{"id":40857,"date":"2018-09-25T16:15:46","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T13:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=40857"},"modified":"2022-04-19T11:24:18","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T08:24:18","slug":"a-bridegroom-of-blood-and-water","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/a-bridegroom-of-blood-and-water\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bridegroom of Blood and Water"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The blood is dripping off Zipporah\u2019s fingers, and Moses can\u2019t tear his eyes away.<\/span><\/p>\n

His first mother may have held him with such hands when she gave birth to him. He imagines them sometimes: chafed by servitude, stained with labor. He imagines them reaching down to her thighs and pulling him out, life gore and all.<\/span><\/p>\n

His second birth, the one he knows about, was different. His second mother\u2019s hands pulled him from the river\u2019s water. The hands remained unsoiled: there was no blood to mark his passage into life.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA bridegroom of blood,\u201d Zipporah spits at him, and finally, he doesn\u2019t need to imagine. He can finally see, truly see, the bloodied hands of a woman forming life.<\/span><\/p>\n

You saved us, he wants to tell her, but words fail him. As he told God earlier, he is not a man of words.<\/span><\/p>\n

You took me back to my very beginning, he wants to add then. You gave me life through blood. I am reborn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Moses doesn\u2019t know it yet, but he will never be free from the shadow of his second birth. Water and miracles will continue to define his trials and his fate. He will lead his people through a sea and grant them wellsprings in the desert. He will hit a rock to give them water and die alone by a river he can\u2019t cross. And they \u2013 his people \u2013 they will follow him. They will cross the sea and drink from the wellsprings, flock to the rock and cross the river once he\u2019ll die. But they will do so begrudgingly, distrustfully. They will take his water and his miracles and see him as Other. They won\u2019t see him as a man of flesh and blood and wants.<\/span><\/p>\n

But this will come later. For now, there are only bloody fingers and a sense of wonder. One day soon, Moses will replace the Nile\u2019s water with red blood. But today, for once, it\u2019s Zipporah turn to birth a miracle. Moses was born in blood, but knew only of the water. Today, Zipporah showed him what it is to come from blood.<\/span><\/p>\n

The blood is dripping off Zipporah\u2019s fingers, and Moses can\u2019t tear his eyes away.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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