Isaiah Cox25 January 2009Moshe Rabbeinu had a very peculiar marriage.Raised as a prince in Pharoah’s house, Moshe “in-exile” finds and marries the daughterof a chieftain, Yisro. She has one child, and is just about to have a second, when herhusband comes home, announces that he has had a revelation, and he must go and savethe Jewish people. Now. And Tzipporah, his beloved wife, packs up and off they go.A woman who is just about to have a baby, or has just
had
a baby, is in no mood forother adventure. Labor tends to be quite enough, thank you. She puts up with it, until,when she is finally off the camel’s back, Moshe goes and provides the final strawanyway.Tzipporah finds herself giving bris milah to her son (which could easily have beenunderstood as mutilation), in order to save Moshe’s life. She is seriously unhappy aboutit, as any woman in that situation would be; Tzipporah’s outburst is hardly the model of domestic tranquility, to say the least.Aharon, the understanding older brother, has just met Tzipporah for the first time. Shemay not have worried about making a good impression, and Aharon proposes a way todefuse the tension. After all, the priority is clear: Moshe has been sent, by G-d, onperhaps the most challenging quest in history. Is it really a job for women and children?Wouldn’t they be safer back home? What is unsaid is: does Moshe really need anunhappy wife in tow, considering everything else he has to be dealing with?Neither Moshe nor Tzipporah object. She gets to go back home and recover, raise herfamily. And Moshe is free to do his job. This is, after all, Moshe’s adventure. Tzipporahnever bought into it; where in the job description for princess does it read: “Risk your lifeby picking a fight with the most powerful man and nation in the world?”So Moshe is entirely separate from his wife and sons from that point on. He goes throughall ten plagues, the pursuit to the Reed Sea, the crossing of the Sea – indeed, the pivotalexperience between G-d and the Jewish people “I am the Lord who brought you out of the Land of Egypt.” Tzipporah and their sons have no part in any of it. They have nodirect contact with Moshe at all.When Yisro brings Tzipporah and his grandchildren to the Jewish people, Tzipporah’sreunification with Moshe is not described to us, but it could not have been easy. They hadseparated under extremely trying conditions, and from that point, Moshe has grown fromsheepherder to the greatest prophet who ever lived –and Tzipporah stayed just where shewas the day Moshe went out to tend the sheep.Is it really a marriage? Do we need to ask?
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