Yitro
Shemot/Exodus 18
Plaut 508 -510; Hertz 288-290; Eitz Hayim 445-451

Parashat Yitro (ורתי) is one of those weekly readings when the annual and the triennial selections are identical.  Therefore, I selected Chapter 18 as my focus, and happily I found something intriguing right at the start.  Verses 2 - 6 of Chapter 18 read as follows (Soncino translation):

And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her away, and her two sons; . . . And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness where he was encamped at the mountain of God; and he said unto Moses: “I thy father-in-law Jethro am coming unto thee, and thy wife and her two sons with her.”

Evidently, Tziporah (הרפצ) was not with Moses at this time.  This was surprising enough for me to devote my d’var to finding out more about this woman who was important enough to receive a name, but who, more often than not, is referred to as Moses’ wife.  Tziporah appears four, and possibly five, times in the Hebrew Bible: three cameo appearances; once where she plays the leading role–these four are all found in the book of Shemot; and one obscure appearance in Bemidbar/Numbers where she seems to be the subject of a comment.  That is all we know for sure about Tziporah, but one can guess that she played a greater role than is indicated in the Biblical text.

I’ll start by going through the three cameo appearances in the order in which they appear, and emphasizing how little is said in each:

•	The first cameo (2:21) comes when, after yet another meeting at the well when a Hebrew man (in this case a young Moses) defends female shepherds (in this case Yitro’s seven daughters) against male bullies.  Moses is invited to dinner and stays with the family.  Yitro then gives Tziporah to Moses as a bride (2:21).  That is all we learn.  Is she Yitro’s eldest daughter, or the youngest?  Did she have any feelings for Moses, or he for her?  Had Yitro seen the two of them flirting? Nothing more is said in the text except that, presumably at least nine months later, Tziporah bears Moses a son who was named Gershom (2:22).  Tz’enah Ur’enah elaborates a bit.  Its account says that Moses came to Yitro because he knew that Yitro had seven unmarried daughters, so that he was likely to get one of them and then be regarded as a Midianite if Pharaoh’s men came looking for him.  It also says that Tziporah acquired her name, which means bird, because she flew to be beside Moses.  That is a nice thought but maybe she sensed danger and was really trying to fly away from him.

•	The second cameo comes after Moses has had his life-changing experience with God at the burning bush, and, after much vacillation, has concluded that he really is destined to lead the Hebrew people out of Egypt to their own land. Moses then tells Yitro of his plans, receives the elder man’s blessing, and loads Tziporah and their sons (plural) on a donkey (4:20).  Evidently there is now more than one son.  The rest of the text is pretty clear; Moses’ goes off to Egypt with his family.

•	The third cameo appearance is the one that I read at the start of my d’var.  Here is where we learn explicitly of Moses’ second son, Eliezer, and, more importantly that Tziporah and the boys have been living with Yitro, not Moses.  Evidently, she had been sent back at some point after the departure for Egypt, but we have not a shred of evidence about when or why.  More important is what does not happen, at least not according to the text. First, Moses makes no welcome for his family–not a word of greeting.  In contrast, he greets Yitro warmly and takes him into the tent for some schnaps and talk.  Second, nothing further is said about Tziporah and the boys for the rest of Chapter 18.  And, third, we must assume that Tziporah and the boys remain with Moses. The final line of Chapter 18 is, “Then Moses bade his father-in-law farewell, and he went his way to his own land.”  The text is all in the singular. Yitro went back to Midian alone.

We now come to Tziporah’s one starring performance, which must take place between the second and third cameo appearances.  In three verses (Shemot 4:24 through 4:26) we find one of those interjections in Biblical text that, in the understated words of Eitz Hayim, is not easily understood (336n). The family is at some lodging en route to Egypt. During the night God sends an angel to seek out Moses with the intention to kill him. Hertz (221n) says that this wording is “an anthropomorphic way of saying that Moses fell suddenly into a serious illness.”  In order to forestall this attempt on Moses’ life, Tziporah takes a piece of flint and circumcises “her son.” It is not clear which son is meant, but in the immediate preceding discussion Moses learns from God about plans to slay the first-born sons of Egyptian families so most commentators presume it is Gershom.  However, Midrash Rabbah on this section says more logically that it was Eliezer who had  been born just before the departure for Egypt.  But how did Tziporah know that the problem was Moses’ failure to circumcise Eliezer?  Again citing Midrash Rabbah: “Because the angel came and swallowed Moses from his head to his circumcised membrum.”  Less dramatically, Illana Pardes says that, “Much like Isis, Zipporah plays the role of a savior, rescuing her husband from the wrath of a persecuting deity.” (96 in Biography of Ancient Israel.)

