The Day Miriam Died
A New Midrash for Parashat Chukat
Dear Friends,
This week, in parashat chukat, Miriams dies and frankly, it’s underwhelming. So, I am bringing you some original midrash preceded by a discussion of what the heck midrash even is. Enjoy and thanks all for being here.
Love, Meg
What Is This Story Not Telling Me?
What was the conversation at the dinner table the evening before Yocheved put Moses in the basket and sent him down the Nile? Did everyone agree this was the thing to do? Were there other ideas floated around? It’s hard to believe this was just the objectively obvious thing to do.
Torah has a lot of gaps – gaps in narrative and logic and emotion and time. You can think of these like potholes in a road or holes in a wall. Luckily, we know how to fill a hole in a story. We fill it in with another story. This story spackle is what we call Midrash. There are tons of midrashim you might be familiar with. Each one sets out to answer questions and add texture to Torah. Take for example the famous story of Abraham and the idols:
Bereishit Rabbah 38:13
Rabbi Hiyya the grandson of Rabbi Adda of Yaffo [said]: Terah was a worshipper of idols. One time he had to travel to a place, and he left Abraham in charge of his store. When a man would come in to buy [idols], Abraham would ask: How old are you? They would reply: fifty or sixty. Abraham would then respond: Woe to him who is sixty years old and worships something made today - the customer would be embarrassed, and would leave. A woman entered carrying a dish full of flour. She said to him: this is for you, offer it before them. Abraham took a club in his hands and broke all of the idols, and placed the club in the hands of the biggest idol. When his father returned, he asked: who did all of this? Abraham replied: I can't hide it from you - a woman came carrying a dish of flour and told me to offer it before them. I did, and one of them said 'I will eat it first,' and another said 'I will eat it first.' The biggest one rose, took a club, and smashed the rest of them. Terah said: what, do you think you can trick me? They don't have cognition! Abraham said: Do your ears hear what your mouth is saying?
This story is created to answer the question “why did God choose Abraham?” According to this story, the answer seems to be that Abraham was particularly suspicious of idols and was willing to destroy them (even if they belonged to his own father) while educating people along the way. This story argues that Abraham was the right guy to be dubbed First Hebrew Patriarch.
Writing midrash is like writing Torah fan fiction. But it can also be a way to right wrongs. Well, maybe not right wrongs, but reclaim Jewish literary space so incredibly dominated over the millennia by men in power. To give Torah a new voice.
The following section includes new and original midrash inspired by the question: what is this story not telling me?
The Day Miriam Died
Was there really no public mourning for Miriam after she died, or did it just not make it into the story? When Miriam the Prophet finally dies in The Book Of Numbers, all we get is this:
The Israelites arrived in a body at the wilderness of Zin on the first new moon, and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died there and was buried there. The community was without water, and they joined against Moses and Aaron (Numbers 20:1-2).
This is Miriam we are talking about. The one who saved Moses’ life and led us in celebration through the sea. Our water-bearing mother is gone. She was a sustainer and when she dies, as the legend goes, the well that followed her disappears.
Taanit 9a:9
The well was given to the Jewish people in the merit of Miriam; the pillar of cloud was in the merit of Aaron; and the manna in the merit of Moses. When Miriam died the well disappeared, as it is stated: “And Miriam died there” (Numbers 20:1), and it says thereafter in the next verse: “And there was no water for the congregation” (Numbers 20:2). But the well returned in the merit of both Moses and Aaron.
And at least we learn that Miriam had the honor of dying by “divine kiss” and not the Angel of Death. See as follows:
Bava Batra 17a:3
The Sages taught: There were six people over whom the Angel of Death had no sway in their demise, and they are: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam....Isaac, and Jacob, as it is written with regard to them, respectively: “With everything,” “from everything,” “everything”; since they were blessed with everything they were certainly spared the anguish of...the Angel of Death....Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, as it is written with regard to them that they died “by the mouth of the Lord,” which indicates that they died with a kiss, and not at the hand of the Angel of Death.
Moed Katan 28a
With regard to that same verse Rabbi Elazar said further: Miriam also died by the divine kiss, just like her brother Moses...With regard to Moses it says: “So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab by the mouth of the Lord” (Deuteronomy 34:5). For what reason was it not explicitly stated with regard to her, as it is stated with regard to Moses, that she died “by the mouth of the Lord”? It is because it would be unseemly to say such a thing, that a woman died by way of a divine kiss, and therefore it is not said explicitly.
But what happened that day? Was she alone off on a walk and suddenly stricken down? Was she at home in bed, ready to go? What will proceed is an original midrash attempting an answer.
It was a dawn like any other. The sun was about to peek through the dark sky, the animals were rustling, and the babies were crying and cooing. The only thing different about that day was that it would be my last. The night before, the Angel Lailah appeared to me in a dream. “Do you not recognize me?” she asked. I did, but in a deja vu sort of way. I knew why she was there though – why she had shown her face to me, finally, since I first met her. I think I’d known for a while. Call it intuition. My time was coming to an end. “You will be leaving here in the morning,” Lailah said. “Right when the sun is fully visible over the horizon, The Source of Life that gave you this go around on Earth will relieve you of it with a kiss.”
I wasn’t scared. In fact, I was perfectly at ease. As an elderly woman, walking round and round this desert only gets harder and harder. I get slower and the new ones – the kids who will inherit our dream – get faster.
In full honesty, I’ll confess. I had been praying for this mercy to arrive soon.
As the sun started rising I contemplated if I should call my loved ones to me. Did I want to be surrounded in my final moments? But as soon as I asked I knew the answer: I already was – my mother’s face flashed in my memory, then those left in Egypt. The breeze was warm. The smell was faintly of fire in the distance.
Judging by the sky I had no more than ten minutes and I figured I’d spend those last breaths in song. So I did. I hummed and sang with my eyes open, gazing up until the sky turned bright and I felt the slightest cool tingle on my lips.
And after I died, they found me lying on my mat with my palms facing up and my eyes closed. They wept and sang. The people circled my body like ripples. In time, every single Israelite was there. Their tears painted the rocky ground. And though my heat left my body quickly, my spirit lingered a moment to share in the moment.
Moses asked for volunteers to bury me outside the campsite, and ten young women volunteered: descendants of Dinah. They took me, tenderly in their arms, and sang as they walked me to my final resting spot. After I was returned to the dust, they each took out their canteens and dripped a drop on my grave. Like they were watering my story. As if to say, in time, this too will blossom. I always did believe in miracles.
Yashar Koach!
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