Ḥayye Yehudah (The Life of Judah)

At the beginning of the month of Tammuz 5349 [began June 15, 1589], in order not to remain idle, I began to give lessons in Torah to the son of Manasseh Levi of blessed memory and to Joseph the son of Zerah Halevi, may God his Rock protect him and grant him long life. I continued in this profession until 5372 [1611/1612] in spite of myself, because it did not seem fitting to me.

After this, my mother spoke to me each day, saying, “If you would heed my command and comfort me in my troubles, you would take as your wife my niece, namely, Esther—the daughter of my mother’s sister Gioja, the wife of Isaac Simhah, may God his Rock protect him and grant him long life—for she seems fitting to me. I will thereby create a marital tie within my family, and peace will reign in our house.” [ . . . ] And so the matter stood.

Anyhow, I had engaged in dream divination, using prayer without conjuration, in order to see the woman intended as my mate. In my dream, an old man held my hand and led me to a certain wall upon which was drawn a portrait covered with a curtain. When he drew aside the veil I saw a portrait of my cousin, Esther, as well as the color of her garment. While I was still gazing at the image, it changed, and another one, which I could not clearly make out, replaced it. In the morning I reported the dream to my revered father of blessed memory and to my mother, but they did not believe it.

Then, in the month of Elul 5349 [August–September 1589], my mother of blessed memory and I arrived in Venice on our way to Ancona to retrieve property and goods that had been in the hands of my [half-]brother of blessed memory, because his wife had seized them and we had not seen even a shoelace of it. Afterward we changed our mind about going on and lingered in Venice, and while there, my mother and her sister and the relatives again discussed the match. We completed the marriage agreement, shook hands, and made the symbolic acquisition with great rejoicing. I pointed out to my mother that she [Esther] was wearing clothes of the same color and ornamentation that I had described more than a year previously when I had seen her in my dream. She was truly a beautiful woman, and wise, too. I said that “finds” [cf. Proverbs 18:22: “he who finds a wife finds goodness”] and not “found” [cf. Ecclesiastes 7:26: “A woman more bitter than death I have found”] applied to me.

When the wedding date, which was the 13th of Sivan 5350 [June 15, 1590], approached, I wrote to my revered father, who was then in Bologna, so that he would come. I also invited my friends and relatives, and we all traveled to Venice immediately after Shavuot, rejoicing and lighthearted. When we arrived there, we found the bride confined to her bed, and everyone said that nothing was wrong except for a little diarrhea and that she would soon recover. Her illness grew worse from day to day, however, until she lay near death. Yet her heart was like that of a lion, and she was not afraid.

On the day she died, she summoned me and embraced and kissed me. She said, “I know that this is bold behavior, but God knows that during the one year of our engagement we did not touch each other even with our little fingers. Now, at the time of death, the rights of the dying are mine. I was not allowed to become your wife, but what can I do, for thus it is decreed in heaven. May God’s will be done.”

Then she requested that a sage be summoned so that she could make confession. When he arrived she recited the confessional prayer and asked for the blessing of her parents and my mother. On the night of the Holy Sabbath, the 21st of Sivan 5350 [June 22, 1590]—almost on the night that my [half-]brother of blessed memory had died—at the hour of the entry of the Sabbath bride, my own bride departed from this life of vanity for eternal life and passed away. The weeping on the part of all who knew her, both within and outside her family, was great. May she rest in peace.

Immediately after her burial, all the relatives set upon me and my mother, saying, “Behold, her younger sister is as good as she. Why forfeit the opportunity to perpetuate the kinship and to give comfort to the mother and father of the young woman?” They entreated me to the point of embarrassment to take her sister Rachel to wife. I wrote to my revered father, who answered me as he had always done in this matter, and these were his words, “Do as you like, for the choice is yours. Today or tomorrow I will be taken from you, and you and your children will be left with her. For this reason, understand well what lies before you, and act to the best of the ability granted you by God.”

In order to please my mother, as well as the dead girl, who had hinted at it in her words, I agreed to marry the aforementioned Rachel. Immediately we wrote up the agreement and were married on Friday the 5th of Tammuz 5350 [July 6, 1590], under a favorable star. On that Sabbath, Rabbi Solomon Sforno gave a beautiful sermon on the Torah portion Korah in the Italian synagogue. By the authority of the three gaons, Rabbi J[udah] Katzenellenbogen of blessed memory, Rabbi Jacob Cohen, and Rabbi Avigdor Cividal of blessed memory, who were present there along with all the gaons of the city, including Levantine Jews, who at that time abounded in important persons, he [Rabbi Sforno] decreed that I should be granted the title of haver. I responded with “ten words” of explanation of the mishnaic dictum, “Find yourself a teacher [rav] [and acquire for yourself an associate (haver)],” which pleased the hearers very much. Then we returned home to Montagnana.

That summer and the following year, there was severe drought and great famine, and we earned nothing, while spending and losing much. From Sivan 5351 [May–June 1591] through the summer, we were oppressed on account of the reopening of the false accusations of Cardinal d’Este. My revered father became very frightened, could not calm down, and became very ill. My mother and my wife and I also took sick, and we remained so all summer long. Disease did not leave our house until the month of Tevet [December 1591–January 1592].

My wife became pregnant and on Monday, the 20th of Elul, corresponding to September 9, at the end of the year [5]351 [1591], in the twenty-first hour [3:00 P.M.], she gave birth to a son. We were all sick in our beds, my wife most of all. But eight days later we had become a little stronger, and Benjamin Katz of Este of blessed memory, an excellent circumciser, circumcised the boy. My revered father of blessed memory and my mother of blessed memory served as his godparents.

My revered father of blessed memory did not want me to name him Mordecai, saying that he had had a wise and pleasant son by that name who had died at the age of twenty-four. But out of love for the name of my grandfather, the gaon of blessed memory, who as mentioned had been a great man, I said, “I will not fear,” and named him Mordecai. Alas, woe is me on account of my misfortune, for at the age of twenty-six he was snatched away. And Mordecai went out, taking my heart with him and abandoning me in the valley of agony and the depths of despair.

Other works by Modena: Sod yesharim (1595); Sur me-ra‘ (1595); Tsemaḥ tsadik (1600); Galut Yehudah (1612, revised 1640); Bet Yehudah (1635); Ha-boneh (1635).