The Golden Bell by Robert L Stone

Author:Robert L Stone [Stone, Robert L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stony Mere Limited
Published: 2022-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

9

Flourishing

Córdoba 1123

You are a locked garden, my sister, my bride.

a spring enclosed, a fountain sealed.

The Song of Songs, 4:12

Ali ibn Yusuf was less friendly towards the Jews than his father had been – indeed, under pressure from the Moroccan fuqaha Ali banned Jews from living in Marrakesh, although they were allowed to come into the city to do business. The situation in Córdoba, however, was very different. The long tradition of Muslims, Jews, and Christians living peacefully together remained the norm, and Jews were able, for the most part, to go about their business and perform their religious duties as they had before.

Yehuda joined Abraham ibn Ezra’s synagogue in Sharie Alhazzarat and gradually became a community leader there – teaching, responding to religious questions and arbitrating in religious disputes. His medical practice flourished, and, like many doctors, he also made a good living as a merchant trading in medical supplies, herbs and spices, and even paper. Somehow, he also found the time to continue writing poetry – love poems, tributes to friends and, increasingly, religious poems – which were becoming famous in Andalucía and beyond.

His daughter Miriam fulfilled her potential as an excellent scholar and also helped her mother in her midwifery practice. As Miriam reached maturity but remained unmarried, however, Deborah started giving Yehuda a hard time about his failure to find a husband for her. In vain he pointed out that it wasn’t just a question of finding a husband, but of finding a husband acceptable to Miriam. She had rejected what seemed like scores of perfectly eligible men – some rich, some learned, some handsome, some all three. They all fell short of her standard. Deborah and Yehuda couldn’t establish what exactly her standard was, but it seemed to be a combination of worldliness and religiosity, learning and imagination, and seriousness and wit that nobody in the world could attain. Certainly, no biblical character had attained it; Yehuda thought that you’d have to combine King Solomon and King David and Moses and Joseph to satisfy Miriam.

Deborah would often say that Yehuda ought to act like a real father and insist that Miriam should marry this candidate or that. Again, it was in vain that he pointed out that insisting wouldn’t have worked with Deborah herself when she was young: no amount of ‘insistence’ by her father would have persuaded Deborah to marry Yehuda if she hadn’t wanted to, and Miriam was at least as stubborn as her mother.

One evening Yehuda came home after a particularly tiring day. He had spent the morning at the Alcázar dealing with the minor ailments of the women of the Almoravid harem; the middle of the day in his own surgery; and the afternoon in the synagogue ruling on some rather complex religious cases.

He had hardly begun his meal when Deborah started again on the old theme. Miriam was out studying with a group of women under the tutelage of Abraham ibn Ezra. Deborah said that it was all very well letting her do what she wanted, but learning wouldn’t get her a husband.

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