Meneket Rivka - Preface

Rivka bat Meir Tiktiner of Prague (d. 1605) is the author of Meneket Rivkah, currently the earliest Jewish extensive book known to be published and written by a Jewish woman (1609). The book is a collection of ethical teachings in Yiddish, focusing on those lessons which the author considered to be important for Jewish women. An English translation of the book, including a historical introduction and commentary, was published in 2009 by Frauke von Rohden[i].

Here I am sharing an annotated translation of author's Hebrew preface to the book, and one section of my interpretation, the entirety of which I hope to publish soon.

Interpretation

The Book

The preface of the Rabbanit

Meneket Rivkah (Rivka’s Nurse)

“[God] breastfed them with honey from a rock”

*

These lines would seem to include the title and motto of the book. The sequence of the first two lines is somewhat confusing as “the preface of the Rabbanit” seems to be inserted in the middle of the title (i.e. “The Book [Sefer] Meneket Rivkah”). We must therefore consider the possibility that this structure was employed in order to substitute the name of the book for the name of the author, simultaneously presenting the title of the book and identifying the author of the preface as “The Rabbanit Meneket Rivkah”. The practice of using a book name instead of the author’s name has long been a sign of respect in Jewish tradition and its roots may go back to Hasidei Ashkenaz.

The name of the book is a phrase that appears in Bereshit 35:8 which describes the death of Devorah, Rivkah’s nurse, and her burial under an Oak tree. There is almost no other information about this woman in biblical or rabbinic literature (Bereshit 24:49 tells of an unnamed nurse who is sent with Rivkah when she leaves her home). One of the most commonly repeated teachings about this figure actually expresses surprise at the attention paid to the death of this otherwise unknown figure, and concludes that Yaakov must have heard of his mother’s death at the same time, and it is Rivkah who is the focus of the mourning described in the verse…[i] The relative anonymity of the biblical figure and the fact that she could have chosen a phrase that would associate her with the matriarch (Divrei Rivkah, for example, from Bereshit 24:30 would have made a classic book title) push us to look more carefully at this particular choice.

One possibility is that this choice is intended to evoke the image of a nurse or a woman nursing as an image for a woman teaching Torah. This possibility is strengthened by her choice of the verse from Devarim 32:13 to follow the title. As Von Rohden pointed out, this verse had already been applied to God as a teacher of Torah, with honey symbolizing Mishnah, oil – Talmud, and so on (Sifrei Devarim, section 317). It is also striking to notice that what may be the most often repeated midrash on this verse, is a story that puts women at the center of the exodus from Egypt (see for example the version in Bavli, Sotah 11b which opens with the phrase “It was by the merit of righteous women that [the People of Israel] were redeemed from Egypt”). In this story, the women respond to Pharaoh’s decree to drown all male Jewish babies by going into the fields to give birth and subsequently leaving the boys there rather than taking them home to certain death. God then steps in to care for these babies and nourishes them on honey and oil (based on the image of the verse in Devarim) until it is safe for them to rejoin their families. It seems meaningful that at the opening of a Jewish book for women by a woman, RR chose to allude to a story that highlights women’s role as a driving rather than supporting force in Jewish history.

Another possibility is that the figure of Rivkah’s nurse gives RR the opportunity to connect herself, through the name Rivkah to the prophetess Devorah who shared the name with Rivkah’s nurse. Devorah may have served as an important role model for RR, as in rabbinic literature she is portrayed not only as a prophetess and communal leader, but as a woman teaching Torah to the public, either due to the lack of male teachers or despite their presence (See the discussion in Tana Dvei Eliyahu Rabbah, ch. 10). The same discussion about Devorah the prophetess may also be evoked in the last lines of the preface as we will see below.

In considering RR’s choice of book title, it might also be interesting to consider another tradition going back at least to hasidei Ashkenaz.[ii] This is the tradition of choosing a book title that can be connected to the author’s name through, at times rather complex, calculations of Gematria. To speculate on such connections I would start with the number 960, which is the numerical value of Rivkah bat Meir, the name by which she is identified both on the title page and on her tombstone. Meneket Rivkah (as spelled in the Masoretic text) has a numerical value of 907. The missing 53 (to equalize the values of the author and the book) could be made up in various ways, utilizing the phrase quoted from Devarim 32. For example, the first letters of the three words quoted (Rashei Tevot) have the numerical value of 50. If you add 1 for each word (HaKolel) you reach 53 and with 907, the total of 960. Alternatively, another Hebrew word for rock – Even – has the numerical value of 53, also completing the sum of 960 and identifying the author, Rivkah bat Meir as the honey producing rock of the verse. While the verse uses a different Hebrew word for rock (sela) it is interesting to note that on RR’s tombstone the year of her death is marked using the numerical value of the words Rivkah HaEven. Might this be a nod towards the Gematria of her book title? Of course, other paths to the same numbers might also be possible.