Sisters at Sinai: New Tales of Biblical Women

Second Blessings

55 I Esau realized that the Canaanite women displeased his father Isaac. So Esau went to Ishmael and took to wife, in addition to the wives he had, Mahalat the daughter of Ishmael, sister of Nevayot. —GENESIS 28:8–9 A s I rode into camp, I saw how the peaks of the tents echoed the peaks of the mountains. This is a mountain family, steep and sheer. Esau stopped our caravan at the center of a circle of blue cloth slopes. I felt a wave of homesickness and wished for my mother, Aisha. The wind blew, and I could feel her fingers in my hair, braiding precious stones into it in preparation for this day. I reached up to touch my jeweled braids, and thought of my father, Ishmael, who had lost his only daughter when I nodded my head yes, I will go. I dismounted from my she-camel slowly, carefully. Her harness bells tinkled softly in the silence. Looking up, I saw a whole host of stately men and women in brightly colored robes. They stared at me with great interest. I am shy by nature, and it was too much for me. After all, these were the people who had cast my father and grandmother into the desert. Might they do the same to me? I felt sick to my stomach as I delivered my grandmother’s forSECOND BLESSINGS k mal message to her first husband, Abraham. When I finally collapsed during Isaac’s speech of welcome, Esau put his arm around me and brought me into his tent. It was a grand one, wide and brown, which used to belong to his mother, Rebekah. My last thought as I dropped off into a feverish sleep was of the red hairs on the back of Esau’s hand. Fortunately, I was better when it was time for the wedding feast. We were married outside, since Esau loves the outdoors. He takes a special pleasure in the wilderness. Esau seems to desire me and resent me at the same time. I am his concession, his proper wife, to offset the two wives his parents do not like. I wear modest garments; I pray to one God, as my grandmother Hagar did before me. Being a descendant of Abraham, I come from the right family. Sarah might have objected to me, of course, but Sarah is long dead. My marriage to Esau has sealed the peace between Sarah’s children and the Ishmaelites. Therefore, I am valuable. I fit into the camp routine, am already known as a good worker with a gentle voice. To Esau’s family I am normal, but to him I am strange. Sometimes he does not even speak to me before taking me, as if he thinks that women do not understand his language. Yet I am drawn to him, to his strength and honesty and the curls of red hair on his chest. I remember my grandmother musing about Abraham’s deep silences. Esau has the same silences, though not the same quietude. I am sympathetic to his feeling that he is never good enough. It is a feeling I share. In return, he comforts me when I feel like a stranger, awkwardly putting his arm around my shoulders. Esau and I are beginning to learn about each other. He shares my tent often. Nevertheless, it is not only him I have married. There is a whole family of women here, not one of them as I expected. Rebekah, the tribal matriarch, is like a wraith beneath her regal purple robes, though Esau told me she was strong and proud. 56 S I S T E R S A T S I N A I I whisper with her women, who have been with her since she left her home long ago. They tell me that she misses her son Jacob. Jacob was sent away many months ago to marry another proper wife, a kinswoman of Rebekah’s, in faraway Haran. He was her favorite son, her brilliant heir. She is lonely without him. Yehudit is Esau’s fierce and talkative second wife. Her bronze earrings have sharp edges. There is something violent about her. When she gets a chance, she darkly whispers to me that Jacob left only because Esau might have killed him. Jacob stole Esau’s blessing , she says. He tricked his blind father into giving him...