Apprentice (4 page)

I
recall very well when Abba first came to study with Father. We lived in Kafri at the time, a largish city located on the southernmost tributary of the Euphrates River, whose population consisted almost entirely of Jews. Rami was already a student in our home, which was to be expected since Achti was betrothed to his brother, Ukva.

Fear has a way of fixing memories strongly in place, and for years afterward my stomach tightened whenever I thought of those nerve-racking days.

I sensed that something was wrong when Mother burst into my and Achti's
kiton
, our bedroom, while we were still getting dressed. It was not her way to burst in anywhere; Mother's usual entrances were calm and deliberate. Most days I didn't even see Mother until the midday meal, and sometimes not even then since I still had to eat with my brothers' children and their nurses.

“Girl,” Mother addressed Achti's maidservant. “Pack my daughter's things, bedding included, and move them into Pinchas and Beloria's
kiton
.” She turned to my nurse and added, “The same for Hisdadukh.”

She scowled when the two slaves hesitated. “Move them now, Achti and Hisdadukh can braid each other's hair.”

“But, Mother, Beloria's baby will keep me up all night.” Achti, whose name meant “my sister,” was fourteen, almost six years older than me. Yet she whined like a toddler. “Can't I stay with Yenuka?” Yenuka was our
oldest brother, whose wife, Devora, wouldn't be having their baby for several months.

“Devora's sisters and their families will be sharing her
kiton
.” Mother's voice was curt. “In fact, relatives will be staying with all your sisters-in-law.”

Evidently more people were going to be staying in our room. “Can I sleep on the roof, then?” I asked timidly. I loved nighttime on the roof, with its twinkling stars and cool breezes. I could feel the angels watching over me.

Mother hurried to the door. “Absolutely not. That is where the men will be sleeping.” Then she was gone, her jasmine perfume trailing in her wake.

Originally our house had only two floors, like everyone else's, but when my elder brother Keshisha, Mother's seventh son, was born, it became clear that there would be a need for more room once the older ones started families. So Father built a third story on top of the second, making our house one of the tallest in Kafri. Nurse said I could climb to the roof before I could walk, and that she would always find me there whenever I disappeared.

Not that I was always trying to hide from Nurse, rather that the roof was the best place to see what lay beyond our courtyard walls—walls I never passed through except to attend synagogue. From its heights I could watch workers in Father's date groves, merchants and farmers bringing produce to market, shoppers coming and going from the souk, or porters loading and unloading barges on the Hinde Canal. On a clear day I might spy Saracen nomads in the western desert or boats on the Euphrates River in the east. Even during the hottest days of summer, there was usually a breeze.

I sighed with resignation. My connection to the outside world was severed, and who knew when I'd be allowed up there again?

Something was wrong. Just last year our house had overflowed with guests for my brother Pinchas's wedding to Beloria, but this crowding was too sudden, and Mother was clearly not in a celebratory mood. By week's end so many cousins and cousins of cousins had arrived that Mother made all the slaves sleep in the courtyard.

Father soon acquired a number of new students whose homes were far from Kafri: Zeira and Abaye from Pumbedita, Rabbah bar Huna from
Sura, and of course Abba bar Joseph from Machoza. Abba, who at thirteen was just old enough to be obligated to perform mitzvot, was short and wiry, with big eyes, a small chin, and a child's reedy voice. I had only seen a monkey once—when Father took us to visit the exilarch's court for Sukkot, a noble lady there had one as a pet—but Abba immediately reminded me of that monkey. Not that he was bad looking. To the contrary, he was an attractive boy. But he had a restless energy that demanded constant movement, and he seemed to be taking in everything with those big eyes.

Rami, who was slightly younger than my brother Tachlifa, had been studying with Father for years. He was one of the oldest students who wasn't one of my brothers. He was taller than the others too, as tall as Nachman, my second-oldest brother, with a pleasant, resonant voice. Rami's best features were his perfect white teeth and how his face seemed to light up whenever he smiled. Rami was an excellent student, sharper than my brothers, and it seemed to me that he would make a great rabbi. Yet there was a keenness to Abba bar Joseph's questions that made me think he might be more brilliant than any of them.

