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WE’LL BE LIKE GIRLS AGAIN

Tzipporah was a small woman dressed in black robes sitting on a blanket just inside the entrance of her tent, waiting. Her cane lay next to her. Her flowing white hair fluttered in the hot desert breeze; her eyes were so big and so black that the iris and pupil could not be distinguished. She looked out over the black tents of the camp and the shimmering desert with its heat waves rising off the tan, red and brown rocks and earth as she waited for Alana, her younger sister, who she had not seen in many years. She thought back to when they were children and how they’d play tag around the tent and among the sheep and goats, and how later on she taught Alana to make bread and milk the goats. She thought back to when she and her boys stayed with her father and sisters during the months when Moses was bringing the people out of Egypt, and how Alana, who was so strong and tall, used to carry both boys on her shoulders and how they would laugh and laugh and how they grew to love their aunt.

Tzipporah had not seen her sister in more than fifteen years--since she and the boys were reunited with Moses. She smiled to herself at the thought of the reunion with him. How wonderful that first night was, how they were like newlyweds. Then her face turned pale as she thought how, after Moses died, she tried to explain to Gershom and Eliezer how their father was attacked and criticized by the people and then abandoned by God, but when they tried to comfort her instead of becoming angry or indignant, she realized that they simply could not understand—they had only known the loving father and the heroic public man—  they simply thought that her anger was part of her grief. Then she thought of Alana, wonderful Alana, and the color came back into her face. Yes, Alana, her dearest sister and friend, would come soon and then she would tell her everything and she would understand. She would finally let out all of her pain and anger like a cyst that is pierced with a needle to let out the pus.

After an hour or so, she saw a tall woman, her black and white robes blowing in the desert wind, coming around a neighboring tent and walking toward her with a slight limp. She knew it was Alana—no woman was as tall. As she drew closer, Tzipporah struggled to stand, leaned on her cane and stepped out into the bright sunshine. They held out their arms toward one another, two figures on the brown landscape ready to embrace as they managed toward one another on their old legs, their faces filled with joy and urgency. Their hands touched and they stood smiling at each other; Tzipporah reached up and touched Alana’s face then held it in both of her hands, feeling her fingers against her soft cheeks. Alana bent down and kissed her. They embraced, and then, still holding each other’s arms, stepped back just far enough so they could look at one another, so they could study each other’s face. Tzipporah noted Alana’s chipped front tooth from when she fell as a child, looked into her soft brown eyes and then wiped away Alana’s tears with her thumbs and embraced her whispering, “I was afraid I would never see you again…” she wept, “and now ...” Tzipporah, unable to speak, took Alana by the arm and half leading and half holding on to her for support, brought her into her tent. It was sparse—a few pillows for sitting, a blanket for sleeping and a few cooking pots—nothing like you’d expect in the tent of the widow of the great Moses. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and smiled, her black eyes sparkling, “Here, sit,” she pointed toward a pillow, “please make yourself comfortable.” Then she settled herself, “Ah, that’s better.” She took the jug of water, her veiny hands steady as she poured water into a cup and pressed it forward, “Take a sip, you must be thirsty,” then opening her hands to show the food in front of them, offered, ”Here is some bread and please, you must try these olives.”

