The children of Israel said to them, "If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat, when we ate bread to     our fill! For you have brought us out into this desert, to starve this entire congregation to death." (Shemot 16:3)

 

It may be that at first they had thought that after a few days they would come to the cities round about them. Now that a month had gone by and they found no city of habitation, they said, "We will all die in the great wilderness into which we have come." This then is the meaning of the verse, And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, the murmuring being because of the wilderness. And so likewise the people said, For you have brought us out into this desert, to starve this entire congregation to death. Thus they mentioned "the wilderness" and "the congregation," therein stating that a large congregation such as this will undoubtedly die of hunger in this great wilderness. The Holy One, blessed be He, hearkened unto them, and He now began to prepare a table for them in the wilderness until they came to an inhabited land.

(RaMBaN Shemot 16:2, based on Chavel translation)

 

when we sat by pots of meat - R. Yehoshua says: The Israelites desired food.

R. Eliezer HaModa'i says: the Israelites had been slaves to kings in Egypt. They would go out to the market and take bread and meat and fish and everything and no one would complain. They would go out to the fields and take grapes and figs and pomegranates and everything and no one would complain.

R. Yossi says: Know that they only had them in the end [of the exile in Egypt]. That is why it says, and the kishu'im [squash] - for they were difficult [kasheh] for them to digest.

 For you have brought us out into this desert - They [the Israelites] told them [Moses and Aaron]: You brought us out into this desert [which is] an empty void.

 to starve this entire congregation to death - R. Yehoshua ben Karha says: No death is harsher than death by starvation, for it is said: Those who fell by the sword were better [off] than those who died of starvation, etc. (Lamentations 4:9). R. Eliezer HaModa'i says: In famine, famine comes upon us, famine after famine, pestilence after pestilence, darkness after darkness.

(Mekhilta DeRabbi Yishmael Beshalah - Massekhet DeVayissa 1)

 

Miriam - Mistress of Water

Mordechai Beck

Without Miriam there would have been no Jewish people. Had she not taken fate in her hands and saved her baby brother Moses, the national narrative of the Israelites would have been completely different - even assuming it could have survived the travails of Egypt.

Despite this accolade, the first born daughter of Amram and Yocheved - both from the house of Levi - warrants just a handful of appearances in the Biblical text - as the dutiful daughter and sister who organizes Moses' childhood, as the leader of the freed Israelite women who dance and sing at the miraculous occasion of the crossing the Sea of Reeds, and much later on, in the Book of Numbers, as the critic of her brother Moses. Her final appearance is at her death. With such scant sources it can be reasonably claimed that Miriam is indeed a marginal figure.

Just how marginal can be garnered from the fact that when she first appears she does so under an assumed Egyptian name - Shifra or Puah. Even here the sages can't decide if either of these 'Hebrew midwives' was Miriam; it is possible, they surmise, that the two ladies were Jocheved and her daughter-in-law Elisheva (Sota 12). During the crucial incident where she plays a leading role in saving her baby brother Moses, she is indifferently referred to as "his sister" (Exodus 2:4 et passim). Moreover in the first list of families and tribes her name is not even mentioned alongside her two brothers (Ex 6:20). The first time she is mentioned by name is after the crossing of the Sea of Reeds where she is introduced as "Miriam the prophetess, sister of Aaron" ( but pointedly not of Moses) who leads the Israelite womenfolk in song and dance after the miracle of the crossing.(Ex 15:20-21). Brother and sister appear again, in the same chronological order, where they criticize Moses for marrying the black woman (the Queen of Cush, Zipporah the Midianite? It doesn't seem to matter, suggests the text, they're only women) as a result of which God intervenes and smites Miriam with a seven-day leprosy; Moses prays for her recovery in the shortest prayer on record "Please God, heal her" (Numbers 12:1-16). Her final official appearance is the record of her demise (Numbers 20: 1-2) in Kadesh, an event followed ominously by the observation that there was no water for the people.

According to tradition she also appears under other pseudonyms including Efrat (1 Chronicles 2:19), Achrachel (ibid 4:8), Cha'ala and Na'ma (Ibd 4:5) as well as Yeriot and Azuvah (Chronicles). This plethora of names only makes her identity more complex, not to say obscure.

Neither does this obscurity end with her name. Her marriage status is never made clear in the Torah text. This has led some scholars to suggest that she remained single, pointing out that no family tree is ever attached to her name (whichever one is chosen) and may be this is the reason for the hinted names in the Book of Chronicles where they turn up inside long but hardly comprehensible chronologies.

Why she should deserve such a fate is difficult to understand. She was not only instrumental in saving the Jewish people from instant obliteration; she emerges as a major force within the people throughout her life. Not only is she the leader and teacher of the women (Targum Micha 6:4), she is the oldest of the three siblings whose cooperation is a model for the redeemed people.

