Hannah bat Yitzchaki, Agunah
Plausible - this post is about a fictional character who fits well into a historical context. Hannah is a very stereotypical pious rabbi character, but of course she’s a woman. In the French / German community she comes from scholarly women are surprisingly accepted, and we know that they performed many classically male religious and societal roles. But Hannah has a uniquely female problem - she is a widow who can’t remarry.
The daughters of the great scholar Rashi, Yoheved, Miriam, and Rachel, were each learned Torah scholars in their own right. Legend has is that that they wore tefillin - ritual objects worn during the daily prayers and conventionally worn only by men. Rashi had no male children, so these women, the men the married, and the children and grand-children they had were the inheritors of his legacy. The tradition of female scholarship was accepted in their French and German community and continued in many of their descendants, including the (fictional) scholar Hannah bat Yitzchaki.
Hannah is the great-great-grandchild of Rashi, and not from a particularly notable part of his lineage. As such she married a diligent if uninspiring scholar named Judah shortly after she turned 18. The pair quickly realized that Hannah was the superior Torah scholar by far, having inherited the gift of the descendants of Rashi. Judah bore her no ill will - in fact he delighted in coming home to share the Torah he had learned at the beit midrash (school) with her each day. They would stay up late at night to discuss a particularly interesting point of halacha.
The pair had three children, Isaac, Joseph, and Rachel. Hannah busied herself during the day caring for the children, but also, as they grew up, she devoted herself to the delicate needlework needed to create parchment fine enough to create a Torah scroll. Once the parchment was completed she carefully copied the text - letter by letter - from a completed Torah scroll. “It is a tree of life for those who hold fast to it,” she reminded herself.
The crusaders came at night. The family woke to hear shouts, screams, and the roar of flames. There were armed Christians in the streets, but they could only hide for so long before the blaze reached their house. The family rushed outside, into the chaos, but then Hannah stopped. The Torah scrolls were inside, and the house was on fire. She and Judah shared a look. He took the children by the hand and fled into the night. Hannah raced into the burning building. She emerged, burned and gasping for air, holding fast to both the completed Torah and the work in progress.
She never saw Judah and the children again. They must have fallen to the Christians’s swords.
Hannah left behind her slaughtered community and murdered family, the Torah scrolls her only reminder of what she has lost.
It has been four years since that dreadful day. The grief has not left, but it has lessened. She has said kaddish, the mourning prayer, for her husband and her children. Perhaps she is ready to move on.
Unfortunately for her, Hannah is an agunah, a chained woman. This can happen to a married woman because her husband refuses to grant her a divorce, or (as in Hannah’s case) because her husband has disappeared. Even though there is every reason to believe he is dead, halakah forbids her to remarry until he is officially declared dead by a beit din, a Jewish legal court consisting of three observant men (typically three rabbis). Until Jacob is officially dead Hannah is in a kind of legal limbo and can’t fully reintegrate into Jewish society.
The concern is that, were Hannah to remarry, any children she had with her new husband would be mamzers if Jacob were to reappear. A mamzer is a kind of bastard who cannot get married except to other mamzers. This status is unchangeable and transmits to the mamzer’s children. As such the rabibs work hard to prevent the creation of mamzers by forbidding remarriage when it is not perfectly clear that the previous marriage is over, by death or divorce.
The local beit din, lead by Rabbi Moses ben Eleazar, has heard Hannah’s testimony and has every reason to believe her. And there is room to rule that Jacob is dead in Jewish law, the Talmud relates that “If a person fell into a pit filled with snakes and scorpions, one may [declare him dead], since it is certain that they killed him.” A town full of Crusaders can be seen as very similar to a pit of scorpions.
However, when the beit din was hearing testimony a certain baker named Ezra ben Simon testified that he saw Judah escape from the town. The truth is that Ezra is a transplant from Provance, where learned women are not accepted in society. He sees Hannah as an uppity woman who deserves to be punished for having the temerity to write Torah scrolls. The baker’s testimony is not definitive, but it has cast enough doubt on the matter that the beit din will not rule that Jacob is dead.
The definitive proof would be if the beit din heard testimony from two Jewish men who could independently testify that Jacob had died. But no one saw him die. Hannah is, of course, a respected member of the community, a skilled Torah scholar, and the great-great-granddaughter of Rashi, of blessed memory. But as a woman her voice does not hold the same weight as the baker from the south.
The stage is set for the covenant to get involved and free the chained woman.
