without, however, denying its validity entirelysomething the Rabbis apparently could not have accomplished given its widespread authority.
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God's condemnation of Miriam and Aaron is explicitly put into terms that emphasize the exceptional nature of the relationship between Moses and God. Miriam and Aaron seem to be proposing that since they have the same status as Moses, having also spoken with God, either they should also refrain from sex or he should not. God's rebuke to them consists of a very strong statement that Moses is specialindeed, unique. There will be other prophets, just like Miriam and Aaron, but to them God will speak in dreams and visions. They, accordingly, are not required to refrain from sexual intercourse. Even the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, were not expected or allowed to be celibate. Only Moses, with whom God spoke "mouth to mouth"in itself, a highly erotic attributeonly he was required to withdraw from marital life. He is either only slightly below the angels or even more spiritual than they, and no other human being was ever like him. It would follow, of course, a fortiori, that mortals lesser than the Patriarchs, prophets, and Moses's siblings, whatever the degree of holiness to which they aspire, are not expected to be celibate. I read the midrashic text, then, as a form of opposition to the received tradition that Moses was a celibate husband. To neutralize the force of this authoritative motif, the midrash simultaneously cites it and contests it by marginalizing it as the practice expected of, and permitted to, only Moses in all of history. Thus the midrash manages both to remain faithful to a powerful received tradition and at the same time to counter it. When this point is combined with the vivid expression of empathy with the neglected wife of the "prophet" who opts for celibacy, we have a robust polemical statement against the sort of practice that the Babylonian Rabbis engaged in (or at any rate, say they engaged in) of leaving their wives for years on end without sexual companionship.
47
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Once more, comparing the Babylonian version of this tradition with the Palestinian text just read will reinforce this point. In the Babylonian Talmud, the story is cited thus:
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 | | Moses separated himself from his wife. What did he reason? He reasoned for himself by a syllogism (
Qal wehomer
). He said: If to Israel,
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| | 47. The dating of the midrash is contested. Paradoxically, I am among those who are inclined to regard it as earlier than the Babylonian Talmud, in which case it could hardly be a polemic against the practice that I am claiming was instituted by the
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(footnote continued on the next page)
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