Judging Noa

by Strutin, Michel;

  She whispered to Hur, “I must leave. The crowd is too much.”

  “Yes,” he said, facing his father, not her. “Return to our place.”

  Noa struggled to turn and open a path behind her.

  “I cannot.” She grasped his sleeve for emphasis.

  Hur turned and shouted, waving his arms outward to open a wedge of space.

  “Can’t you see? She’s weighted with a precious burden. Make a path.”

  The crowd parted, then closed behind her, the sea of people washing in to fill the space between Noa and Hur.

  Without realizing it, Noa had come to depend on Hur and now felt unbalanced and fearful in the crowd. As she pressed toward the edge, admonishing herself for neediness, she saw Barzel. Yoela was not with him. Their time in the marriage booth must be over, she thought.

  Noa broke through the back of the crowd and waddled quickly toward the camp of Zerach, hoping to find Yoela. Hur had pushed forward, toward his father and the knot of spies telling their tale at the center of a vast wheel of people.

  “ . . . yes, the fruits are plentiful. Wheat and barley we saw, too.” It was his father talking. “With heads as big as my fist.” Gaddi thrust his fist into the air for emphasis.

  Igal continued, “We saw all this growing in fields and vineyards. Vineyards built by people who have our lands. Our lands.”

  “Our lands!” the crowd shouted back.

  “Wait. Hear more of these lands,” shouted another spy. “There live people to match the size of these fruits.” He held up a handful of large, juicy dates. “They are mighty and their cities are built with walls all around.”

  “And they are many peoples. The Canaanites, the Jebusites, the Amorites . . .”

  “We will take them,” shouted a young man, in a muscle of young men standing near Hur, who boasted, “My father is one of them.”

  Another of the spies spoke. “Yes, the land flows with milk and honey, but in one great city live giants. I swear, giants.”

  With the memory of Kiryat Arba, Geuelsaid, “We cannot face such mighty people.”

  Caleb raised his hands high and called, “Hear me. Hear me. We will surely go up and take back our lands. Do not dwell in doubt. These lands will be ours again.”

  But the spies had sown seeds of doubt. As they spoke more about the hill people, the hill people grew larger in their eyes and in the eyes of the crowd.

  “Tell us. Are these people truly giants?”

  “We saw Anak, the giant,” Geuel called back.“And his sons, also giants.”

  One of the young men near Hur muttered, “All free men look like giants to those who were slaves.”

  Remembering how he clung to the tree limb, hiding from Anak and his sons, Gaddi felt humiliated. But he also felt fear for his sons, especially Hur, who was old enough to fight, but not yet tempered by life. He remembered the terror in his arms as the branch shook. He imagined Hur falling at the gate of the giants.

  Gaddi hesitated before calling out, “We were like grasshoppers . . . in their eyes.”

  Hur shrunk back. He did not want those near him to know that this grasshopper was his father. He turned and pushed his way through the crowd, humiliated.

  Hur rushed back to his tent, hoping to find succor in seeing Noa, full of child. “Where is my wife?” he shouted angrily.

  NOA FOUND YOELA sitting on a broad rock, tending sheep, and spinning yarn. As Noa approached, she noticed her friend’s eyes were dark and shadowed. She slipped onto the rock, silently, fearing Yoela was still angry at her absence during the wedding. Yoela startled, then dropped her yarn and flung herself on Noa. The near sheep jumped at the sudden movement.

  “Oh, Noa. Let us run away.”

  She burst into tears, her arms wrapped around Noa so tightly that Noa felt the baby shift.

  Noa eased Yoela’s arms back and whispered to her while stroking her back, “I’m here.”

  “He is worse than I imagined. It is all worse than I imagined.” Her words were choked by sobs. “Father says, ‘Be patient. We have made you a good match.’ Mother whispers in my ear, ‘You will learn to love him, as I did your father.’ I will never learn to love him. Never!”

  Noa picked up Yoela’s waterskin, splashed some on her sleeve, and wiped the cool cloth over Yoela’s face, then made her drink.

  Yoela slumped.

  “I will leave.”