Nobody would discuss whatever was upsetting everyone, and I was too frightened to ask. Ominous signs were everywhere. Women with worried expressions whispered furtively to one another, only to abruptly separate when I approached. We used to have meat, or at least fish, every day, but now there were days when only the men ate it, and even days when all we had was bread and vegetables. Father always took pride that his family and slaves both ate bread baked from fine wheat flour, but now the slaves' bread was made from coarse flour. And after a while that changed to barley.

I finally found the courage to ask Devora about our finances. Yenuka ran our family's brewery business for Father; that is to say he was responsible for brewing and selling the date beer. But his wife, Devora, was treasurer, keeping the accounts and seeing that bills were paid. I hated to interrupt as she wrote in her ledgers, but she was never alone otherwise.

“Devora.” I kept my voice steady. “May I ask a question?”

She looked up in annoyance and my heart sank at the thought that she'd send me away. But instead she sighed and said, “If it's a quick one.”

I took a deep breath. “Has Naval attacked our family and chased Nakid away?” Naval was the Demon of Poverty, Nakid the Angel of Sustenance.

“Of course not. Whatever makes you think that?”

“We don't eat as well as we used to.”

Devora smiled wanly. “Don't worry, Dada. Nakid is still blessing us, and in fact we are selling more beer than ever. It's just that there's less food in the souk to buy these days.” She promptly returned to her work.

Dada was what my siblings called me, all because Keshisha couldn't pronounce Hisdadukh properly when I was born. I wanted to ask why there was less food, but Devora's action was a clear dismissal and I slunk away knowing little more than before. I was so frustrated that I grabbed a fly swatter from the kitchen and headed for the garbage pit in the courtyard. In addition to making baskets, Beloria also wove reeds into sturdy devices for killing flies and other noxious insects that served the Corpse Demoness, Nasus.

Fearsome Nasus was responsible for death, decay, and impurity in corpses, excrement, and people—especially women. They said that Nasus took the form of a giant fly, which was why flies were the most reviled among her minions. Killing them decreased the amount of evil in the world, and provided me with an outlet for my aggravation.

As usual, there was a cloud of flies hovering over the pit's cover. Not as many as around the privies, but swatting flies was sure to disturb whoever might be using them. I took careful aim, and, thwack, I brought down three in one blow. I kept at it until I managed to kill six at the same time, and by then I was feeling a little better.

One place I knew I wouldn't learn anything was during lessons with our tutor. Keshisha had moved up to study with Father two years ago, leaving Achti and I behind with our nieces and nephews. The curriculum was the same as when I started: reading and writing in both Hebrew and Aramaic, with the Torah as our text, plus some occasional arithmetic. All subjects I had memorized by last year.

Achti didn't mind helping the little ones with their learning, but I was so bored that I tried to escape whenever I could. Usually I fled to the roof, but if Grandfather was in the
traklin
, the large room where adults took their meals and Father taught from the Mishna, the compendium of Jewish Oral Law, then I was assured a place either on Grandfather's lap or on the cushion next to him.

The
traklin
floor was littered with feather-stuffed cushions, so many that every diner, even guests, could have their own. During his classes,
Father's status as teacher meant he sat on three cushions, while his students only got one. Normally Grandfather's position as father-in-law granted him three cushions at meals, but here in class he acquiesced to Father's authority and sat on two.

These days Father was teaching from Tractate Bava Batra, the volume of Mishna that dealt with injuries, damages, and other such complicated legal subjects. Because of all the new students, he began with an explanation of his teaching methods.

“Despite the circumstances, I am pleased to see so many new faces before me. I expect that all of you have studied, and hopefully memorized, the Mishna, even if you're not quite sure what it all means,” he said with a smile. “That is our task here, to recite and repeat, and then to discuss and analyze until everyone, including me, understands its meaning.”

