A Bride for One Night: Talmud Tales

The Matron

85 The Matron Rabbi Zadok was propositioned by a Roman matron. He said to her: My spirit is weak and I cannot— Is there something to eat? She said to him: Yes, there is something impure. He said to her: What am I to deduce from this? One who acts like this can eat things like that. She lit the oven and placed [the food] inside. He got up and sat in the oven. She said to him: What is the meaning of this? He said to her: One who does this [immorality] falls into that [the oven]. She said to him: If I had known all that, I would not have tormented you. —B. Kiddushin 40a Rabbi Zadok captured my heart. Like the last pea lodged deep in a pod, he was ensconced in the study house, protected from the rest of the world. His vulnerability was bound up in a strength that I had never seen in the men of Rome. A year had passed since I left Rome and went to live among the Jews. I was intrigued by their study houses, which resembled the academies of Rome but were also different, just as the Jews themselves are similar but also different from other nations. Although their women keep their distance from the study house, they welcomed me politely when I had reason to stop by. Perhaps they were surprised to see a woman who was learned in philosophy, or perhaps they were intrigued by my money or by the way I dressed. 86 The Matron That evening I arrived at the study house just as Rabbi Zadok was leaving. His image enchanted me—his clothing, his gait, his radiance. As if he knew that I was looking at him. I quickly fixed my hair and approached him. I asked him a question about the plural form used for God in the verse “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1:26). The scent of the perfumed oils in my hair wafted through the space between us. He looked at me as if trying to gauge how much I would be able to understand and then began with a quote from the midrash on Genesis. When he spoke to me, his eyes were glued to the floor; he did not look me in the eye. I was glad that he had answered me, as if a wild animal had agreed to eat from my palm. Absorbed as I was in my own happiness, I did not really listen to his answer. The artists who paint the surfaces of clay jugs would not have chosen his skinny frame as a model for their work, and yet my heart was stirred. Who can understand the mysterious ways of the gods who cast arrows into our hearts? I wanted to go back for another glimpse of his face, but I restrained myself from returning to the study house for a while. The passage of time can season a developing courtship like a savory spice, I know. But I found myself back there again when the sages asked for my advice on account of my closeness with the authorities. I cast a glance in his direction . I knew that he was not one for idle chatter, so I tried to engage him with a question about the creation of man and woman. In the academy in Rome there had been much talk of the androgynous being that had been created first and had then been split into two. I asked him: How do you read this story? What made the gods so angry? I was intrigued to hear him speak about sin. Rabbi Zadok stared at me curiously. My question was an overture of friendship, and he recognized it as such. The sight of my arm, which was bared in accordance with the latest fashion, unsettled him. He began by relating the story of the creation of the world by one God. This time, too, he spoke without looking at me, without following my low neckline to where it dipped into my cleavage. He looked beyond me, and even so, I felt naked. His voice was soft, almost a whisper, as if weaving an enchanting story. The men of Rome did not speak this way. His words seemed to create an enclosed chamber around us in which only The Matron 87 we stood, and from that moment on...