They were silent for a moment, looking at each other, studying each other’s face, wiping their own tears, then leaning over and wiping each other’s tears, then smiling and laughing. “How was your journey?” Tzipporah began. “Long,” Alana answered, “but it was all right. How are Gershom and Eliezer?” “Fine. All grown up now--you wouldn’t recognize them.” They were quiet for a few moments both aware that the sadness of Moses’ death was hanging over them like a black canopy. After a few moments Alana reached forward and touched Tzipporah’s hand, “Moses’ death…” her voice trailed off; she wanted to comfort her sister but was unsure how to begin. Upon hearing Moses’ name, Tzipporah’s face crumpled, her eyes became red, she looked up and gestured with a shaking hand, “He died, gone, I want…” her hand fell into her lap, she closed her eyes, tears flowed. Alana moved over next to her and put her long arms around her. Tzipporah leaned against her and sobbed while Alana stroked her hair. After Tzipporah dried her eyes she said softly, “I can’t…Please, first tell me about our sisters.” So Alana told her about her own husband who had died many years before, her children, all girls, married and with other families, their five sisters, their husbands, their children, how one had two children and another had four, and which ones she had seen recently and which ones she hardly ever saw, and the size of the flocks of goats and sheep, and then she sat silently waiting for Tzipporah who had closed her eyes in thought, then pulled her body up straight and despite her small size had a regal, commanding air. She looked at Alana, her black eyes intense and took a deep breath, “All right, now let me try…” She sat for a long time, sometimes opening her mouth as if she were beginning to speak and then shaking her head and weeping. Finally Tzipporah sighed and said, “Not yet…” She was quiet for a moment, the hot wind from the south ruffled the sides of the tent, and then taking a deep breath, “Let me begin with the good times.” She smiled a sad smile, “Do you remember how handsome he was, how tall he was with those beautiful black eyes, and do you remember his long dark eyelashes? Remember how I jokingly wondered how his eyelids held them up?”

Alana smiled and nodded, “Yes, and I remember how you as a love sick girl would follow him around too!”

They laughed like young girls, “Yes, I did, didn’t I,” her eyes crinkled with delight. “Remember the first time we saw him, how he appeared out of nowhere--a scruffy runaway from Egypt with torn robes, his sandals in tatters. Oh and was he dirty! Besides, he smelled like a goat! But as soon as I saw him I knew I wanted to marry him.” She laughed, “I must have been crazy, but from the way he chased away the shepherds who kept us from the well and the way he spoke to us, I saw his strength, his gentleness and kindness…and of course,” she brightened, “he was handsome” she winked, “very handsome!”

Then she chuckled, opening her eyes wide, “You remember how brazen I was: I went to father and told him, ‘I want that man for my husband.’” She smiled as she relished repeating how her father was shocked and how he thundered, “ ‘You want? Who are you to want? I decide such matters!’ ” She leaned forward and patted Alana’s arm, “You remember how he was lots of bluster but sweet—he’d do anything for us.” Alana laughed remembering how she used to get him to buy her nuts from passing caravans. But, Tzipporah added triumphantly, “As the eldest daughter with all of you anxious to get married, he went along as I knew he would.” Interrupted momentarily by the sound of children calling to one another, they both glanced at the entrance to the tent.

She spoke a long time, smiling with delight as she reminisced about Moses, almost girlish at times about how gentle he was with her on their wedding night. “He asked me if I was nervous and I told him that I was and then he told me that he was nervous too, that he didn’t want to hurt me, and then he was so slow and gentle that it was wonderful and we had a wonderful year together! I’d run off during the day to join him while he was tending the sheep and goats. We’d walk over the hills together holding hands and in spring he’d pick red and pink anemones and give me little bunches of them and sometimes he’d place them in my hair.” Then she leaned forward and whispered, “And were we naughty,” she chuckled, “sometimes we’d even make love right out there in the open!”  Alana covered her mouth with her hand, rocked back and forth and giggled. “I even had a pet name I used to call him—Tovia because he was such a good man, with me, with my family, and even with the animals.”

Tzipporah paused, her smile of delight faded and she looked off. Alana leaned forward and touched her hand as if to ask Tzipporah what she was thinking. Tzipporah turned toward her and now her face sagging, her voice stone serious: “From the beginning though, there was a sadness in him; sometimes when he didn’t think I was watching I’d see him with his face full of worry and I knew he was brooding over the people in Egypt. At night he’d get up and pace up and down and I‘d ask him what was bothering him and sometimes he’d tell me and sometimes he’d just say that he couldn’t sleep so I’d get him to lay down again and I’d massage his back and sing to him until he feel asleep. And then a year or so after we were married he came running and told me about how, early one morning as the dew was burning off one of the blackberry bushes, he was aware that God was speaking to him. His face was radiant; his eyes bright, his whole body shook with excitement. Neither of us knew that that was the beginning of all the trouble.”

