Milcah said, “I waited for you to tell them.”
Noa did not answer. She found a blanket, stripped off her wet clothes, and wound the blanket around herself. She noticed her mother, now little more than a sack of bones. Ada swallowed the gruel Milcah made for her each day, but reluctantly, as though weaning herself from life.
Noa crouched to adjust the pillows behind her mother’s back, while she gained a calm voice.
Malah opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it. Her sisters waited.
Finally, Noa announced, “The judges are sending our petition to Moses.”
“Eikha, that is the end of it,” Malah lamented.
“No,” insisted Milcah, “Moses is the highest and fairest judge.”
Hoglah, fearing she would have to serve as an example again, insisted, “I cannot stand before Moses.”
“I will go,” said Noa. “But I know it’s just to make me look a fool. Like today.”
“Moses would not waste his time for such,” said Malah.
Their voices banged around the tent with opinions, solace, and advice on the upcoming meeting with Moses. Ada was no longer able to follow their conversations, but she detected one voice was missing.
“Where’s my little Tirzah, my laughing one?”
The sisters became quiet.
“Yes, where is she?” Noa grumbled.
Milcah laid her hand on Noa’s shoulder, dissipating her sister’s anger. “Remember when Tirzah tied a rope around her waist and flapped the end, crowing she had a man’s member?”
Noa smiled, wistful for their long-ago youth.
“A willful child became a willful woman,” said Malah.
They missed Tirzah the child. Whatever they thought about her now, each shivered at the horror of Yared’s death.
Their mother’s thin voice called out again, “My sweet daughter. Bring her to me so I may smile before I sleep with my ancestors.”
Before they could respond, a man approached the tent and called in, “I was told I would find Noa, the daughter of Zelophechad, within.”
Noa answered, “I am she.”
She moved to the doorway to see who called for her. Immediately she saw he was of the priestly class.
“I have come from Moses, who will hear your petition for inheritance,” he said, clearly annoyed by his damp task.
“Now?” Noa was so startled she blurted out the single word.
Malah stepped in. “Please excuse my sister’s lack of hospitality. You have caught her by surprise. She will be ready in a moment. Please, wait a minute.”
“No, not now. Tomorrow. Early. I was directed here by Hur, son of Gaddi. Tomorrow I will return to his tent to bring Noa, daughter of Zelophechad, to Moses,” he snapped.
“She will be ready. We are so grateful that . . .”
But the Levite had already left.
WHEN NOA RETURNED home, Hur asked if the Levite had delivered his message.
“Tomorrow he will bring me to Moses.”
“So,” said Ahuva, “the last step in your journey.”
Noa turned to Hur. “When I first sought a share of the promised land, I never thought it would go so far or take so long. If I had thought that one day I would be summoned to Moses . . .”
Hur saw something in her face akin to fear.
“Moses is no god,” Hur said. “He is not even a king. Remain respectful, but he is a man, simply that. Your purpose is true and your petition has meaning far beyond Zelophechad’s five daughters.”
He smiled and held her hands in his. “You will go, fearless, to Moses. And you will know I am with you.”
NOA AND HER escort passed among the tribes of Asher, Dan, and Naftali on their way to the Levite camp and the tent of Moses. Displeased by his mission, the young Levite strode ahead in cold silence. Noa sensed his disapproval.
Yesterday’s rainhad diminished to an early-morning drizzle. Noa’s still-damp robe quickly became wet and heavy. She lifted her skirts to keep her hem from gathering a fringe of grit, fearing that a bedraggled appearance would go against her.
The Levite deliberately outpaced Noa so that every few strides she had to run, holding her skirts. Breathing shallowly to keep up, she inhaled a pungent reek rising from wet wool as shepherds drove bawling sheep from brush enclosures. Women cursed as they tried to light fires on damp coals as husbands squatted in twos and threes, talking while waiting for the morning’s meal.