  “A woman alone in the desert? You will die. Or be killed.”

  “Better die all at once than by degrees.”

  “Stop. You will find a way to survive. I will help.”

  “He tears through me. Spills his filth into me. No gentle words. Even if he stays . . . falls asleep, he wakes with orders or no words at all, then leaves. Even in the marriage booth . . . he had me, he had food. I am just a thing for his appetite.”

  Yoela was silent, then, “I am not right down there. He comes into me like a knife.”

  Noa put her arm around Yoela’s waist. They sat, staring at the sheep. Two yearling males butted heads, running at each other again and again.

  THE NIGHT RUMBLED with complaint as men gathered near the Tent of Meeting, murmuring against Moses and the report of the spies.

  “We traded Egypt for a desert that eats us up.”

  “Our promised land promises to deliver us to giants.”

  “We were better off in Egypt.”

  “Moses has prepared a table for our enemies. These giants will feast on our flesh and the flesh of our children.”

  Joshua’s deep voice exhorted, “Do not fear. The land flows with milk and honey for us. God will give us the strength to prevail.”

  Hur looked to see which way things would turn. He looked for his father, but did not see him in the angry crowd pressing into the courtyard of the Tent of Meeting.

  The mob would not hear Joshua. Moses stood at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting, ready to meet whatever lay ahead. As men picked up stones to assault the two, the light of the Lord appeared, encompassing Moses from within the Tent. The people fell back, in awe and confusion.

  As the light subsided, Moses emerged and told them what God had said. “In this very wilderness your carcasses will drop. All of you who muttered against Me, not one of you shall enter the land—save Caleb and Joshua. Your children I will allow to enter. They shall know the land you have rejected.”

  The generation who would not believe would end their days in the desert. The spies who offered the bad report were struck by a plague of body and spirit. Only Joshua and Caleb were spared.

  A host of young men, angered by their fainthearted elders and dying to prove their mettle, rushed off to the hill country, their knives and eyes flashing.

  Moses called after them, “You are ahead of God and yourselves.”

  But they would not hear. They rushed forward, looking more for enemies than for their land. They found Amalekites and Canaanites who struck back, destroying the young men utterly.

  With the decline of the spies and the deaths of the host of young men, the people mourned and wept, and were chastened. Korach, angered by the summary sentence, grew bolder.

  GADDI GREW WEAK, a victim of his own doubts.

  “Gaddi, he is a shadow of himself,” Tamar worried. To Hur, she said, “You must sit by your father and learn leadership.”

  Hur sat dutifully by his father’s side and learned what he could. At night, he asked Noa her opinions and saw the value in having a clever wife.

  “Too clever,” Tamar argued when Hur praised his wife’s advice. “She must learn how to cultivate the women who will help support your leadership. Something her sister Malah can do. While Noa pursues foolishness about inheritance.”

  AS HE LAY on their bed, Hur’s mind roared with thoughts. He reached for Noa’s hand.

  “Noa, do you think my father has become too old to lead? Should I wait until leadership comes to me, or should I take it?”

  Noa worried that she had not stood before the Judges of Hundreds, she did not know
how to help Yoela, and their child seemed ready to explode from her belly.

  “It is too much.”

  “Leadership?”

  “No, I am sorry. I was listening to my own concerns.”

  “What concerns? Tell me and I will fix them.”

  The two lay in separate worlds, linked by their hands.

  NOA COULD NO longer squat to mold cheese, so Hur had built a rough table. Hur’s younger sister, Liri, worked at her side. Noa had pressed one cheese, wrapped it in saltbush leaves, and set it aside to dry in the sun. Liri dipped into a cloth bag with her small wooden paddle and scooped another load of curds onto the table. As Noa pressed the curds, a gush of water wetted the insides of her thighs. At first she thought it was whey, but the curds seemed solid. She feared her bladder had betrayed her.

  Then she remembered Nechama, the tribe’s most accomplished midwife, who had instructed, “Call for me when the waters break.”

  Noa hesitated, not wanting to panic. Then more liquid trickled down her leg.

