Whoever saw her would acknowledge her beauty. She is called Zipporah, meaning "look" and "see" how beautiful! She is called "the Cushite" (Numbers 12:1) because just as the Cushite woman is distinguished from other women by the color of her skin, so too was Zipporah distinguished from other women by her beauty (Sifre Beha’alotcha 99). When the elders were appointed, all of Israel lit candles and rejoiced for them. Miriam saw the candles burning and asked Zipporah, "What are these candles for?" Zipporah told her. "Fortunate are the wives who see their husbands rise to high position," said Miriam. "Woe is to them," said Zipporah, "for henceforth their husbands will separate from them" (Yalkut Shimoni, Beha’alotcha 738). Another matriarchal beauty, this time of Cushite origin, joins the ranks of Israel. Zipporah, Jethro’s daughter, meets her beloved Moses at the prototypical well, this time in the land of Midian. The Exodus narrative does not belabor the romance. Zipporah is given by her father to Moses, and bears a son called Gershom, an expression of his father’s anxiety that he was "a stranger in a strange land" (Exodus 2:21-22).

What is the fate of wives of Gedolei haDor - "Great men of the generation?" The answer is clearly limned - both in the Biblical text and Midrashic literature. Moses’s destiny as God’s emissary to the present and future Jewish people was present at his birth. Each act of his life career was fraught with political and religious significance, although his desert forays, military brilliance and dramatic dash remind one of T. E. Lawrence. Given the nature of his task - that is, the mission to bring forth a group of Jews and make them a Jewish people - Moses was too busy to tend to Zipporah. It is hard to believe that nearly two millenia ago, in the Midrash, Moses’s wife and sister, engaged in a discussion about life’s "trade-offs." She essentially was on her own. Moses returned to Egypt, without his family, to engage in a struggle that would serve as the basis for all future Jewish existence. Procuring Israel’s freedom, leading his people to Mount Sinai and forty years through the Wilderness, presiding as Judge, General, and President of Congregation Benei Israel, occupied all of his time, and then some. How did she deal with his absence? She carried forth in the manner of the matriarchs of the House of Israel. The Bible speaks of “her two sons” (Exodus 18:3) because Zipporah had educated Gershom and Eliezer without Moses (Zohar 2:69b). She waited patiently, with her father, to be picked up and included in the Exodus from Egypt. It was an extraordinary destiny - one that involved sacrifice in every facet of her existence. Although she expressed regret over losing her husband to the cause of the Jewish nation, she maintained her dignity. She never became haughty or arrogant because of her esteemed position. She continued to act as a Cushite in poverty and kingship (Midrash HaGadol, Bamidbar 12:1).