Children, rubbing sleep from their eyes, hopped around the mouths of tents, delighted by the newly wet world. A boy floated a piece of wood in a water-filled scrape. Two girls kneeled near their mother, pinching and twisting figures in a long loop of yarn, shifting the yarn shapes from one set of hands to the other.
As Noa and her escort rounded the province of the Ark, Noa worried that she did not know the protocols of meeting with the leader of all Israel. Would there be offering plates to contribute to, greetings to say in a certain order? At that moment, they arrived. The Levite simply waved her toward the open doorway and, suddenly, she stood within.
Standing near the doorway, Noa was blinded by the dimness within. She slipped off her sandals out of respect and surreptitiously rubbed one foot with the other, trying to scrape off the grit.
As her eyes adjusted to the low light, Moses came into focus. He sat, supported by pillows, on a rug-covered, raised platform. His silvered hair and beard framed an aged face tempered by stoic serenity.
A brief glance told her, “Old and tired, like my mother.”
Horrified that he might be able to hear her thoughts, Noa focused on her hem. She felt him looking at her, but he did not speak. A tumid quiet filled the tent. Still breathless from the race around the camp, Noa let out her breath haltingly.
Finally, Moses said, “Sit. Please.” His words came slowly, as if they were reluctant to leave his mouth. He waved his arm toward a nearby rug.
Keeping her head down, Noa sat and arranged her skirts, hesitant to look directly at Moses.
“I understand you seek a portion . . . for yourself and your sisters,” he said slowly and deliberately, “in the land God has promised us.”
Noa remembered hearing that speech did not come easily to Moses.
“Your case was submitted . . . by the Judges of Thousands. Now I want to hear . . . from you.”
Noa considered, where to begin.
“Life does not always go as one wishes.”
Immediately she stopped. Her opening sounded like a complaint.
“Yes . . .”
Was he agreeing with her or only urging her on? Their halting dialogue made her shoulders ache. If he allowed her to stand, as she did before the bet din, she would be able to think. She took a deep breath and looked up.
“Please, sir,” she murmured, “may I stand?”
“As you wish.” He waved her up.
She stood, but kept her head lowered. Her palms were damp from tension, and she surreptitiously wiped them on the sides of her skirts, hoping Moses would not notice. There was little he did not notice, and he recognized the effect of his presence on petitioners’ palms.
“My plea, sir, is not so much for me as for my sister who does not have a strong voice.”
Mortified that Moses might think she was also alluding to his voice, Noa was struck silent. She willed her heart to stop thudding, then slowly raised her head and her eyes. Now she noticed that his aged face was suffused with an ageless glow. And she saw a trace of a smile at her discomfort, a conspiratorial smile that invited her in on the humor.
“Everyone begins here in discomfort,” his smile seemed to say, “even I.”
She looked down, allowing a smile to crease her face, before she composed herself and began again. “Our father died, and we are five daughters with no brothers.”
“And your request?”
Noa paused.
“With no brothers, who will build our father’s house in the land promised to Israel? If the daughters of Zelophechad cann
ot inherit, our father’s name will have died with him. Worse, we are at risk. My sister Hoglah’s husband ran off. What will be with her and her children? If brotherless daughters cannot inherit, we may become little better than slaves, which—I fear—will be the fate of Hoglah’s children. As I said before the judges, perhaps God wants us to help completeHis laws and, in doing so, advance justice. And fashion ourselves as the people He hopes we will become.”
“If this is the coreof your . . .”
“ . . . and . . . and,” Noa broke in, emboldened to say more, “are not the souls of women as worthy to God?”
She silenced herself, worried she had piled on too many words and thoughts, blathering before a holy man. Alarm chased triumph across her face as she realized how impertinent she sounded. Tensing, she expected the air around her to burst into flame and consume her.