“What do you mean?” asked Alana, her eyebrows knitted together.

Tzipporah held up her hand signaling that Alana should be patient. “Getting the people out of Egypt was the easy part, but just imagine trying to lead thousands of people through the desert, finding enough food and water for them, protecting them from attack and dealing with all their complaints?” She stopped abruptly, brought her arms in and seemed to shrivel up, “And now…now I’m left with memories and anger.” Her voice trailed off. She began in a whisper, “His death was awful; it was worse than you can imagine; but, his life too, was worse than you can imagine,” her voice shook with anger and grief, “…people tormented him and God betrayed him,” she shouted, “Yes betrayed!” Her voice bitter, “He uses his servants and then tosses them aside,” she swept her arm aside like she was wiping crumbs from a table, like shooing a fly off her arm.

Alana raised her hand trying to calm her, “Tzipporah, Tzipporah please…”

Tzipporah’s eyes narrowed and she pointed her finger, “Yes, I know what I’m saying.” Then more softly, “Please…I need you...”

Alana held Tzipporah’s hands then pulled them up to her lips and kissed them. She lowered Tzipporah’s hands but still held one hand, stroking her arm with the other.

“And the people, ach,” Tzipporah dismissed them with a wave of her other hand, “as soon as he died they created a perfect, fantasy Moses who they could love. They wanted to forget how they complained and threatened him.” Her face reddened and she raised her thin voice to an angry shout, “and how even God, especially God, failed him!”

Just then two men passed by the door of the tent arguing loudly and Alana brought her hands to her mouth, “Tzipporah! Someone will hear you.”

“I don’t care,” she said in a loud voice, “What can they do to me?” Tzipporah thought a moment, took a deep breath and in an urgent voice said, “I remember a short time after Moses had brought them out of Egypt and I had just rejoined him, there was a man named, Simi, who barged into our tent, came up to Moses who was seated and talking to Joshua, held his empty water skin under Moses’ nose and said, ‘It’s empty and it’s your fault. If my children die, their blood will be on your hands!’ Hearing this, Alana closed her eyes and shook her head from side to side. “I was standing right over there,” Tzipporah pointed to the other side of the tent, “and was shocked when I saw Joshua stand up, grab Simi with his huge hands, ready to throw him out. But, thankfully,” she sighed, “Moses asked Simi to sit down and spent a long time patiently calming him down.” She sighed again, shook her head and whispered, “Moses took it so to heart, but what could he do?” And then louder, “I felt so helpless…” her voice dropped and she shook her head in regret and resignation, then repeated in a loud voice, “But what else could he do?” as if demanding an answer she knew she could not get. Alana reached forward to touch Tzipporah’s arm. Tzipporah continued softly, “At night lying in the tent, I could hear him turn in bed, sit up, then get up and walk around, then lay back down. Sometimes I heard him mumbling to himself wondering if perhaps he went the wrong way, or if he missed some sign from God, or if he’d just plain failed. I heard him moan in his sleep, call out for help.” She grabbed Alana and sobbed, “He called for help…” She sat up, “I’d wake him from his nightmare; he was drenched in sweat, and he’d cling to me with the fear that he’d brought an entire people to the desert to die,” she shook her head sadly, “I couldn’t bear to see him in such pain, and I tried to soothe him, I tried so hard, I held him and kissed him but what could I do…” he voice trailed off.

Alana sat, closed her eyes and shook her head from side to side without saying anything. They heard someone herding a flock of goats past the tent and they glanced toward the entrance where they could see the dust hanging in the sunlight, and smell the odor of the animals which drifted in.