He paused to let this sink in. “For some of you, what I say next will be new, but do not let it dismay you,” he said gently. “In truth, the Mishna does not contain the entirety of Oral Law, which was given to Moses on Mount Sinai along with the written Torah. In addition to those teachings compiled in Mishna, our Sages in Eretz Israel taught many other things. These additional sayings are called Baraita, and though they are outside the Mishna, they are equally authoritative.”

One of my nephews called out, “How many Baraita are there?”

Father chuckled. “I don't know, for no scholar has learned them all. But I do know that there are many more Baraita than there are Mishna,” he replied. “Those that I and my sons know, we will impart when the subject arises, and I expect you to learn them.”

He gazed around the room, locking eyes with Rami, Abaye, Rabbah, Zeira, and Abba in turn. “I implore those of you who have studied with other teachers to share any Baraita you have learned, even if you don't understand them, even if they appear to contradict the Mishna or another Baraita.”

“
Especially
if they appear to contradict the Mishna or another Baraita,” my brother Nachman interjected.

Father nodded. “My son is correct, for it is only by a thorough discussion of the reasoning behind the different Mishna and Baraita that we can resolve any apparent contradictions and thus make the law clear,” he said. “If you learn how to do this well, the exilarch may appoint you to one of his courts, where it will be your decision that metes out justice.”

Since there were no more questions or comments, he continued where
we'd left off the day before. “The Mishna we've been studying deals with various activities that may impinge on neighbors' property rights, some of which are permitted and others prohibited.”

The students nodded their readiness to begin. Previously we had learned that it was forbidden to set up a bakery, dye shop, or cattle barn under another's storehouse because the smoke and stink would damage the goods stored above. Today we'd study a section on whether those sharing a courtyard may limit what vocations the other residents could practice there.

I girded myself for what I feared would be a difficult topic.

As always, Father first quoted the Mishna: “No one may restrict another's livelihood by claiming ‘I cannot sleep because of his noisy hammer, his noisy millstones, or his noisy children.'”

Then he had the students repeat it with him until he was satisfied that they all knew it. The Mishna was in Hebrew, but everyone here in Bavel spoke Aramaic, so Father next asked who needed any words explained.

This time I understood the Hebrew, since all the words were also in the Torah, but I wouldn't have asked for help in any case. Elohim had commanded us to: “Teach these words diligently to your sons, recite them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road, when you lie down and when you rise up…that your days and the days of your sons may increase.” Even though “sons” could also be read as “children,” girls were still considered exempt from Torah study. So I sat quietly near Grandfather and avoided drawing attention to my presence.

When nobody had a question, Father sat back, placed his hands on his stout belly, and asked, “We see that carpenters and millers may practice their professions despite the neighbors' objections. But whose occupation is the Mishna referring to by ‘noisy children'?”

Rami spoke first. “A teacher, and the noisy children are his students.”

My brother Nachman promptly challenged this. “But our Sages taught in a Baraita: If a courtyard resident wishes to become a mohel, a bloodletter, or a teacher of children, the other residents
can
prevent him.” He emphasized the word “can.” “So the Mishna's noisy children can't be a teacher's students or it would conflict with this Baraita.”

One of my nephews asked Nachman to repeat the Baraita, and he did so. Again I understood all the words, but I also knew, despite being a girl and the youngest in class, that a Baraita was not supposed to contradict the Mishna. This was the part of Father's lessons I liked best: when he and his students worked to resolve seeming contradictions.

Abba's hand shot up in protest. “But our Sages mandated that every town must provide teachers for its children. So how can anyone in the courtyard object to a teacher?”

Father's brown eyes warmed with pleasure at his students' vigorous arguments. “Rami is correct. We are indeed discussing teachers here,” he said. “Nachman has quoted a teaching from our Sages that allows a courtyard to prevent teachers, while Abba has pointed out that the Sages also require Jewish teachers in every town. So what are we dealing with here?”