Moses looked at her questioningly, then guessed her emotions. He smiled again, this time with compassion, so profound that its radiance filled the tent and Noa. She felt at one with the world, caressed by care that banishes fear. The tent pulsed like a heart and time flowed where it would, transcending earthbound regimes, enfolding the two humans in its current.
A VOICE ECHOED, and Noa struggled to remember where she was and why. Finally, she heard Moses say, “In truth, the answer to your appeal . . . it is a matter for the highest Judge of all.”
His eyes held hers. A father’s eyes. Suddenly, Noa wanted to pour out all her pain. The stoning of her father. Yoela. Sarai. Yared. Her guilt for the deaths she could have caused. She opened her mouth to begin, but her eyes, full of anguish, already told Moses what to expect and he stiffened slightly, anticipating her flood of grief.
Noa noticed and was suddenly certain their slow-tongued leader evoked this outpouring in many. She did not want to further burden him. She closed her mouth and said nothing. He nodded, thankful for her unspoken understanding.
“Be patient for your answer,” Moses said, “as this matter will affect . . . not only the daughters of Zelophechad . . . but all Israel.”
“I am grateful that you will put our plea before the One Judge,” Noa replied as she stepped away slowly, careful not to turn her back on the man who spoke with God.
Outside, the drizzle had dissipated. Now more a mist, it bathed her face. She let her headcloth drop to her shoulders and felt light. The surly escort was nowhere apparent. Glad for his absence, she made her way home, thinking about all the steps she had taken to arrive at this point, knowing that whatever the outcome, there was no higher judge, and she would never have to present a plea again.
She considered Moses and the tremendous burden it must be to master one’s own tongue and lead an entire people. She realized how small her concerns were in comparison.
Along her path home, she determined, “If Moses worked to master himself, so shall I try.”
Noa’s rash act to kill Barzel troubled her less when she was young, when she was filled with the righteousness of revenge. Now, with the outcry at the bet din and the accounting of her own mortality closer, she wanted to cleanse herself and her family of the stain of attempted poisoning. As she walked, she considered the path of a nazir, setting herself apart to seek redemption.
Noa walked past rain-slicked tents, past spider webs silvered with mist and shrubs jeweled by raindrops, their purple blossoms unfolding, a sign of spring. Soon it would be the feast of unleavened bread celebrating their escape to freedom. Afterward, summer would thicken the air with dust and heat. But now the air was cool and washed clean.
From Shittim, Noa looked toward the sere mountains that lined the western edge of the Salt Sea. They said the land on the far side of those same mountains was green with trees and grasses and blue with rushing streams, just as Noa had imagined.
“If I cleansed myself,” she thought, “I would be at peace, no matter what the outcome of our inheritance.
“How little of my life I’ve spent alone.”
Like most, Noa labored through her days from one chore to the next, tending the needs of family. She remained within the fold of family as protection against enemies, wild beasts, starvation, and a world that could rock into chaos without warning.
By the time Noa arrived home, the sun had broken through, burning off the mist and any doubts of her direction. She told Hur, Ahuva, and their children of her meeting with Moses, what he said and what he was like. Then she announced she had decided to become a nazir. They all looked at her, speechless.
Hur finally found words. “As your husband, I can deny you.”
“Will you?”
“How badly do you need this?”
Her eyes answered.
“For only one cycle of the moon,” he conceded.
“I am grateful.”
“The nazirim live apart in those . . . little huts,” said Gaddi, embarrassed by his mother’s strange choice. “Why do you want to do that?”
“I will live apart to cleanse myself.”
“From what?” Ora demanded.
“Will you come home to make us dinner,” asked Noa’s youngest.
“What does a nazir do?” asked Ahuva’s son.
“I cannot cut my hair. I cannot drink strong drink. I cannot approach the dead.”
“Mother,” said Ora impatiently, “you don’t do those things anyway. And he asked what you will do, not what you will not do.”
Like her brother, Ora was annoyed that their mother would distinguish herself this way.
