by Alicia Jo Rabins/Girls in Trouble

when my father came back from the war

I knew he would want to see me first¹

so I ran out to greet him

but he fell to his knees in the dirt

he told me daughter

I have promised God to offer

the first creature that I saw

father the vow you have made

is one you cannot escape²

but first let me go with my sisters³

down to the shores of the lake⁴

I lived two months with them

my sisters in the forest

and then I returned back home

the night he took me to the mountain⁵

neither of us spoke

we reached the peak together

just as sunrise broke

I could have run from him

I almost thought he wished it

but I could not run from God

it was the last day of my life⁶

the sun had never shone so bright

my father held the knife

I kept my eyes open wide

then angels came to me

with faces of my sisters

and they filled my eyes with tears⁷

1 I imagined a close relationship between Yiftach and his daughter, based on the fact that they do not seem to have other family. This is in addition to the historical fact that returning warriors were greeted by their tribeswomen women dancing and playing timbrels.

2 This echoes the text’s understanding that Bat Yiftach herself insists on the sanctity of the vow and the impossibility of cancelling out a vow made in error.

3 “Sisters” here is meant figuratively, as her close friends.

4 As you may have noticed, there’s no lake in the text, and in fact she bewails her virginity on the mountains; but for some reason I wanted to imagine them camping out by a lake in the forest.

5 The text does not say Yiftach brought his daughter up a mountain; this is another detail I imagined since this story echoes the Akeidah, the sacrifice of Isaac, which occurs on a mountain.

6 I went with the more tragic interpretation: that Yiftach literally sacrifices his daughter, rather than the more forgiving interpretation that she is consecrated as a nun. I appreciate the ambiguity of the story, but also find the literal interpretation more convincing given that his vow uses the word “olah,” a burnt offering.

7 These angels are borrowed from a midrash about the sacrifice of Isaac, a compassionate addition to the story in which angels cry into his eyes, blinding him to his father holding the knife above him. (For the rabbis, this explains the vision problems that afflicted Isaac for the rest of his eyes.) I felt Yiftach’s daughter could use some of this ancient anesthetic as well, and that the most comforting faces for those angels would be her best friends. Here is the midrash:

Bereshit Rabbah 65:10

ד"א מראות מכח אותה ראיה שבשעה שעקד אברהם אבינו את בנו על גבי המזבח בכו מלאכי
השרת, ... ונשרו דמעות מעיניהם לתוך עיניו והיו
,’רשומות בתוך עיניו וכיון שהזקין כהו עיניו הה"ד ויהי כי זקן יצחק וגו

At the moment when our father Abraham bound his son Isaac on the altar, the ministering angels wept...Tears dropped from their eyes into his, and left their mark upon his eyes, and so when he became old his eyes dimmed.