Hannah bat Yitzchaki
Characteristics: Int +3, Per -2, Pre 0, Com +2, Str -1, Sta -1, Dex +3, Qik 0
Size: 0
Age: 27 (27)
Decrepitude: 0 (0)
Warping Score: 0 (0)
Confidence Score: 1 (3)
Virtues and Flaws
Free: Craftswoman
Virtues: Educated (Hebrew) x 2, Clear Thinker, Good Teacher, Apt Student. Affinity for Craft: Scroll Making, Affinity for Profession: Scribe, Improved Characteristics
Flaws: Outsider (Major), Close Family Ties (Rashi’s Family), Fear (Knights), Pious (Major)
Personality Traits: Brave +3, Confident Scholar +3, Faithfully Jewish +5, Ready to remarry +2, Suspicious of magi +1
Reputations: None.
Combat:
Dodging: Init -1, Atk n/a, Def -1, Dam n/a
Soak: -1 (Stamina)
Fatigue Levels: OK, 0, –1, –3, –5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3 (6–10), –5 (11–15), Incapacitated (16–20)
Abilities: Aramaic 4 (talmud), Artes Liberales 3 (writing), Awareness 2 (Christians), Bargain 1 (Book making supplies), Charm 2 (Rabbis), Concentration 3 (writing), Craft: Scroll Making 7 (Torahs), Dominion Lore 1 (synagogue miracles), Folk Ken 2 (children), Guile 1 (lying to Christians), Hebrew 5 (writing), Infernal Lore 1 (jewish demons), Leadership 3 (children), Language: Yiddish 5 (singing), Music 2 (singing), Profession: Scribe 7 (Hebrew), Stealth 2 (escaping), Survival 2 (foraging), Rabbinic Law 4 (text care and creation), Teaching 4 (Talmud), Theology: Judaism 3 (why Hashem allows bad things to happen), Worms Area Lore 3 (Jewish Community)
Equipment: Parchment, quill, ink, torah scroll.
Encumbrance: 0 (0)
Customization Notes: Hannah can take another two points of Virtues and Flaws. The Relic virtue could be used to make her rescued Torah scrolls a symbol of Divine power. Her Yiddish language is appropriate for a covenant in the Rhine. If the covenant is in Normandy or Provance she would speak Zarphatic (a Hebrew / French language). Magi are unlikely to speak either language, but a German or French speaker can communicate with a speaker of the corresponding Jewish language at -2. Hannah’s background is very specific to the French and German Jewish setting; she really only works in the Norman or Rhinish Tribunals.
Rules Note - Craft: Scroll Making
Mundane, Religious, and Hermetic texts of Mythic Europe are generally codexes - bound books created using Craft: Book Binding. Scrolls are a more ancient technology and are the only way to create a kosher Torah. Scrolls can be more difficult to work with than books as it simply takes more time to roll to the right “page” than it does to flip to it. When studying a book the student wastes 5 days a season rolling. In practice this should rarely mean that they lose a full month to distraction and will not lose any advancement XP (see ARM5 page 165). If needing to find information in a scroll quickly add +6 to the ease factor for any roll.
Story Seed - Hannah the Agunah
Hannah wants to return to normal Jewish life and lose her status as an agunah. Having exhausted all normal avenues to prove Jacob is dead, she comes to the covenant, having heard rumors about the strange magical abilities these wizards possess. Sorcery is forbidden for Jews, she reasons, but these goyim are not subject to Jewish law. The magi may be motivated to help a down on her luck woman, but helping her offers practical benefits as well. By helping her the magi will win the favor of the Jewish community. As well, the magi may identify that Hannah is a skilled scribe who could be an asset to the covenant (see below). Summoning a ghost is something the magi can probably do, but is that the sort of proof that a rabbinic court would accept? Perhaps the magi need to magically track down the Jewish survivors of the pogrom and bring them to the beit din (Jewish legal court)? Or can the magi figure out that the baker is lying? Maybe there are other creative ways to solve the problem?
Story Seed - The Skilled Scribe
Hannah is obviously a woman with uncommon scribal skill. The magi may recognize that she is an asset to the covenant, and try to convince her to join. Alternatively, this may be a story for companions and grogs, centered on the covenant seneschal and other crafts people and administrators. Hannah will take some convincing - she does not see what the magi do as inherently evil (so long as they are following the Noahide Laws of not murdering others and the like). But their activities are deeply not Jewish at first glance. If these issues can be smoothed over Hannah has the potential to be of great assistance to the covenant. She is a skilled scribe, and scrolls she produces offer a resonance bonus for Jewish topics or matters of logic and philosophy and even the art of Intellego. (See Cov5). She will need to learn Latin 3 and Magic Theory 1 to allow her to copy Hermetic books. Will she see that the covenant is dedicated to learning, not so differently than the beit midrash? Will she see that the covenant has great difficulties with the Christian authorities, and might be a useful ally for her Jewish community? And if she does join up, how will the two cultures clash?