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Overview
It's a story that has become legend. The burning bush. The plagues on Egypt. The parting of the Red Sea. The Ten Commandments.
But before he was Moses, he was Kisil -- a wanderer, an almost-ordinary man, both doubting and driven.
And before she was the wife of a prophet, she was Tzipporah -- the fierce, faithful woman who lent her wisdom and courage when his faltered.
This is not a story of miracles and wonders. This is the story of a man and a woman -- and of the love that brought them together and sustained them as they defied a king, freed a people, and changed the world.
---
My book is the first attempt, in a work of fiction, to address the facts that are now known about a cataclysmic volcanic eruption that took place in the eastern Med at about the time of the Exodus. The Fire in the Rock is an attempt to tell this story as it might really have happened -- with no "miracles," only natural, if unusual, events; and, perhaps more to the point, God does not appear. He remains "offstage," so to speak, present and active only in the hopes -- and doubts! -- of the people of that time, as He is in our own. Since the book generally pleases neither the conservative religious nor the secular atheist, it has not yet found an audience; even so, I am certain that one day it will.
All that said, this book is by no means a dry theological treatise! Indeed, it is more a love story than anything else; an intimate look at Moses the man, as known by the narrator -- his lover, wife and widow, Tzipporah. We see Moses (whose name was not Moses) as he very likely was, if there was such a man; a lifelong wanderer, haunted by guilt and riven by doubts, a man without a home and without a people. Even though he is not entirely convinced of the existence -- or even of the importance! -- of any God, he is still driven by a passionate devotion to the Good, the True, the Just -- and ultimately, by his love for Tzipporah herself, and for their family. The novel is an attempt to tell the story of these "Bible characters" as actual, real people, and neither icons, nor superheroes, nor cartoons.
After receiving a starred review, The Fire in the Rock was named to Kirkus Reviews' list of the Best Books of 2016.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781500544874 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | CreateSpace Publishing |
| Publication date: | 04/28/2016 |
| Pages: | 494 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
I may not live to see my book find its audience and its place; but I know in my heart that one day it will. Its message is at once deeply humanistic and deeply reverent, taking both rational thought and the religious impulse seriously while denigrating neither. It is a product of both my heart and my mind, and though I hold few "beliefs" in the conventional sense, I believe that my book communicates some worthwhile principles, thoughts and ideas -- among them the deeply Jewish conviction that nothing -- no belief, no practice, no tradition -- is more important or holier than the life, freedom and dignity of the individual human being. All the rest is secondary, and our task is to bear that highest value in mind and heart while using both to pursue those three -- Truth, Justice, and Peace. All that was true for the man we call Moses more than three thousand years ago, and it remains true for us today.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
I am old now, old beyond counting. The One has taken my eyes, and my strength, and the skill of my hands, but my mind is as sharp and clear as it was when I was a girl of ten years. Why I have been allowed to live so long, I cannot say; perhaps to tell this story, for I am the only one left who can tell it. All the rest — al who were there and saw these things — all are gone now. Al but me.
Some who grow old are cursed with forgetting what has gone before; but my curse is different.
I remember everything.
I live in a little house that my sons built for me, here at the foot of Mount Nevo. Few people live nearby, and those who do, do not disturb me. They know who I am, and they fear me.
It is said among them, I am told, that heavy curses will fal on those who trouble me; and so no one does. But it is also said that blessings will come to those who help me, so I am never in want of the things I need. On many mornings, I find food, or firewood, or fruit or clothing or even wine on the bench beside my door. My neighbors leave me gifts, but they never knock nor speak.
With my own wel nearby, I had all that I needed and more, I thought. I had cared for myself for many years, and though it had grown more difficult as I grew older and lost my sight, I still managed. I expected to live in that way, alone, until the day came when I would follow Kisil up the mountain.
I was comfortable enough. But I bore a burden, and it troubled me.
In times past, pilgrims would come to gather at my feet and hear my stories — many, and often. I told them much, though I told no one everything. Even so, it warmed my heart to speak of those times, of my husband, and of what we did and saw. I felt that I was carrying on with his work, in a smal way — his work of teaching and guiding and imparting his wisdom.
