer, was so great that even the dogs ate bread of fine flour.
Rav Hisda bragged that he was a better Torah student than others because he married at age 16, and thus was better able to control his yetzer hara [evil/sexual impulse]. He was a fastidious man, who would pray only if he were 4 amot away from the odor of excrement, while other rabbis said that one merely needed to stand 4 amot from the excrement itself. He declared that using obscene speech brings a man to Gehenna. But he also ruled that it was permitted to violate Shabbat by carrying round stones for use to wipe oneself after defecation, because "kavod habriot" [human dignity] supersedes a Torah prohibition.
He came from a priestly family, and is quoted in Tractate Sotah describing how the priestly benediction was to be performed in synagogue [as it is today]. His sharp analytical skills and ability to ask complex questions were his scholarly strengths, as opposed to wide knowledge of Mishna and other rabbinic texts. He said that firstborn daughters were better than sons [easy for him to posit since he fathered 6 sons before his first daughter was born]. But probably his most well-known saying today, although rarely attributed to him, is the traveler's blessing that seems to be ubiquitous on key chains and car magnets for Jews.
One of my fans, on learning that my next series would be called RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER, asked me who Rav Hisda is. Considering that many Jews don't know who Rashi is or what he's famous for, at least Rashi has some name recognition [and I am gratified to have brought him more through my novels]. However few Jews outside the yeshiva world have even heard of Rav Hisda, and his Babylonian colleagues Rava, Abaye, Rav Sheshet, Rav Huna and Rav Nachman [to name the most prominent], who with their families, will comprise the characters in RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER.
Yet these are the men who essentially created rabbinic/Talmudic Judaism in the 3rd and 4th Centuries CE, after it became clear that the Temple was not going to be rebuilt after the Romans destroyed it in 70. Not Hillel and Shammai, not Judah haNasi [who compiled the Mishna], all of whom lived hundreds of years earlier; these slightly more well-known rabbis from Israel assumed that the Temple and Patriarch would continue to function, not that Judaism would need an entirely new structure of laws and authorities to interpret those laws.
In my [humble] opinion, these nearly anonymous Babylonian sages, whose discussions and arguments form the basis of Talmud, are responsible for making modern Judaism what it is today. For, in case you haven't noticed, Jews today no longer follow the Torah exactly as written. We don't travel to Jerusalem and kill animals for our festivals. Instead we go to synagogue to say certain prayers and blessings, which come from the Talmud. We even observe new holidays [Hanukah, Tisha b'Av, Purim] that aren't even mentioned in the Torah.
Rituals involved in brit milah, weddings and funerals come from the Talmud, not Torah. The rules for marriage, divorce and remarriage - from Talmud. All the elaborate details of kashrut today - obviously not from the Torah, which only prohibits cooking a kid in it's mother's milk, not eating cheese and chicken on the same dishes. And too much more to mention now.
So in a general way, that's who Rav Hisda is: one of the Talmudic sages without whom Judaism would either not exist or be a very different religion. Next post will give more info on Rav Hisda's individual accomplishments.