Mishpatim

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Let us speak about Tzippora, righteous wife of Moshe Rabeinu. As you recall, Moshe had to run away from Paroh in Egypt. The Chumash does not relate all the details of his wanderings (which can be found in the Medrash), but we know that Moshe ended up in Midian. He was at the well and saw Yisro's, priest of Midian, seven daughters coming to water the sheep.

(Moshe did the same thing as the Patriarch Yaakov who found his wife Rochel by the well. In fact, The call of the Torah, by Rabbi Elie Munk, brings down the Zohar which compares the two incidents. Moshe achieved the highest degree of spirituality available to mortal man. He went up to Mt. Sinai for 40 days and nights; he separated from his wife in order to always be in a ready state of purity in order to receive prophecy from Hashem. About Moshe the Chumash says: "And he stayed above the well"- well meaning marriage. The word well is only mentioned once. About Yaakov the word well is mentioned seven times. Also, it says Yaakov stopped to contemplate the well. He was more involved in the entire issue, perhaps because he saw as his task the begetting of the 12 tribes, while Moshe is referred to as a "man of G-d" and ultimately separated from his wife. )

This well was one of the 10 things that Hashem created on Erev Shabbos right before sunset. It was the same well that Eliezer stopped at and found Rivkah to marry Yitzchak. The same well as Yaakov stopped at, and the same well that traveled with the Jews in the desert to provide water for them in the merit of Miriam. The well of water is a symbol of purity and reminds us of the 4 rivers that go out of Gan Eden and circle the world. All the women of Israel (not just the matriarchs mentioned in the Chumash)have a connection to the purity of these waters when they immerse in a kosher mikvah of natural water.

The shepherds were about to drown the girls and Moshe rescued them, unwittingly rescuing his future wife! Moshe saw in Tzippora modesty and asked her to be his wife. She explained to him that her father, Yisro, had one criterion for her future husband, that he be able to unearth a tree in the yard. This "tree" was actually a staff that Yisro had taken from Paroh, who had taken it from Yosef! It was rooted in the ground and had swallowed many suitors who had come to marry the wonderful girl Tzippora. Moshe was happy when he heard that this was Yosef's staff, for he understood that it was waiting for him. The Medrash explains that Tzippora comes from the root-bird. Just like a bird quickly works to pick up every last crumb, so too Tzippora ran to clean out all the "crumbs of idol worship" from Yisro's house and then ran to bring in Moshe as her father commanded. Moshe, however was not given a chance to marry Tzippora for Yisro feared he had committed a wrongdoing and put him in a deep pit. The righteous Tzippora convinced her father that she remain at home to take care of things while her sisters tend the sheep, and she was able to secretly provide food for Moshe in the pit for 10 years until Yisro took him out. He was welcomed as a tzaddik and he was able to pull out the stick from the garden and marry Tzippora.

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