But the storytellers' tales of those times, passed down from generation to generation, soon diverged from my own. They became more grand and glorious, and then more grand and glorious still. As happens with such tales, the miracles and wonders in them grew with each telling — and the people began to prefer those tales to my own. Peace to those who tell them and hear them; they do no harm, I think.
But they are only tales, for al that they are beloved of both the young and the old. They are very entertaining, without a doubt, but they are now very far from the truth.
The pilgrims still came, but fewer and fewer. My tales were not grand enough. People began to say that I was old, and addled, and did not truly remember — though they never said that to my face. As time went on, fewer and fewer came to listen, and finally there was a day when no one came at all. And so it remained for long years; I sat beside my little house, blind, alone and silent.
This was my burden. I knew the truth, but I bore it in silence. There was no longer anyone to tell, and no one to believe me if I had. And, too, there were some truths that no one had ever heard, nor ever would.
It troubled my nights as wel as my days. In my dreams, I saw and did things again that I had seen and done long ago. I often prayed to The One to lift this weight of memory from my shoulders. At first, I meant that I wished Him to let me forget. As I grew older, I meant that I wished for Him to allow me to fol ow Kisil up the mountain, to let me rest. But He sent Zev instead.
It was early on a winter morning when Zev came.
The day was still cool, though it would grow warmer as the sun climbed into the sky. I was returning from my privy pit, where I had emptied the earthenware vessel that held my night soil. I was holding the pot in one hand, and with my other I was brushing the ground before me with my stick.
I knew the way, but I always used my stick. Some of my visitors had not the courage to come al the way to my door when they left their gifts, and I would often find an offering on the path — kindly meant, but unthinking. If I had not used my stick, a jug of wine or a bundle of wood left on my path could have caused me to fall, and old bones break easily.
I understood their fear. I had known it al my life.
People feared my eyes when I was a girl, and they still do, even though my eyes no longer see.
As I carried the jar back to my house, I heard someone approaching. One person, alone, a man by the heaviness of his tread. For a single bright moment, my heart was filled with wonder; the sound of his walk was like the sound of my Kisil's. The scuff of his sandals, the slower, subtler ring and rasp of his staff striking the ground at every second step, and the soft liquid sound of a half-filled waterskin. I could almost see my husband's twisted smile, the smile that I so loved.
Then I scowled and shook my head at my own folly.
"Who is there?" I called.
"My name is Zev," came a man's voice. A young man, by the tone of it. By his way of speaking, from a place far away.
"Mine is Tzipporah. What brings you to my house?" He did not speak for a few heartbeats, and I could hear that he stood still. "I have traveled far to see you," he finally said, with wonder in his voice. "To see you, for myself. To see if what I heard was true. That you still live."
"I do. If that is all you came for, then we are done.
Good day to you." I turned back to my path and continued on it, feeling my way with my stick.
"Wait," he said. I stopped, but did not turn back.
"Are you not the widow of Moses?"
I resumed walking. "My husband's name was Kisil," I said, a bit scornfully.
"Oh." There was a deep wel of disappointment in that single word.
I heard it, and relented. "They do call him Moses now. That was his Egyptian name. But his birth name was Yekusiel, and I and all who loved him — we called him Kisil."
I had not stopped walking and swinging my stick before me.
I heard him move closer. "Oh," he said again, in a very different tone. Then, "May I carry that for you?"
"It stinks," I said, but I held out the vessel. "Do you not fear the Evil Eye?"
"What is the Evil Eye?" he asked as he took the pot from my hand.
He is from very far away, I thought. Then a memory came to me. I knew where he was from. I suppressed a smile. "Here, take my arm," he offered politely.
"I need it not." I made my way back to my little house without his help. Ungracious it was, but I did not know him then.
My stick struck the threshold, and I stepped up into the one room. "Come in," I said. Then I pointed with my stick. "Cover the pot and put it beside the bed, at the head.
The cover is there."
