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Rashi's daughters

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Rashi's daughters were the three daughters and only children of the medieval Talmudic scholar, Rashi and his wife Rivka. Their three daughters were Yocheved, Miriam and Rachel (11th–12th century). They each married their father's finest students and were the mothers of the leaders of the next generation of French Talmudic scholars. Almost every Ashkenazi rabbinic dynasty traces its ancestry back to either Yocheved or Miriam, and the majority of the tosafists, were recent descendants of Rashi's daughters. All born in Troyes, France, their descendants inhabited Germany, France, and Italy in the early 11th to 15th centuries, with the majority later moving to Eastern Europe, where they established several notable rabbinic dynasties.[1]

Yocheved and family

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Yocheved bat Shlomo Yitzchaki (Hebrew: יוכבד בת שלמה יצחקי) was born between 1058 and 1062 in Troyes, and died in 1135 in Ramerupt. She married Meir ben Samuel, son of Samuel of Vives and Miriam. He was born around 1060 in Ramerupt, where he died in 1135, a few months after her.

They had four sons: Isaac ben Meir, Samuel ben Meir, Solomon ben Meir, and Jacob ben Meir. Despite the modern Ashkenazi naming custom, Yocheved's son Solomon was born during her father's lifetime. Yocheved and Meir had at least two daughters: Hannah, who advised the local women to make the blessing after candle lighting and not before, and Miriam. Meir and Yocheved also had a grandson, Isaac ben Samuel of Dampierre.

Yocheved's name appears in MS de Rossi 181.[2]

Miriam and family

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Miriam bat Shlomo Yitzchaki (Hebrew: מרים בת שלמה יצחקי) was born between 1058 and 1062 and died after 1090. She married Judah ben Nathan of Paris and Alvina. He was born around 1065 in Mainz and died around 1105 in Paris.

They had a one known daughter, Alvina, a learned woman whose customs served as an example for other Jewish women. They also had three sons: Yom Tov ben Judah, Samson ben Judah and Eliezer ben Judah. Yom Tov later moved to Paris and headed a yeshiva there, along with his brothers.[3]

Rachel and another daughter

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Rachel bat Shlomo Yitzchaki (Hebrew: רחל בת שלמה יצחקי) was born in Troyes around 1070. She married Rabbi Eliezer. They had no children.

Almost nothing is known about Rachel except for a letter that Rabbenu Tam wrote to his cousin, Yom Tov, in which he mentioned that their aunt Rachel was divorced from her husband, Eliezer.[4] One of Rashi's responsa[5] discusses the case of his young daughter losing a valuable ring at a time when Yocheved and Miriam were adults, so there was clearly another daughter much younger than her older sisters. In addition, Rashi is mentioned as having a grandson, Shemiah, and a granddaughter, Miriam, whose mother was neither Yocheved nor Miriam.

Avraham Grossman, based on a responsum that details how Rashi mourned for a little girl during a Jewish festival even though such mourning is prohibited, has postulated that he was mourning the death of his own young daughter, who would have been younger than Rachel.[6]

Rashi's family circle

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Legends

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There are a couple of legends about Rashi's daughters, all suggesting that they possessed unusual piety and scholarship.[7]

The best-known states that they were learned in Torah and Talmud at a time when women were forbidden to study Talmud.[8] A responsum of Rashi apparently notes that he is too weak to write and therefore is dictating to his daughter, but this is the result of copyist error, and in fact the responsum says that he was dictating to his grandson, Rashbam. Another version exists in which Rashbam is given explicitly as its author. In a separate responsum from the same period, Rashi dictates to "one of my brothers".[9]

While there is no evidence that Rashi's daughters themselves wore tefillin, it is known that some women in 11th, 12th and 13th centuries France and Germany did and that Rashi's grandson Rabbenu Tam ruled a woman performing any mitzvah that she is not obligated to, including tefillin, must make the appropriate blessing.[10][11]

References

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  1. ^ Shereshevsky, Ezra (1982). Rashi - the Man and His World. Sepher-Hermon.
  2. ^ פרוש התורה הפטרות ומגלות לרש"י : על תורה, ה' מגלות וספרי אמ"ת Cod. Parm. 3204 [The Torah Commentary on Haftarot and Exile to the Rashi: On Torah, Eighth Exile and Sefer Amot Cod. Parm. 3204] (in Hebrew).
  3. ^ Gross, Henri (1969). Gallia Judaica - Dictionnaire Geographique de la France d'Apres les Sources Rabbiniques. Philo Press.
  4. ^ Rosenthal, Shraga (1897). Sefer HaYashar le Rabbenu Tam. Berlin.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ Elfenbein, Israel (1943). Teshuvot Rashi. New York: Shulsinger Bros. pp. 255–256.
  6. ^ Grossman, Avraham; גרוסמן, אברהם (1995). חכמי צרפת הראשונים: קורותיהם, דרכם בהנהגת הציבור, יצירתם הרוחנית (in Hebrew). הוצאת ספרים ע״ש י״ל מאגנס, האוניברסיטה העברית. p. 125. ISBN 978-965-223-898-6.
  7. ^ Zolty, Shoshana (1993). And All Your Children Shall Be Learned - Women and the Study of Torah in Jewish Law and History. New York: Aronson.
  8. ^ Taitz, Emily; Sondra Henry (1978). Written Out of History. New York: Bloch. p. 88. ISBN 9780819704542.
  9. ^ Buber, Solomon, ed. (1905). ספר האורה. Lvov. p. 4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  10. ^ Baumgarten, Elisheva (2004). Mothers and Children: Jewish Family Life in Medieval Europe. Princeton University Press. p. 88. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
  11. ^ Grossman, Avraham (2004). Pious and Rebellious - Jewish Women in Medieval Europe. Waltham, Massachusetts: Brandeis University Press. pp. 178, 194. ISBN 1-58465-392-2. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
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