(20) Then Miryam the prophetess, Aharon’s sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her, dancing with timbrels. (21) And Miryam chanted for them: Sing to Adonai, for He has triumphed gloriously; Horse and driver He has cast into the sea.
is of my aunt and cousin dancing in the kitchen
while singing Debbie Friedman's "Miriam's Song"
and playing their imaginary timbrels.
One of the things I love about the beginning of the book of Exodus
is the way that a group of women, 5 heroines,
lead the narrative,
each one taking the next necessary action
to ensure that Moshe survives to fulfill his future destiny.
The baby Moshe is passed off, from one woman to another,
in a depiction of women's leadership, collaboration, and partnership.
The Shabbat of Song
As we read the poem of celebration that the Children of IL
sang at the edge of the sea.
But it is tinged with a bit of regret.
I opened with the two verses that the Torah offers about
Miryam the prophetess
who led the women in song and dance.
But it's often been noted
that we only learn one line of Miryam's song.
Was there not more?!
And even that one line is a paraphrase
of the first line of the longer poem led by Moshe!
The book that began with a narrative primarily about women
now appears so lop-sided,
and will only become more so from this point on.
though unfortunately more that exacerbate it.
I'd like to offer just one sentiment that is helpful to me
in thinking about how to read Torah more inclusively.
It is from the רבי משה אלשיך
born in Turkey and writing in 16th c. צפת
He opens his commentary on this verse:
הוצרכה ליקח התוף לעורר הכח הנבואיי לשורר מה ששוררו אנשים באמצעות משה ששוררו כאחד כי גם הם בכח שפע רוח הקדש אמרוה...
She [Miryam] needed to take the timbrel to arouse the prophetic power in order to sing
as the men had sung through Moshe as one,
for they [the men] too said it [the song] while endowed with the divine spirit of inspiration.
to arouse prophecy in II Kings Ch. 3 (15),
making clear that when the women achieved prophecy
through their percussion and dancing at the sea,
they were following an established and accepted practice.
What interests me here
is the idea that there might be two avenues for inspiration:
- One is Moshe, the giver of Torah
- The other, it the physical embodiment of music and dance, harnessed by Miryam and the women
As a culture, we tend to emphasize Moshe,
Torah, the written word,
as core to our religious path.
But that must always be married with a less obvious source of inspiration:
the myriad ways that explicit ideas and stories are lived out implicitly,
in music, in dance, in food, in informal/non-codified practices,
in attitudes, in the ways we express emotion,
the subtle ways we communicate with each other,
in the larger world of context, ambience, intention, expression.
Not only will a conscious embrace of Miryam's inspiration enrich our lives
but my hunch is that it will provide us a means of hearing
the subtle voices of the many women who were not written into the tradition.
הוצרכה ליקח התוף לעורר הכח הנבואיי לשורר מה ששוררו אנשים באמצעות משה ששוררו כאחד כי גם הם בכח שפע רוח הקדש אמרוה כמדובר למעלה ומה גם לאומרים מרז"ל כי תיכף לשירת האנשים שוררו הנשים קודם למלאכי השרת וע"כ הוצרכה לעורר בתוף כענין (שמואל א' י"ו) והיה כנגן המנגן לו' השיר' גם ברוח הקדש כי הוא גדר נבואה בהקיץ אשר הוא למעלה מגדרה ע"כ עשתה הכנה כדי שיחול בה גדר זה כאנשים ואז ותצאנה כל הנשים אחריה כי אמרו כי כאשר כל האנשים בחברת משה התנבאו גם המה למעלה מגדר' כן הנשים בחברת מרים אלא שאמרו בלבם כי סוף סוף אין הכנת האנשים שוה לנשים ע"כ אמרו אם כלי שיר א' תצטרך מרים לעורר הנבואה הוא התוף אנו נצטרך שנים ע"כ לקחו תופים ומחולות ועכ"ז לא שוה להן להיות מדברות ברוח הקדש כאנשים. שלא הוצרך משה ללמד להם מה שיאמרו כ"א ותען להם מרים שירו לה׳ כו' כי הופיע עליה רוה"ק והיתה אומרת להן שירו כו' והן אומרת על פיה וגם לא כאנשים שאמרו ל' יחיד אשירה לה׳ שבכל אחד היה כדאי כ"א שירו כלכם דרך כלל:
ותקח. כבר אמרו חז"ל שבזכות נשים צדקניות יצאו ישראל ממצרים, שנשי הדור ההוא היה להם זכות יותר מן האנשים...
We need to understand why the prophetic spirit was entrusted to a woman rather than to a man. Actually, there is hardly anything surprising in this; after all woman is as much part of the species as is man. Did not the Torah refer to both of them as אדם in Genesis 5,2? Our sages (Megillah 14) claim that Sarah was not inferior to Miriam in her prophetic qualities seeing the Torah refers to her as יסכה (Genesis 11,29) which means means that she saw things with her Holy Spirit. Shemot Rabbah 1,1 claims that the word in Genesis 21,12 where G’d told Avraham to listen to all that Sarah would tell him prove that as a prophet Avraham was junior to Sarah. This is the view of the Midrash. The fact is that the Torah itself does not mention prophecy in connection with a woman until Miriam. The reason that this is the time the matter of Miriam’s prophecy was revealed is either to teach us that she possessed this gift prior to Moshe’ birth or because the Torah wanted to wait with telling us this until the Shechinah itself had been exiled. The Torah wanted to allude to the statement we have already quoted that the quality of the prophetic visions granted even to women at the bottom of the social register at the time of the crossing of the sea surpassed that of the visions granted to the great prophet Ezekiel. Hence the Torah saw fit to record that not only Miriam but all her colleagues broke out in song and dance praising the Lord. The Midrash (Mechilta Shirah 3) means that Miriam and her colleagues broke out in that song spontaneously; they did not paraphrase the words Moses had composed but composed their own.
In another chamber, Yocheved comes, the mother of Moshe the faithful prophet, and so many thousands and thousands of women with her. In this chamber, there is no announcement at all, but three times each day, she acknowledges and praises the Ruler of the world, she and all the women with her. They sing the Song of the Sea every day, and she herself recites from "And Miriam the Prophet...took her timbrel in her hand..." (Shmot 15:20). And all these righteous women there in Gan Eden listen to her pleasant voice, and so many holy angels acknowledge and praise the holy Name with her.