I heard him do as I told him. When he was done, I stood facing him. "Thank you. What do you want?" His sandals shuffled on the hard wooden floor, a luxury provided by my sons. "I want to know the truth of what happened."
I waved at him in dismissal and turned toward my chair. "You have heard the stories. Go away and leave an old woman in peace."
"I do not believe them."
I sat down, and I looked up at him. Turned my face toward him, I should say, toward the sound of his words.
"No?" "No."
I found that I was beginning to like this young man.
He did not speak more than was necessary, and I had known another man like that.
I pointed my stick at the other chair in my room, which was not often occupied. "Sit down and tell me why you do not believe." He sat. I snorted, and pointed again.
"Zev. Put down your waterbag and your staff. Make yourself comfortable."
"How did you —"
"I am blind. I am not deaf." He laughed a little then, and I heard him get up and lean his staff in the corner, then set his waterskin and another bag beside it. When he was settled again, I said, "Tell me."
He hesitated, one heartbeat, two. Then, "How old are you?" he asked.
I shrugged — and heard and felt my shoulder joint make a smal sound of protest. I wondered how long it had been since I last shrugged. "I cannot say. Kisil went up this mountain many years ago, long before you were born, or even your father — and I was a very old woman, even then.
I am — very old. Tel me why you do not believe the storytellers' tales."
He shifted in his chair. "They are ..." He hesitated.
"They are impossible. Wonder tales, stories for children.
Plagues, darkness, the Parting of the Sea ... Such things ... cannot happen ...?"
I heard the question in his voice. He was asking, not telling. I smiled, I hope gently. I had not smiled for a long time. "And if I were to tell you that those things did happen?
What then, Zev?"
There was another silence. "I still would not believe.
I am sorry, but I must tell the truth."
I felt my smile grow broader, and I felt myself nodding. I did like this young man.
"Those things did happen, Zev ... But not in the way of the tales." I stood. "Come, help me build a fire, and we shall have food."
He did not rise. "Will you tel me?" This young man did not know what he was asking.
Still, I felt that it was right. The time had come.
I nodded, then nodded again. "Yes. Yes, I will."
He built the fire, and for that I was grateful. Of all my tasks, I hated fire-making the most.
And Zev stayed.
At first, Zev camped nearby, in a tent or shelter of some kind. He said it was just for a phase of the Moon or two. But I fell one day, inside my house, and Zev found me that next morning, lying helpless on the floor beside my bed.
I was very angry, and I cursed at him when first he tried to lift me. I was not accustomed to needing help, and I resented it. But Zev waited patiently for me to calm down and think sensibly, and before the sun was high I let him pick me up and place me gently on the bed, though I still grumbled. Then — I blush to say it — he touched me all over, through my clothing, to be sure I had taken no great hurt. I cursed him again, but he ignored me, and there was little I could do to stop him.
He was right to do it. I was not hurt, but if I had been, I have no doubt that I would have lied and said I was not.
I smile at that as I speak. Zev dresses me now, and bathes me, and cares for me in many ways. It is good to be clean again, and warm, and not alone.
Since that day, Zev has lived here with me. To care for me and keep me safe, he says, and I do not doubt him; but I suspect, too, that like my Kisil a lifetime before, he has nowhere else to go. He has never told me this, but he never left my side again to say farewell to anyone.
Zev has become my dearest friend, closer and more trusted than even my sons. I tell him things that I have told no one — about Kisil, about myself, and about the times that Kisil and I lived through together. And from the beginning, from the time he first heard me speak, Zev has insisted that I allow him to write this book. He told me that I must make a record of it, all of it, to open my heart at last and tell the whole of what I know. I thought little of it — until one day he told me a thing I did not know.
"You must let me write this down, Grandmother." So he calls me. "There are many who do not believe the other tales, the —" He stopped to think of a word. "The fabulous ones, the fantastic ones."
"No?"
"No. There are many like me, who cannot believe in the miracles and wonders. They should know the truth, Grandmother. They should know that even without the wonders, there is still something there to believe in — something worth believing."
I had never thought of that, but Zev was right. After all, I myself believed — and I knew the truth.
