At times a poor man comes to the house to ask for alms, or a traveler comes in to have his tefillin repaired, and they tell Raphael what they had seen and heard in the dispersion of Israel. “What shall we say and what shall we relate, Reb Raphael? If told it would not be believed. In the house of Thus-and-so the Scribe, I saw with my own eyes a number of young men sitting day and night writing Torah scrolls, tefillin, and mezuzot, thus making factory work of the sacred Torah. Not only this, but I have heard that another scribe even employs girls to sit and write.”
Raphael listens respectfully and replies humbly, “Do not say this, my dear fellow Jew. Why should we slander the people of God? Indeed, we have reason to rejoice that we have reached a time such as this when the Torah is spread so widely that a single scribe for a city is no longer enough.”
At times a woman neighbor comes in to consult Miriam on something related to cooking, or to ask when the new month will begin. And if there is a difficult birth in town, someone comes running to her to borrow her willow twigs. The woman says to her, “My dear Miriam, surely you wish to save two human souls, therefore please lend me your willow twigs. Tomorrow, God willing, I shall go from one end of the town to the other end and find other willow twigs to replace these.” And Miriam answers with a sigh, “Take the willow twigs, my dear soul, and may they bring good fortune and long life. As for me, I am not worthy of your going to any trouble about me; for myself, what will these willow twigs give or add, even if they were boiled in tears?” And her neighbor replies, “Don’t, Miriam, don’t, my precious life, let us not give Satan a foothold by complaining. We have a mighty Father in heaven and His mercies are over all His works. Many barren women have given birth, and children have clung to their breasts. There is a women’s prayer book that has been brought from the Holy Land; nothing I can say matters, but in that book you will discover God’s acts and miracles, and in it also you will learn how to entreat God.”
When Miriam visits the bathhouse Raphael remains in the house of study. When she returns home she dresses in fine clothes, like a bride on her wedding day, and stands before the mirror. At that moment it seems as if the days of her youth were returning to her. She recalls an inn on a main road, frequented by gentile lords and ladies, and cattle dealers sojourning there, and herself sitting with her father and mother, and with Raphael the husband of her youth. She recalls the crown her mother placed on her head on her wedding day, and at that moment the thought enters her mind to make herself beautiful for her husband. But then she sees reflected in the mirror the east-wall embroidery with its scenes and those two lions with their mouths open; immediately she is startled and shrinks back: “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”
And when Raphael returns home after the prayers and sees his wife in her true beauty reflected in the mirror, he is immediately attracted to her. He goes toward her to make some pleasing remark. But when he is near her, His name, may He be blessed, flashes before him out of the mirror. Immediately he stops and recites devoutly and in holiness: “I have set the Lord always before me,” and shuts his eyes before the glory and awe of the Name. Both turn away silently. He sits in one corner and studies the Book of Splendor, and she sits in another corner reading the women’s prayer book, until sleep invades their eyes. They take the large bucket of water with the large copper fish embossed on its bottom, and wash their hands in preparation for reciting “Hear, O Israel” before retiring.
5
When hope and patience came to an end and she no longer had the strength to weep and pray for children, she stood before her husband heartbroken and with great humility. Said Raphael to Miriam, “What is your wish, Miriam, and what is your request?” And Miriam replied, “My wish and my request, if I have found favor in my husband’s eyes, and if it please my husband to do my wish and fulfill my petition, then let him write a Torah scroll for us also.”
At that moment Reb Raphael took Miriam’s head and placed it on his knees, then he placed his eyes upon her eyes, his face upon her face, his mouth upon her mouth, and said to her, “Please don’t, my daughter, God has not yet withdrawn His mercy from us. We shall surely still behold seed upon the earth.” Miriam lowered her eyelids and replied, “May the words of your mouth enter the ears of the Holy One, blessed be He.” From then on her hands were busy making a mantle for a Torah scroll, and other sacred implements, as does a woman whose hands are busy making decorative ribbons, sheets, and coverings for the expected newborn baby.
6
“Good fortune is not forever.” God chastises those He loves. One Sabbath morning Miriam returned from the synagogue, put down her prayer book, and, before she was able to remove her outer garment and prepare her heart and soul to greet her husband properly, a sigh escaped from deep within her, she began to feel alternately chilled and hot, her face turned green, her bones began rattling in their joints, and her whole skin sought to escape from her body. She lay down on her bed and remained there and never again rose or left her bed. She had not been inscribed on high for a long life, and was plucked while still in her youth.
Miriam died in the prime of her days and left her husband to his sorrows. She died in the prime of her days and left behind her neither son nor daughter.
7
At the end of the seven days of mourning, Raphael the Scribe arose, put on his shoes, went to the marketplace, and obtained sheets of parchment, bundles of quills, a string of gallnuts for ink, and soft gut-thread for sewing together the sheets of parchment, and set his heart to the writing of a Torah scroll in memory of the soul of his wife whom God had taken away.
What may this be likened to? To a great gardener who raised beautiful plants in his garden, and all the officials who were to see the king would first come to his garden and buy beautiful flowers to take with them. Once the gardener’s wife was to see the king, and the gardener said, “All others who visit the king take flowers from my garden. Now that my own wife is to visit the king, it is only proper that I go down to my garden and pick flowers for her.”
The comparison is clear. Raphael was a great gardener. He planted beautiful Torah scrolls in the world. And whoever was invited to appear before the King — the King over kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He — took a Torah scroll with him. And now that Miriam’s time had come to appear before the King — the Holy One, blessed be He — Raphael immediately went down to his garden — that is, to his pure and holy table — and picked roses — that is, the letters of the Torah scroll he wrote — and made a beautiful bouquet — that is, the Torah scroll he had prepared. Thus the work began.
8
Raphael sat and wrote. He wrote his Torah scroll day and night, interrupting the work only for prayers with the congregation and for the recitation of the kaddish. A tallit was spread over the clean table, its fringes drooping below the table and getting intertwined with the fringes of the little tallit he wore. On the tallit lay a lined sheet of parchment dazzling in its whiteness as the sky itself in its purity.
From morning to evening the quill wrote on the parchment and beautiful black letters glistened and alighted on the parchment as birds upon the snow on the Sabbath when the Song of Moses is read. When he came to the writing of the great and awesome Name he would go down to the ritual bath and immerse himself.