Book VI Summary and Analysis

For fourteen years Gluckel avoids remarrying since her business enables her to support herself and her children. However, she has feelings of guilt as a sinner after marrying off all her fatherless children except Moses and Miriam. She reflects on marriage since she could go to the Holy Land to serve God but for her sins that distract her. She has concern for the cares of her children and the large business she maintains. It is successful but she travels and attends to it in all weathers and is anxious something unexpected may happen. She worries about being a burden on her children and regrets missed opportunities for remarriage. In 1698 before Moses' wedding Gluckel gets a letter from Moses Krumbach, a son-in-law, that the excellent, learned and wealthy Hirz Levy is widowed. At fifty-four she is vulnerable to this...