And there was another thing. There was little time. I must tel this story before I follow Kisil up the mountain, and that day will be soon. I have been saying that, and hoping for it, for a long, long time, but I feel it now more than ever.
So Zev lives with me here, in my little house at the foot of Mount Nevo, and he cares for me — and he writes as I tell him.
I wil tell, soon enough, of the day my husband led the Avru out of Egypt, of the day we walked through the sea on dry land, and of the day that the people heard the Lord God Himself speak to them from the Mountain. I will tel the truth of al those things, and of how they came to be.
But I will tell, too, of my Kisil, my friend, my love, my lover, my husband and the father of my sons. I will tell what he was — and what he was not. I will tell of what we had, and of what we lost, and of what we did that changed the world. All of these things I will tell, in due time.
But first, I must tell you of my life before Kisil, and of my people, and of the land where we lived.
My name, Tzipporah, means "bird." I liked my name when I was young, and I still do; but I was never a gentle dove or a graceful crane. I was compared, more often, to a hawk. When I was young and my eyes bright and clear, they were a pale gray color, like the eyes of a bird of prey. My father, Yisro, liked to say that I had "falcon's eyes." Not all who saw them liked them, though.
I remember a day when I went to a village marketplace with my father. He went to that village from time to time on market days, to trade wool and hides and even dried bones for things that we needed. I was a child. I must have had five or six years then, but no more.
There were many things I had never seen before — bright fabrics and pottery, people shouting and singing the praises of their wares, rich people richly dressed, poor people barely dressed at all, musicians and dancers and so much more — and as I stared at them all, people stared at me. I wondered why. I remember seeing a ragged man with a bald head point at me with his fore and little fingers extended. "Father, why did that man do that?" I asked. The man's eyes went wide, and he did it again. I was angry. I did not understand what the gesture meant, but I did not like the way the bald man, or the other people who were staring, were looking at me, and I scowled back at them, furious. I was so angry, tears came to my eyes.
Father gave a disgusted snort and waved the man away. "Do not frighten her, you fool," he growled. "She is only a child." Then he glared at the others who were watching. The man retreated with a backward glance, and the others turned away and went back to what they were doing.
Father lifted me up in his arms and kissed me.
"That was a sign to protect against —" He paused — "against bad luck, Tzipporah. It is a silly belief of silly people."
"I am not b-bad luck! I am not!" My nose was running, my cheeks wet.
He smiled then. "Of course you are not, little bird.
Come, let us sit down." He carried me to a low, broken wall which had once been part of a house. He set me down there, and then sat beside me and wiped my face.
"Have you noticed that most people's eyes are dark?" he asked. I wiped my face and nodded. I looked at his eyes, which were as black as burnt wood. "You have the eyes of your mother, Tzipporah. Your eyes are light-colored, like hers. They are not like the eyes of others. People fear things that are strange to them."
I looked around, my eyes going to those of the people around me, and I thought. I was thinking, and no longer crying. It was a trick Father would use on me often as I was growing up.
He touched my mouth. "Your voice, too, is deeper than the voices of most children, and even those of many women. They fear that, too." He pulled me toward him and hugged me, and whispered, "It is good to be different, little bird. Be glad you are yourself."
And before long, I was. When I was still very young, I learned how to use my eyes and my voice to my advantage — and when not to.
Father had said "bad luck," but it would not be long before I heard the words that would follow me throughout my life: the Evil Eye. I could frighten people when I chose, and that power fascinated me; I played with it as if it were a toy.
But I learned, too, that there are always times when it is better not to frighten. I soon knew when to lower my eyes and speak softly.
My voice is old and raspy now, and my eyes are even paler; they are white with blindness. Even so, they still say that my eyes pierce men to their souls. That makes me laugh, just as it did when I was a girl. My eyes are only my eyes; people feel and think what they will. It has more to do with what is in their own hearts than with my eyes, I think. I am only me.
I smile as I speak, again. I remember another who spoke those words.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "The Fire in the Rock"
by .
Copyright © 2016 Charles Henderson Norman.
Excerpted by permission of CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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