  “Liri,” Noa urged, “run for Nechama. Run now.”

  Before running to Nechama, Liri told her mother, who bustled to Noa’s side.

  “Where are the things Nechama told you to prepare?”

  Noa moved tentatively, afraid she might shake the baby loose.

  “Do you think you are as fragile as a poppy petal? Move, daughter. This child will not come out if you stop moving.”

  Tamar found her older daughter and Malah and pushed Noa into their arms.

  “Keep her moving, but nearby,” she demanded.

  Nechama arrived soon after, her bulky birthing bag slung from her shoulder. She pulled Tamar into Hur’s tent, the only person who would dare do so. Together they set up the tent as a birthing chamber.

  Hur arrived and found himself in a flurry of women, cloths, jugs, and waterskins.

  “For all her cleverness . . .” Tamar muttered, rushing past, forgetting how unprepared she was for her first child.

  “What is going on here?”

  Suddenly Tamar stopped and turned to him. “Oh. My son.”

  Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She raised her arms to embrace Hur, dropping the fleece that draped her arm. She looked down at the dust it raised.

  “She’s having your son.”

  Hur’s eyes widened. “You mean right now?”

  “Yes. No. Soon. Oh, look what I have done to this fleece. Tell Liri to beat it clean again. It will be what your son sleeps on.”

  Hur ran the few strides to his tent and entered.

  “Are you mad?” his mother called after him. “You should not be in . . .”

  By this time, Noa’s cramping had begun in earnest, and Hur’s sister and Malah had escorted her into the tent. Noa flashed him a distracted smile. Malah and his sister gave him looks that said, “Leave.” Unnerved, he did.

  He brushed past Nechama, who dragged her bag to the center of the tent. The line of Nechama’s thick eyebrows met in the center, giving her a serious, foreboding look when her face was at rest. But Nechama’s face was rarely at rest. She took in the three young women before her and her face crinkled into a smile.

  She had learned that a sense of humor matched with the authority of experience relaxed nervous mothers. Bearing a child was often a deadly matter, and Nechama gave laboring mothers—and herself—the best possible odds.

  “Noa, my dear, you look stricken. You are going to have a baby, not a battle. Oh, ho, some would say it is a battle to give birth, but those poor women have not had Nechama to help them. If we were still in Egypt we would have the birthing house. But here . . . well, we do what we can.”

  Nechama chattered on as she opened the mouth of her bag and drew out a low, wooden stool, then a slightly taller stool with a crescent-shaped seat, both brought with her from Egypt. Her energy and volubility distracted the young women. Noa was cramping heavily but was afraid to allow herself more than strangled grunts.

  “Let it out, my dear. Your child is speaking through you. Let his voice be heard,” Nechama urged as she continued arranging things: folded cloths, a jug of olive oil, a large waterskin, and a broad bowl, a firepan with coals, small sacks of herbs and incense.

  Liri brought in the white lamb’s fleece, which Nechama folded fleece-side in and put it off to one side. The edges of the tent had been lowered for privacy and let in just a glow of light.

  Having pushed aside most of the clutter, Nechama secured the birthing stool atop a rug in the center of the tent. She told the women to pile up pillows behind it, and set the lower stool before it.

  The crescent-shaped seat of the birthing stool had been worn smooth by straining muscles wet with sweat and the fluids of birth. Images celebrating fecundity burnishedthe sides of the seat. Full moon and new moon anchored the ends. Crescent moons marked the quarter-points, enclosing the sitter within a protective lunar cycle. Crowded between the phases of the moon and inscribed on the legs of the stool were images of heavy-breasted Asherah, tumid pomegranates, fish, and eggs—the icons of life.

  Nechama tied a large apron around her middle, sat on the lower stool, and patted the taller one. “Come, my queen of the birthing stool.”

  Noa, seeing that her tent had been transformed into a birthing theatre with her as the centerpiece, cried, “My mother. Someone call her to come.”

  Liri, who lingered at the tent door, serving as Hur’s spy, was happy for something important to do.

  “I can find her,” she said.

  “Yes, but quickly.”

