The Red Tent

by Anita Diamant

If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. Stories about food show a strong connection. Wistful silences demonstrate unfinished business. The more a daughter knows the details of her mother’s life—without flinching or whining—the stronger the daughter.

Leah gave me birth and her splendid arrogance. Rachel showed me where to place the midwife’s bricks and how to fix my hair. Zilpah made me think. Bilhah listened.

But the other reason women wanted daughters was to keep their memories alive.

Joseph and I were petted and spoiled also because we were the babies—our mothers’ last-born, and our father’s joy. We were also our older brothers’ victims.

Reuben was, by nature, kind to children,

Simon and Levi, who laughed at us and teased Tali and Issa, the twins.

Judah often carried me on his back and called me Ahatti, little sister. I thought of him as my champion among the big boys.

Zebulun was the leader of us younger ones, and he might have been a bully had we not adored him and obeyed him willingly.

Dan was his lieutenant—loyal and sweet as you’d expect ...

Gad and Asher were wild, headstrong, and difficult playmates, but they wer...

Naphtali, who was never called anything but Tali, and Issachar, or Issa, tried to lord it over me and Joseph because they were nearly two years older.

Leah was the best mother but she was not the best teacher. Skills came to her so easily that she could not understand how even a small child could fail to grasp something so simple as the turning of string. She lost patience with me often.

I thought the women’s stories were prettier, but Joseph preferred our father’s tales.

Judah and Zebulun—the two oxen among the brothers—but theirs was a good-natured battle to see which was the stronger, and each would applaud his brother’s ability to lift great rocks and carry full-grown ewes across a meadow.

I would be a woman soon and I would have to learn how to live with a divided heart.

“Remember this moment, when your mother’s body heals every trouble of your soul.”

Why had no one told me that my body would become a battlefield, a sacrifice, a test? Why did I not know that birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers?

The painful things—Werenro’s story, Re-nefer’s choice, even my own loneliness—seemed like the knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.

I did not marry you to be my cook.”

Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art. Of all life’s pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.

Egypt loved the lotus because it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved. Thus can something as insignificant as a name—two syllables, one high, one sweet—summon up the innumerable smiles and tears, sighs and dreams of a human life.

On the day that the intelligence and talents of women are fully honored and employed, the human community and the planet itself will benefit in ways we can only begin to imagine.