Alana shook her head sadly saying, “I had no idea…”

Tzipporah sat back and sighed, “Then he’d sit in the dark, silently, and I’d go and just sit next to him. He was in agony, tortured with the fear that people would die. Then he’d sigh in resignation and mumble to himself—Moses, Moses, it’ll be all right, be patient, and then I’d ask him what was troubling him and he’d tell me what happened in his sad voice, you know, like he was bewildered. But,” she smiled faintly, “he did the most amazing thing: he just keep talking to himself, reminding himself to be patient, to understand their fear and when he did that I just sat close to him listening until he felt he’d talked himself through it. Alana reached out and took her hand. Then, in tones of sad resignation Tzipporah continued, “in a few days or so, there would be more moaning and complaining and there would be yet another rebellion and he’d go through the same thing all over again.” Tzipporah, her voice faint and sad, shook her head from side to side and wept, “How much can a man take?” Alana touched her arm, then Tzipporah wiped her eyes, looked up and said firmly, “But you know something, he never once said that he wanted to give up, to tell God, ‘Find someone else, I’m going back to herding sheep.’ After a while, I wanted him to do just that, but of course I’d never breathe a word of it to him.”

Alana asked softly, “Were there at least some good times?”

“Fortunately he also had a sense of humor. He loved the irony of being an Israelite who was raised by Egyptians, married to a woman from Moab, who God picked to free the people.” She laughed, “He joked about the luxury he could have enjoyed back in Egypt. Then he’d say, ‘But look how fortunate I am, I have all this,’ and he’d point to the drab tent. He’d tease me saying, with a wink, that he could have had dozens of licentious women and then he’d come over and hug me, ‘But I wouldn’t have had you.’ You know,” she looked directly at Alana, “we really loved one another very deeply and he took such pride in our sons. When they were little he’d swing them around and then throw them up the air and when they’d laugh and laugh, Moses would pull them close to his chest and kiss and hug them until they squirmed free,” Tzipporah laughed with delight, “and then he’d get down on all fours and pretend he was mountain lion and roar as they jumped on him and tried to tickle him. And, as  they got older, and people come into the tent to see him, I loved how he’d call the boys over and with one of them on either side of him he’d put his arm over their shoulders and introduce them to visitors. You should have heard the pride in his voice!” She looked off for a moment enjoying the pleasure of that time and then she raised her voice and pounded the cushion, “How could God and the people have treated him so badly!”

The pain and rage on Tzipporah’s face was so hard for Alana to look at that she turned away for a moment and sat shaking her head from side to side, then she reached over and folded her big arms around her. The wind took the tent flap and smacked it against the side of the tent. Neither of them paid any attention.

After a few moments Tzipporah pulled away, “Could you hand me that water,” she said, “my throat is getting dry.” She drank, “Ah, that’s better.”

 Tzipporah paused to prepare herself, “Of course,” she began, “Moses didn’t want to die but we all do,” Tzipporah’s voice was soft and sad, “and he knew his time would come eventually but for God to prevent him from entering the land, allowing him to see it only from a distance and then to die!” She raised her voice and with bitter anger said, “And why? Because he struck the rock instead of speaking to it!!!”

“What?” Alana blurted out.

“You don’t know about that?”

“No,” Alana shook her head.

“At Horeb God told Moses to hit the rock but at Kadesh He told Moses to speak to it to get water.” Her voice rose higher, “Well maybe Moses didn’t understand Him or maybe he just didn’t think there was any real difference, or maybe he was just angry. Wasn’t he allowed to be angry?” she shouted, “He hit the rock! That was all. He just hit it.” She shouted again.

Alana still looked puzzled, “You mean…?”

“Yes,” Tzipporah seethed, “it was all over just that.” She saw that Alana was looking at her wide eyed, her mouth open, and then questioned, “Really? Was that all?”

