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This past week, I read the extraordinary diary of an
ordinary woman. She lived in the central German town of Hameln (home of the
legendary “Pied Piper”) and went by the dysphonic name of Glueckel.
She was born during the century that saw the beginning of
the “Enlightenment,” the reign of the “Sun King,” and the magnificent
music of Johann Sebastian Bach, although she never heard of Descartes or visited
Versailles or listened to a Bach cantata. However, her life was not one whit
less rich without these cultural pleasures. A successful businesswoman, a
happily married wife, and above all, the mother of 12 children, every
page of Glueckel’s diary is a song of praise to the Creator.
Glueckel began her diary when her husband died after thirty
years of marriage, leaving her a widow with twelve children. Her purpose in
telling the story of her life was not only to provide a memorial for her
children, but as therapy for herself to deal with the depression brought on by
grief.
“My father had me betrothed when I was a girl of barely
twelve,” Glueckel wrote, “and less than two years later I married.”
Glueckel didn’t realize that arranged marriages are something to run away
from, or that the men in these circumstances are supposed to be abusive (so we
are told by the feminists). Of the husband she met only one time before the
wedding day, she wrote, “so good and true a father one seldom finds, and he
loved his wife and children beyond all measure…his modesty had no like…the
perfect pattern of a pious Jew…a man so meek and patient as my beloved husband
will not be found again.”
At that time, the Jews of Germany were not confined to
ghettoes, but were still subject to confiscatory taxes or imminent expulsion on
the whim of a local nobleman. It required a great deal of alertness and luck to
stay alive in those days. Glueckel’s diary is full of parables and cautionary
tales such as this one:
“A great king once imprisoned his physician, and had him
bound hand and foot with chains, and fed on a small dole of bread and water.
After months of this treatment, the king allowed relatives of the physician to
visit the prison and learn what the unhappy man had to say. To their
astonishment he looked as hale and hearty as the day he entered his cell. He
told his relatives he owed his strength to a brew of seven herbs he had taken
the precaution to prepare before he went to prison, and of which he drank a few
drops every day. ‘What magic herbs are these?’ they asked; and he answered:
‘The first is trust in G-d, the second is hope, and the others are patience,
recognition of my sins, joy that in suffering now I shall not suffer in the
world to come, contentment that my punishment is not worse, as well it could be,
and lastly, knowledge that G-d who thrust me into prison can, if He will, at any
moment set me free.’”
Glueckel’s diary is full of examples of the precarious
circumstances under which the Jews lived, yet she gives constant praise to G-d
for blessing her family with security and wealth. Even though she describes
herself as a chronic complainer, she somehow fails to include the “inferior”
status that (the feminists insist) women are supposed to have under Jewish law.
Glueckel evidently considered herself legally, morally, and spiritually on a
level with men, probably because nobody had ever told her she wasn’t. She
devoted her life to raising her children and making certain they married well,
because nobody had ever told her that young people should be left on their own
to make these decisions. She enjoyed a career as a successful businesswoman in
order to support her children, and by doing this, sets an enduring example
of traditional motherhood.
A modern feminist, who never met a religious Jewish woman
in real life, made the sneering comment: “The claim that ultra-Orthodox Jewish
women freely choose to bring 12 children into the world is about as solid as the
claim that there are women who freely choose to become prostitutes or paid
surrogate mothers. If it were not for their emotional misery and if it were not
for the social pressure they are under and the state of abject poverty in which
they live, ultra-Orthodox women would not opt for a life of slavery. It is
doubtful whether most ever had the opportunity to make any personal choices
whatsoever in their lives.”
We’ll let Glueckel answer that one:
“Every two years I had a baby, I was tormented with
worries as everyone is with a little house full of children, G-d be with them!
and I thought myself more heavily burdened than anyone else in the world and
that no one suffered from their children as much as I. Little I knew, poor fool,
how fortunate I was when I seated my children ‘like olive plants round about
my table.’”
I couldn’t have said it any better myself, but, I only
have nine children.
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