Two possibilities at least open before us to explain this contrast between Miriam's obvious importance and the minuscule amount of text devoted to her.

One possibility is suggested by assorted academic scholars who view Miriam as a symbolic figure - a throw back to Egyptian priestesses or even female deities, one of whose major characteristics was music and dance. According to this version, she is a threat to the increasingly male dominated religious scenery and must be suppressed. Moses, too, is part of this new trend waving his rod over the element she most represents - water - splitting open the Sea of Reeds and thereafter striking the rock in order to force water out of it. Needless to say the psycho-analysts have a field day with this rod. The fact moreover that Moses is commanded by God to strike the Sea as well as the rock, demonstrates His own Divine approval of this male domination.

That Miriam is thus the prototype of the rebellious female is reinforced by the sages who speak of her as challenging her father Amram for submitting himself to the murderous decree of Pharaoh. He only wished to kill the male children of the Israelites, whereas Amram was encouraging all the Israelite men to divorce their wives. He sets an example by publicly divorcing his wife, thus encouraging the people to commit demographic suicide. While praising her boldness, the sages simultaneously suggest that Miriam is moving beyond herself, and that she is bound to suffer as a result. This is one of the reasons that she is unmarried - she frightens off the eligible bachelors, though Rashi (following the Midrash) says because she looked sickly, Rabbi Adin Shteinsaltz comes out and says more plainly - she's no beauty (Sotah 12a). It is only by an act of true altruism - for the sake of Heaven - that Caleb married her. This is wonderful and weird in that the Midrash relates that he marries the daughter of Pharaoh - another rebel against her father! Luckily for her marrying Caleb has a powerful impact on Miriam - transforming her into a beauty who excites only jealousy among her contemporaries. The frog becomes a princess.

When punishment comes, it is almost expected. She (with Aaron in tow) criticizes Moses for his treatment of his wife. This slight is dealt with by a shameful and public outbreak of leprosy ( in an earlier midrash this is what the daughter of Pharaoh - her Egyptian counterpart - is suffering from before she sees and/or touches baby Moses).Whatever sympathy she may have received from the womenfolk has seemingly vanished, since no one stands up for her. Even though her death is recorded there is no record of mourning.

The opposite view is also possible, though this is admittedly more from within the tradition. In this reading Miriam is the symbolic source of water and therefore of life itself. The letters of her name even suggest this ( mayim in Hebrew constitutes three of the four consonantal letters of her name) She is considered a prophet, foretelling the rise to prominence of the yet-to-be-born Moses . She helps nurture and raise him as well as other abandoned children (S. Rabbah). All this is undertaken beneath the oppressive regime of Pharaoh's Egypt. It may well be because of this regime that her identity is 'hidden'. She travels dangerously among her brethren, carrying aliases so as to disguise her true identity as well as her altruistic purpose. For a Miriam a name is not nearly as important as a good deed. This is her goal, not to acquire a name, but to sustain a people with acts of goodness, laced with music and dance - the symbols of the truly liberated woman - then and now.

Not only does Miriam symbolize water and life, she is its personification. Maybe this helps explain her apparent hiddenness. Like all of the basic elements of our existence it is so all-pervasive as to be "invisible," like the air we breathe. So with the water that we take for granted until it is absent - only then do we comprehend how dependent we are on its life-giving qualities. Thus with Miriam - when she dies the next verse states that the people lacked for water. It is only with her demise that the significance of the "well of Miriam" is appreciated in full. So it seems with great people who live hidden lives, humbly working away in the background and it is only with their passing that they are truly appreciated.

Mordechai Beck is a Jerusalem based writer and artist

 

 

A Lowly Soul Accepts Enslavement, a Lofty Soul Fights for Freedom

It is a cause for wonder that a huge camp of 600,000 men could fear its pursuers. Why did they not stand and fight for their lives and for the lives of their children? The answer is that the Egyptians were masters to Israel. The generation that had just left Egypt had learned to suffer the Egyptian yoke from its youth and its soul was debased. How could they now battle their masters? Israel was weak and untrained in war. See how Amalek came against them with a small number of people, yet, had it not been for Moses' prayer, they would have beaten Israel. It was God alone who did great things. He directed schemes, bringing it about that all of the males who left Egypt died, since they did not have the strength to fight the Canaanites until there arose a new generation in the desert, which had not experienced exile. They had a lofty soul, as I explained regarding Moses' speech in parashat Shemot.

(Ibn Ezra on Shemot 14:13)

 

Then Moses Sang - Then, Between Past, Present, and Future

Rabbi Meir said: Where do we find a source for resurrection in the Torah? It is written: Then Moses and the Children of Israel sang this song to God - it does not say shar ["sang"], but yashir ["will sing"]; this is the source for resurrection in the Torah.

