Midrashic Monologues

In Bamidbar (the Book of Numbers), Zipporah seems to fade away until, ultimately, she no longer appears in the story...

Yocheved: Have you ever stood outside of a moment? Have you ever experienced something so viscerally, with so many of your senses, that you found yourself turning it over and over again as if to study every facet of the experience? That is the way I feel standing a short distance behind my youngest son, my baby, my Moses, as he looks out at the Red Sea. I am close enough to see that his arm is shaking as he lifts it. When I notice his trembling, I start forward, hoping to o

In this Midrashic Monologue, we meet Zipporah, wife of Moses and mother to Gershom and Eliezar, as she and her family travel toward Egypt. As they make camp, she considers and struggles with how her life has changed now that Moses has learned of his destiny as God’s prophet. As the sun arrived at its tallest point, we reached the crest of a particularly large dune and were stunned to find a small oasis directly in our path. We decided to make camp, luxuriating in the shade an

Moses fled his life from Egypt and in Midian assumed the quiet life of a shepherd. When he encountered what our tradition has called the “burning bush,” Moses began his transformation into a leader able to confront the all powerful Pharaoh. What led him to radically reshape his life yet again? In this Midrashic Monologue, Moses reflects upon that illuminating, transformational moment. In the map of my life, there are moments - flashpoints - when everything changed, and my pa