“Really, that was what God said,” Tzipporah looked at her intently. “But if God was so angry, couldn’t He punish him in some other way? And to rub salt into the wound,” bitterness dripped from her mouth, “He said that Moses broke faith with Him!” She stabbed her finger in the air and looked up and yelled at God, “Let me tell You something, Moses was never unfaithful to You. Never! Never! Never!” and hardly pausing to take a breath she looked at Alana and thundered on: “As if that weren’t devastating enough, one day out of the blue just after Moses poured out his heart to the people with all those speeches which turned out to be his final ones, God announced that Joshua would lead the people. Joshua of all people! Sure Joshua was a military leader, a strong fighter, I won’t deny that, but he was,” Tzipporah got red in the face, “a barbarian. All he wanted to do was fight. The more blood and death, the better he liked it. He needed to be reigned in, not put in charge! And God chooses him?! What about someone like Nachshon ben Amminidab, who was the first one into the sea, or a dozen other fine people? Any one of them would have been great leaders and Joshua could have been the general, but no, God ignored all of them,” she shook her head sadly. “After everything that happened, casting Moses aside and not letting him enter the land, which was devastating enough,” she raised her voice to a bitter shout, “He calls upon Joshua!”

Alana sat stone faced, hardly daring to breathe.

Tzipporah closed her eyes and waved her hand back and forth, “At least God had the decency not to choose Gershom or Eliezer.” She shook her head and said sadly, “It is hard to go on, except I must tell you what I saw in my husband that day: his body, limp, sitting over there,” she pointed to a dark corner of the tent, “on that blanket, his legs crossed and his back bent over so that his face was almost in his lap, his hands covering his head. He was a destroyed man,” her lips shook and her mouth twitched as she tried not to cry but tears came out of the corners of her eyes and slid down the creases at the side of her nose; her body shook and she wept calling out, “Destroyed!” striking the blanket with her hand.

Alana found it so unbearable to listen to Tzipporah that she wanted to silence her; she wanted to get up run away, but she pulled herself up and steeled herself for the rest of the story.

Tzipporah, gathering her strength, insisted, “I wasn’t fooled by his public show of dignity.” Her voice broke, “Underneath all that calm, he was shattered. In our tent he seethed one minute at the injustice of it and then he cried, cried! Moses who through all the trials, all the crises, all the attacks, all the disappointments, never cried, now he sobbed out his bitterness and disappointment holding on to me. I’ll never forget his shaking body holding on to me as if a fragile old woman could help him.” Her voice trailed off into her tears.

Alana, put her hands over her face and sobbed then moved over and put her arms around Tzipporah. She could feel her small body shake and her tears on her face. After a few minutes she withdrew her arms and they both wiped their tears.