“I must put myself in order,” Noa said. “There are some things only I know about my soul.”
When Malah heard what Noa planned, she said, “Even if I possessed all the sins of our people, you will never find me living in the hut of a nazir.”
CHAPTER 29
SEARCHING FOR A HEART OF WISDOM
JUST NORTH OF the camp, widely spaced brush huts and lean-tos served the nazirim. Erected in haste to match the insubstantiality of their lives, they stood flimsily between Israel’s tents and the wild.
Nazirim came and went and Noa found a recently vacated hut to fill with the few things she brought: a small cooking pot, spoon, knife, grain, a jug of water, palm mat, sheepskin blanket, her spindle, and a small loom. She flung a length of tenting across the top of the hut and secured it to the corner posts.
Noa was pleased with the simplicity. The haphazard brush walls let in breezes and light, and the tenting above sheltered her from the worst of sun and rain. Absent were the noise and jostling bodies of five offspring squabbling over anything, trying out the people they were becoming. Absent were the routine negotiations with Ahuva over space and duties. During her first few days in the hut, Noa felt as though she had simply given herself a rest from the clamor of life.
“I am here to work, not to rest,” she chided herself, feeling guilty for feeling so good. She needed focus, not respite, in order to cut out the rot she felt within.
At first, Hur and their children visited every day. Even Ahuva came, to tell Noa how well the household ran in her absence. After two quarters of the moon had passed, all came less frequently.
“They have their work and I have mine,” Noa told herself as she sat at her loom, weaving pieces for her children’s future, forgetting their next home might be within earthen walls.
Sequestered in silence, she wondered, “Who was Yoela to me that that I feel her presence still? Why are there such as Barzel?”
She thought of the brother of Barzel’s third wife, he who killed Barzel. Disturbed that he had accomplished what she had not, she realized how far she was from her goal.
“Give me a heart of wisdom,” she implored. “Give me a heart that is pure.”
What she found were more questions.
“Ech . . . there is evil in me. But what should I have done? Does this God of ours plant evil in the world?”
MOSES KNEW HIS time drew near, and he had secluded himself, preparing his final words to the people Israel. He had received the answer concerning Zelophechad’s daughters an
d their quest. He told himself there would be time enough to notify them after addressing the twelve tribes.
Facing the Jordan River and the land he would never see, Moses called the people from their tents to the foot of the Mountains of Moab. Moses stood on a low promontory with the people massed below. The people feared they would not hear, so great were their numbers. But Moses had purified his mouth for God’s words to issue forth flawlessly and all those who listened, heard. He reminded them of the good that would come if they were faithful to God’s laws and of the evil that would overtake them if they forsook the laws.
Some, like Milcah, sowed God’s words in their hearts. Others heard what they wanted to hear. There were even those who stole into the tents of the listeners and, while the tents were empty, took what they would.
“It is not too difficult. It is not beyond reach,” Moses said softly. “It is not in the heavens or beyond the sea. No, it is close, in your mouth and in your heart, to do.”
The night before Moses’s last discourse, a hyena sniffed around Noa’s hut. Its gurgled growls and low chattering terrified her. She feared it would break into the flimsy structure and eat her. Afraid to move, lest it attack, she sweated under her blanket. Then, when the sweat dried, she shivered. Finally, the hyena moved off, and she fell into a shaky sleep, fearing the hyena was a sign.
Tired, Noa trudged toward the grounds below the promontory to hear Moses speak. He sang a song that told the history of their lives. Standing apart with other nazirim, she heard the blessings and the curses that would result, depending on the path each chose. But Noa’s long nights alone had not revealed answers to her questions.
As she returned to her hut, Noa realized how much she missed the busyness of family, the chatter of children, now nearly grown. She did not want to miss a moment of their lives.
She thought of Yoela, the love that bound their souls together and the evil that had befallen Yoela. She thought of Hur, an essential thread in the fabric of her life, both trustworthy and trusted.
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