  Nechama then pointed to the crescent-shaped stool again.

  “Please, young ladies, escort the queen to her seat.”

  Noa attempted to sit, but was not sure how.

  “Here, squat like this. Your hands on your thighs.” Nechama demonstrated. “Let your baby know you are ready to push him into life.”

  Noa gingerly imitated Nechama’s squat.

  Seeing Noa’s tentativeness, Nechama said, “Do not fear. Your baby will not drop onto the ground like a stone. Asherah be praised if birth would be so easy. When the cramping stops, we simply wait for the next set.”

  As they suffered Noa past one set of contractions and soothed her toward the next, Liri broke into the tent.

  “She’s coming. But slowly. Is she really, really old? I never saw anyone move that slow.”

  “Liri, hold your tongue and run back to help Noa’s mother here.”

  “Awwww . . .” But Liri did as she was told.

  “And, you,” Nechama said to Hur’s older sister, “please fill another waterskin.”

  At that moment, Liri parted the flaps of the tent, and Noa’s mother entered. Noa saw her mother’s face, lined by life, magically transformed by joy. Forgetting her impatience with her mother’s fatuouspronouncements, Noa burst into tears.

  Her mother shuffled over and cradled her daughter’s face between her hands, thankful she had been granted length of life to attend the birth of her first grandchild. “God willing,” she added. She was also thankful for Nechama, whose skills were known beyond the camp of Manasseh.

  The birth of a child was not guaranteed. Some died in the womb, taking their mothers with them. Some died in the struggle through the birth canal. Every child born alive was a miracle.

  Nechama arranged Malah and Hur’s sister on either side of Noa.

  “You strong young women will hold her up from either side when she tires. And help her push. Liri, place pillows over there, for Noa’s mother to rest her bones.”

  Nechama pulled Noa’s skirts up as Noa adjusted her heavy body on the stool. The wood felt cool and smooth against her flesh.

  “Liri, pour some water so that I may wash my hands.”

  Liri brought a basin and set it on the ground in front of Nechama’s stool, then poured water over the midwife’s hands.

  “Set the water and basin here.” She pointed just beyond where she sat. “Now you may leave.”

  Nechama reached for the small jar at he
r side, poured olive oil on her hands, and rubbed it in until her hands were well oiled.

  “You are in our loving hands and those of Asherah.”

  Noa groaned as contractions clutched her womb again. Nechama slid her hand up to feel the position of the baby. As she did so, Noa gasped.

  “Don’t worry, little mother, I feel the curve of your child’s head just behind the sheath. You will labor, the sheath will part and let him into the world.”

  As Nechama spoke quietly and steadily, she bore down on Noa’s belly, her inserted hand feeling which way the child faced. Noa, caught up in the journey of her child through her body, breathed heavily, sweated, and gripped the arms of her sister and sister-in-law, transmitting the pain of her flesh to theirs.

  Frightened by the ferocious focus of Noa’s body, Malah drew back. Nechama noticed and regretted allowing the presence of a woman who had not experienced birth. As she massaged the mouth of the birth canal, easing it open, her voice took charge.

  “Sing your songs, women,” Nechama commanded. “Sing your songs.”

  CHAPTER 20

  KORACH’S REVOLT

  THE TRIBES SEETHED over God’s decree that they must sit like stones in the desert. Korach saw that the moment cried out for decision and direction. He gathered men among the Levites and other tribes, two hundred and fifty in all, strode to the tent of Moses, and called out:

  “Why should you alone raise yourself up if we are a nation of priests? You say God tells us we must die here in the desert. If we are truly a nation of priests, I say God tells me that we are to live, not die. Live in our own land.”

  As news of the confrontation spread, people ran to see what would happen. Those who heard Korach wondered why he did not lead the people.

  Korach fixed their attention with a searing question to Moses. “Does God hear and speak only through you?”

  Moses, anguished that he had delivered unwelcome news, fell on the ground before them, humbling himself, a reluctant mouthpiece.

  “You who promised us a land of milk and honey have led us into the wilderness to die. Do you think you have the right to lord it over us?”