“The day Moses went off into the mountains to die…” she stopped, her face red and her mouth open in an awful howl, “Not just to die, but to be killed.” She looked up and shook her fist, “Yes, God You killed him, You killed him…” she sobbed again and again. Alana was startled and even a little frightened but reached over and again enveloped her sister, rocking her and soothing her with soft sounds the way she would comfort a child. After a long while Tzipporah leaned back, her eyes red and puffy, her face sagging and gray, and then she struggled, “How do you say good-by to someone in those circumstances? If someone is sick and suffering you can see that their time has come, it is hard, very hard,” she looked at Alana with raised eyebrows and upturned hands, “but you see their suffering and sometimes you even feel that death is a blessing, but,” she took a deep breath and shook her head from side to side, “Moses was perfectly well,” she said sadly and then repeated, wailing, shaking her clinched fists,  “He was perfectly well!” The late afternoon wind blew against the side of the tent flapping the sides and shaking it. Tzipporah paused to take a deep breath, “It was strange; it was hard to believe what was happening. How could someone like him just go and die?” she lifted her hands, holding them out, shrugging. “I didn’t know what to do,” she shook her head. “It was like he was just going out on a short trip so I packed him a little food and water and at first he didn’t want to take it. He stood right over there,” she pointed to the entrance of the tent, “looked at me blankly as if to say, I’m going to die, what do I need this for, but I  said, ‘It’s hot. You’ll get thirsty on the way up.’ Imagine that!” she clapped her hands together, rocked back and forth and wept, “He is going to die and I am afraid he’ll be hungry and thirsty!” She paused and took a breath, “He accepted the food and water but then he was afraid to look at me and I at him. I looked at the ground, at the far side of the tent,” she gestured in that direction with her head, “anyplace but at him. We were afraid we would both weep and make it harder. It was almost like we were pretending that it wasn’t happening. We both stood awkwardly right over there,” she pointed near the entrance to the tent, “finding little things to delay his leaving. I tied and untied his package of food, each time saying that I was afraid it wasn’t secure enough. I can still feel my fingers tying and untying the knots while he waited, watching the movement of my fingers as if he were trying to memorize every wrinkle on my hands. And then,” she gestured with her head to a cushion near the entrance, “he sat down to take off and put on his sandal several times claiming that it didn’t feel right. I watched his face, my eyes tracing the curve of his nose, the shape of his magnificent beard. When he stood up,” Tzipporah leaned forward, “he pulled his body up straight. He picked up the food and water and turned to go but then turned back to assure me that the boys would take care of me. Again he took a few steps to leave but turned around yet again to give me another hug and he embraced me for the last time.” She took a deep breath and gulped back her tears. “I can still feel his body against mine. You know,” she reached out and touched Alana’s arm, “of all the times we were together, of all the times we were intimate, what I remember is the press of his body against mine on that day. It was as if he somehow wanted to fold himself into me, as if he wanted us to become one person so that God couldn’t take him and we could continue to be together.” She looked down and shook her head, then looked over at Alana raising her eyebrows, “You know what his final words were?” Alana, her eyes red, her cheeks wet, leaned forward. “His last words were,” Tzipporah wept, “ ‘I’m sorry. I’m just sorry what this did to you and our sons,’ he paused and his voice trailed off as he added, ‘And all of us.’ Then he turned around and trudged off.” She sobbed for a moment and then looked up, raised both of her fists and shaking them screamed, “He was sorry?! God, You should be the one who is sorry!! You, yes You, it’s Your doing!” she wailed and sobbed. Then she was silent for a long time. Alana put her arm around her and held her, tried to envelop her to protect her, comforting her with soothing sounds and stroking her hair. Finally Tzipporah looked up at Alana and said in a breaking voice, “I can still see his back, now stooped, holding his staff in his right hand and the food and water draped over his left shoulder walking out of the entrance to our tent. It was the saddest sight,” she wept, her hands twisting the edge of the blanket, “I have ever seen,” then she sobbed some more and slumped over, drained, and leaned against Alana; she had emptied out so much grief and anger, she was spent.

They sat silently for a few minutes their arms holding one another, Tzipporah resting her head on Alana’s chest, Alana’s cheek against Tzipporah’s hair, the same course hair she remembered from childhood. Alana whispered, “I’m here, Tzipporah, I’m here with you,” and stroked her hair. Tzipporah, nodded, moving herself even closer and whispered, “Thank you, thank you.” Alana felt her warm breath against her cheek and rubbed her back. Tzipporah now held onto her even tighter, her fingers with their swollen joints tight around Alana’s back, holding herself close to Alana’s soft body. They stayed that way for a long time and then Tzipporah pulled back and looked at Alana, “You are here, you are really here,” she closed her eyes, the corners of her lips beginning a small smile, and then after a brief pause, she smiled brightly, “And it will be like we were girls again except that now we have white hair!” Alana laughed and kissed her on her forehead and then playfully on both cheeks.

Notes:

This is a work of midrashic fiction and like all midrash, it begins with a question. In this case the question is how did Moses’ wife, Tzipporah, react to Moses’ death.

See Ramban to Exodus 4.20 where he says that Tzipporah returned to her father’s house with Eliezer after he was circumcised so that he could recuperate.

For the many names given to Moses, including Tovia, see Leviticus Rabbah 1.3.

For the episode in which God instructed him to hit the rock see Ex. 17.6. In Numbers 20. 7-13, God tells Moses to speak to the rock and pronounces the punishment for his failure to obey. 

See, Nogah Hareuveni, Tree and Shrub in Our Biblical Heritage, Kiryat Ono, 1984, p. 34-41 for the kind of bush Moses was likely to have seen burning.