The circumcision alone would justify seeing Tziporah as a woman of action, but that is only her first step.  Next, she takes the foreskin and touches Moses’ leg (or perhaps his genitals) with it and then makes the first of only two speeches in the Bible: “Surely a bridegroom of blood art thou to me” (יל  התא םימד- ןתח). However, we are dealing here and throughout this section with glaring examples of missing antecedents.  Ibn Ezra suggests that the foreskin was put at the child’s feet.  More dramatically, Tikva Frymer-Kensky suggests that Tziporah flings the foreskin at God’s feet.  Whichever, Tziporah had immediately grasped the source of God‘s anger and did what had to be done for God to back off.  Presumably, Moses himself was too ill or too frightened to respond. Therefore, to make sure that Moses gets the point, in her second speech, Tziporah says, “A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision!”

There are a lot more suppositions about what is going in these few verses.  Some say that Moses gave in to Yitro and Tziporah who argued for the Midianite custom of waiting until Gershom’s 13th year before circumcision.  Others suggest that Eliezer was too weak at the start of the voyage, but that Moses should have undertaken the circumcision when they stopped at the lodge.  Take your pick.

Turning to Jonathan Kirsch’s wonderful book, The Harlot by the Side of the Road, which is really modern midrash, his initial comment reads: "For mystery, mayhem, and sheer baffling weirdness, nothing else in the Bible quite compares with the story of Zipporah (sic.) and the 'bridegroom of blood.' " However, his further assessment is more analytical:

The lesson the Bible intends is that God insists on circumcision as the essential symbol of the covenant of his chosen people. God is even willing to murder for failure to comply. . . . That's how important circumcision is to God. 
. . .  Zipporah plays more than a supporting role in the future of the Israelites. Moses is God's chosen messenger, the most important biblical figure after Abraham.  Yet, Moses is at risk of losing his life, except for the intervention of Zipporah. The entire fate of Israel rests with her. She, the pagan daughter of a priest, stood up to God.

Others commentators suggest that the story may also be saying that marriage to foreigners can be a good idea and work out well.  And there are still other ideas.
Many commentators presume that it was after this event that Moses realized how dangerous was his mission in Egypt, and he sent Tziporah and the children back to her father in Midian.  Others say that after Moses met with Aaron, they decided that a woman with young children would be more burden than help.  Either is a logical supposition, and I have no reason to choose between them.  Once the major problems of the exodus from Egypt were over, and the Israelites seemed to be clearly under the care of God, Yitro brought not just sage advice for Moses, but also Tziporah and the children.

I wish there was more to say, but, with one minor exception that I will come to in a moment, after their arrival in Egypt Tziporah and the boys simply disappear from the Torah.  We have to turn elsewhere to conjecture what role Tziporah might have played, and how the boys grew up. Indeed, according to Frymer-Kensky, Moses’ neglect of Tziporah was total.  She notes that Moses tells the men at Sinai not to approach any women in preparation for God’s approach in three days (19:2). Since Moses must always be prepared for meeting God, she infers that he never sleeps with Tziporah. I would only add that it is Moses, not God, who says that men have to stay away from women before meeting God.  Once again, Moses shows himself to be over-enthusiastic in responding to God’s orders, and once again it gets him into trouble.  However, he does have Tziporah beside him.  Again quoting Pardes (97) in her discussion of Tziporah writes, “Women (and mothers in particular)--despite, or rather because of, their powerlessness–often have an important role in teaching weak and threatened young heroes how to handle hostile parental figures.”

SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF TIME IS SHORT
The one exception to the absence of any further appearance by Tziporah, and it is only an indirect one, occurs in Numbers 12:1 when Aaron and Miriam in a burst of anger speak “against Moses because of the Cushite he had married.” Normally, the term Cushite refers to someone from Nubia on the east side of the Upper Nile or from Ethiopia.  However, one of the tribes of Midian is also called Cush. There are stories about a second wife for Moses, but the Bible makes no reference to it, so we can assume that Aaron and Miriam are referring to Tziporah.  One possibility is that they are complaining about some fault in her. On the other hand, following  Frymer-Kensky’s theme, they may be criticizing Moses for his neglect of her.  We just don’t know so it is best just to put this final and least important appearance of Tziporah to one side.

Tziporah is not commonly cited in later Rabbinical Literature, and when she was it is alternately with praise and with blame (Jewish Encyclpopedia, 1906).  Perhaps the blatant sexuality of her main role was too much for rabbis to handle.  None of this is particularly interesting, so I took a cursory look at reactions to Tziporah in modern literature where I found an interesting dichotomy.  In most Christian writing, Tziporah is roundly criticized for having followed her own religious traditions and convinced Moses not to circumcise her boys, with the results described above. (See, for example, BibleGateway.com.) On the other hand, in every movie and books I have found from Jewish authors, Tziporah is praised as Moses’ love interest and his advisor. (For example, see Marek Halter’s book, Tziporah, Wife of Moses.)

As for me, I rather like Tziporah, so I will come down on the side that she really is  Moses’ life partner and principal advisor, someone who stood by him even if he did not express much love for her.  She remains neglected then and today, along with many other deserving women in the Hebrew Bible.

Shabbat Shalom,