Moses' Interfaith Family:
A Non-Jewish Ally in the Passover Story

The story about Moses' sense of justice is well known: Moses encounters an Egyptian taskmaster beating an Israelite slave. Before he acts, he looks both ways--checking to see if anyone will step forward to intervene. When no one does, Moses takes action and slays the Egyptian taskmaster himself. Fearing retribution, he flees to Midian, where he meets and falls in love with Zipporah. But this is not your typical Biblical marriage. Zipporah isn't Jewish. And the help Moses receives from his non-Jewish family, unlike the taskmaster story, is an often-overlooked aspect of Passover.

Zipporah is the daughter of a Midianite priest, Jethro. Jethro becomes Moses' counselor, his closest advisor. (Some scholars, such as John Bright in "The History of Israel," even suggest that it is Jethro who teaches Moses about the one God of Israel and prepares him for the eventual showdown with Pharaoh.) We learn from the Torah that Jethro is concerned for the well being of his son-in-law. He counsels Moses to set up various tribal leaders as judges for the people. Like the old truism, Moses marries a family, not just an individual.

What does it mean to us today, that Moses might not have become the unparalleled leader of the Jewish people had he not married a Midianite (read: non-Jewish) woman and developed a special relationship with her father? At least this one interfaith marriage worked out all right for the continuity of the Jewish people. The story of our ancestors, as passed to us across the millennia through our holy scriptures, doesn't whitewash life as a series of simple choices. Rather, it illustrates the complexities of real life; there are intermarriages in the Bible that work, and others that do not.

     

[Three paintings entitled "Moses Defending the Daughters of Jethro." Above left by Rosso Fiorentino c.1523; above right by Sebastiano Ricci c.1720; and below by Nicolas Colombel c.1686]

Each Passover, we invite our families to join us at the seder table to celebrate our freedom while remembering our years in slavery. We use the seder to both simulate the Exodus and, using all of our senses, stimulate the memory of the experience, for it is a collective memory buried deep within the recesses of all our individual minds. The year is 1250 B.C.E. and we are there--family, friends, and invited guests.

This year, to welcome those friends and family members who may not be Jewish, let's recount the whole story, including the fact that Moses' first encounter with the Holy One came while working as a shepherd to Jethro, father of his non-Jewish wife. Perhaps an added paragraph would be in order. Below is one suggestion--or you can write your own--that we hope will bring a more welcoming and inclusive spirit to your seder:

At Passover we celebrate the journey from slavery to freedom, a universal message. While we rejoice over our liberation, we must also recognize those whose courage, inspiration, direction, and sacrifice helped us get here.
We particularly remember Jethro, a Midianite priest and father of Moses' wife Zipporah.
Jethro's counsel helped Moses lead our people.
His wisdom helped Moses rebuild the community.
His faith helped Moses engage the sacred and the holy.
And his love helped Moses grow and become all that he was capable of becoming.
Let's learn from Jethro, the non-Jewish father-in-law, and Moses, the greatest leader of the Jewish people, that love is more powerful than hate; that we have a responsibility to "welcome the stranger because we were once strangers in the land of Egypt"; and that the future--like the spring that we celebrate this Passover--is filled with eternal rebirth, renewal, and hope.