(Sanhedrin 92b)

 

[The words which] the righteous use to censure, they later use to mend. Know that when Moses complained, with "Az" ("then") he complained, as is written u-me-az ("since") - Since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has dealt only ill with this people… (Shemot 5:23). Moses, I transgressed with az - with az I will mend and will praise with song. Therefore it says Az yashir Moshe - Then Moses sang.

(Midrash Tanhuma, Beshalah, 24)

 

The Difference between Commandments [Mitzvot], Character Traits [Middot], and Social Convention [Nimmusim].

Study of Torah policy reveals that the punishments meted out for violation of "nonrational" commandments [mitvot shema'iyot] - such as idolatry - are karet [extermination as a Divine punishment], stoning and other forms of death, and lashes. Such is not the case with offenses involving social civility and character - such as contention, defamation, gossip, robbery; these are never punished by flogging because they are [in the category] of lav ha'nitan le'tashlumim [a Biblical prohibition, which is resolved by monetary reparation] or lav she'ein bo ma'asah [a Biblical transgression which does not involve a physical act]. This applies only when an individual transgresses. When a community is corrupt, the opposite holds true - so we learn in the Yerushalmi, Peah: In David's generation, all were tzaddikim, righteous people, but because there were informers among them, there were casualties in battle. In Ahab's generation there were many idolaters, but because there were no informers, they would go down to do battle and win, for regarding a community corrupt with idolatry and sexual immorality, it is written, Who dwells with them in the midst of their impurities. But [regarding a community marked by] social transgressions, low character, slander and controversy, it is written, Exalt yourself over the heavens - as if to say, "Remove Your presence from them."

They went further and said that in the times of the First Temple, Jews engaged in idolatry and sexual immorality; [while] in the Second Temple they engaged in Torah and commandments, but [it was destroyed] because of baseless hatred. There they asked, "Who are the greater [the Jews of the First Temple or of the Second]" "Look at the Temple; it returned to the [Jews of the] First, [but not to the Jews of the Second]." Thus we see that a community corrupted by anti-social behavior is worse than a community corrupted by [violation of] commandments. Therefore Rabbi Yohanan said (Sanhedrin 108a): "Come and see how great is the power of violent wrongdoing [hamas]. The generation of the Deluge transgressed all the commandments, but they were not sentenced to annihilation until they began to rob, as is written (Bereishit 6:13): An end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violent wrongdoing." [When judged for] sexual offenses they were [still] considered to be a community, and He had mercy on them. But that cannot be so with social offenses. Sabbath desecration has become widespread - due to our sins - but [punishment] will be postponed because they are a community. Even with regard to idolatry the Sifri teaches and the soul will be cut off - but the community is not cut off. But since the ethical norms have been breached, and people go with swords and arrows to plunder and steal, and their characters are corrupt like beasts of prey, God will take revenge without delay.

(Meshekh Hokhma, Shemot 14:29)

 

"Measurement" and Virtues Contrasted with the Bursting of Boundaries that Invites External Threats

Why did it [the Torah] wait until now to explain the measure of the omer when it would have been appropriate to mention it earlier in connection with God's command, or with the command's fulfillment? It should have said the omer per head is a tenth of an eifah or and they measured according to the omer, which is a tenth of an eifah. The thing is that the whole passage deals with the manna, and only after it finished telling the story of the manna did it finally need to explain what the measure was. Or, it might be in order to juxtapose the measure with the events of Refidim: It is the way of the world that bountiful tranquility and beneficent treatment makes a person sloppy in his worship and causes him to grow weak in Torah. This does not happen if he gets only what is necessary and in moderation; that will strengthen him. The Torah comes to tell us that although Israel received only what was necessary and in moderation - each person receiving a tenth of an eifah of manna - they still became weak in Torah at Refidim, and so, Amalek came. Such is the connection between the two contiguous passages.

(Rabbeinu Behayeiy on Shemot 16:36)

 

Planting Trees Connects Humans with Eternity

And when you come to the land and you shall plant (Vayikra 19:23): The Holy One Blessed be He said to Israel: even though you find it full of all good things, do not say, "We shall rest and not plant." Rather, be careful to plant, for it says and you shall plant all fruit-bearing trees. Just as you entered [the Land of Israel] and found trees that others had planted, you too should plant for your children's sakes. A man should not say, "I am old, how many years do I have left to live, why am I wearying myself for others? Tomorrow I shall die." Solomon said He put the world [ha'olam] in their mind (Kohellet 3:11). It is written without the letter vav, [so that it can be read] hei'alem [caused to vanish]. What is this? If the Holy One blessed be He had not caused death to vanish from the human mind, a person would not build or plant, for he would say, "Tomorrow I die; why do I weary myself for others?" That is why the Holy One blessed be He hides the day of their death from the minds of humans, so that they will build. If he merits it, [that which a man builds] will be his. If he does not merit it, it shall be for others.

(Midrash Tanhuma Kedoshim 8)

 

 

 

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