“Ah, Leah,” he murmured, letting what Leah assumed was a scholarly expression settle over his clean and handsome face. “Leah and her sister Rachel. In the Book of Genesis, Rachel is the wife of Jacob that everyone remembers, the one he waited and worked for for fourteen years, having been tricked into marrying her older sister Leah before he could add Rachel as his second wife, the one he really loved. But who was Leah really? Rachel barely had any children, a measly two. But Leah had six children, including Judah, the direct ancestor of King David and King Solomon and, someday, the Messiah. Rachel may have been beautiful, and there are always beautiful people who steal the show. But Leah stayed devoted to Jacob to the last, without even the support of his love. Think of what it says in the Book of Proverbs—‘Grace is false, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears God, she should be praised.’ Leah, not Rachel, she’s the one for me.” He grinned at her.

Leah smiled again and blushed. Something about his little lesson made her feel uneasy, but with the wedding musicians blaring in her ears she couldn’t pinpoint what. It wasn’t just the suggestion that she wasn’t beautiful, but something else. Still, she clearly couldn’t add anything to what must have just been an example of his scholarly commentary, though everything he said had been easy stuff, straight from the bible—things that a woman could understand. Besides his supposed genius, there was something appealing about David. He had a way of speaking that made you draw closer to him, a way of stepping back in order to make you step toward him, a way of teasing the air in front of him with his fingers until you found yourself wishing he would run his fingers along your arms. Desire, that was. Leah’s older sister had whispered it in Leah’s ear.

The second time Leah and David met was at a sabbath dinner at Leah’s family’s apartment, where he had been invited after her parents decided that the two would make a good match. The match was struck almost before they sat down.

“I will treat her only as a woman should be treated,” David stated at the dinner table, after awing Leah’s parents with an esoteric discourse on the legal obligations of the Jewish priestly class. Her parents were impressed.

“You can tell a fool by his face and a wise one by his eyes,” Leah’s father said after David had left. Leah winced when she heard it, thinking of her own eyes, but when her parents asked her if she wanted to make the match, she thought of those teasing fingers and said yes.