Nehar Deah

Beha’alotecha

Moses, Aaron and Miriam - Siblings, Leaders and Rivals

Moses, Aaron and Miriam were siblings, as is written “and [Yocheved] bore to Amram Aaron and Moses and Miriam their sister” (Bamidbar 26:59 [and see also Shemot 6:20 and Chronicles I 23:13]). And which of these brought Israel out of Egypt? According to a tradition which has been preserved in the prophecies of Micha, it was all three: “For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt and from the house of bondage I redeemed you and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam” (6:4). According to another tradition, only Moses and Aaron brought Israel out of Egypt: “You lead your people like sheep by the hand of Moses and Aaron” (Tehillim 77:21 and see also Yehoshua 24:5). There is no need to state that these two traditions clash with the central tradition of the Torah, which tells of Moses being the sole leader who brought Israel out of Egypt.

The story in this Torah portion (Bamidbar 12) differs from all these traditions in that it describes an open conflict between the siblings over the leadership. Miriam and Aaron are defeated and Miriam is punished.

The story of this incident begins with Miriam and Aaron’s jealousy of Moses and their public criticism of his virtues: “And Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses about the Cushi [Translator’s note: this is usually translated as ‘Ethiopian’ or ‘black’] woman he took, because he took a Cushi woman and they said, ‘Did God only speak with Moses, did he not speak with us too?’ And God heard” (verse 1-2). Miriam’s preface to Aaron teaches that Miriam was the dominant instigator in the uprising against Moses. This can also be learnt from the description of the significant anger directed against her (verse 14) and the magnitude of her punishment.

Miriam and Aaron voiced two complaints against Moses: the issue of the Cushi woman he took and the issue of equality of prophecy. The claim against of the Cushi woman is against Moses’ leadership, since a deficiency has been found in him, and the claim of equality is against the status of Moses as having the sole right to speak in the name of God. The claim of equality reflects the unique phenomenon of “family prophecy”, in which all the siblings of a family are prophets.

The issue of the Cushi woman is unclear. It is not clear from the story who the Cushi woman is. Is it Tzippora or is it another woman, and why and under what circumstances did Moses take her? It seems that here we have a hint of a well developed literary tradition that was know to a number of people, but was not preserved in the Bible (but maybe continued to exist and found its way to post-biblical literature, such as the writings of Yosef ben Matityahu). What is clear is that the Bible criticizes the fact that Miriam and Aaron spoke out against Moses and thereby acted against God’s wishes.

Moses does not respond to the attempts to question his status as a prophet and leader. It is not even stated that he heard the words of his brother and sister. The one who heard was God (Bamidbar 12:2) and it is He who responded and decided the outcome of the dispute. The narrative explains Moses’ silence as extreme modesty, “and the man Moses was more modest then any other man who was on the face of the earth” (verse 3).

The greatness of Moses’ modesty is apparent from a comparison to the story of the prophecy of Eldad and Meidad which precedes it (Bamidbar 11). When Eldad and Meidad prophesize in the camp, Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ disciple, calls out: “My master Moses, incarcerate them” (verse 28), and Moses answers him: “'Are you zealous for my sake? Would that all God’s people were prophets, that God would put His spirit in them” (verse 29). Miriam and Aaron’s act is more extreme than that of Eldad and Meidad in that this time the questioning of Moses’ unique status as a prophet does not come from strangers but from his family.

According to the narrative, God reveals himself to Miriam and Aaron at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting and puts them in their place in terms of Moses superiority over them and over all other prophets. Moses merited to be called “my servant” by God and it is even said of him that “he is trusted in all my house; I speak with him mouth to mouth, with clear vision, and not in riddles; and he sees the image of God” (12:7-8). God became angry with Miriam and Aaron (verse 9) because they questioned the required order of subordination. They were supposed to be subordinate to Moses, who in turn was subordinate to God, and should not have stood up against him. They had to learn the correct order the hard way: Miriam was struck with leprosy and in order to save her Aaron needs to ask Moses to pray for her to God. The correct path is from the lower to the higher: from Miriam via Aaron to Moses, and from Moses to God.

Miriam’s punishment is immediate: “And the cloud move away from over the tent and behold Miriam was covered with leprosy like snow” (verse 10). [Translators note: the disease tzara’at is usually translated as leprosy and this convention is used here, but the biblical descriptions of this disease bear little similarity to the modern day disease by that name.] Miriam spoke out against the black (Cushi woman) and was punished with white (leprosy). Half her flesh was eaten by it. Her illness was so severe that she became nothingness. The laws of leprosy in the book of Devarim state: “Remember what God did to Miriam along the way when you went out of Egypt” (24:9). This punishment is meant to serve as a warning to whosoever tries to question Moses’ leadership.

Aaron is described by the narrative of this Torah portion as being close to Miriam. He spoke out against Moses together with her; paid attention to the leprosy and was aware of her distress; admitted his part in the sin (“And Aaron said to Moses: 'My lord, please do not account this sin to us, for we have done foolishly and we have sinned.” [verse 11]); he came to her aid with an impassioned plea to Moses that he save her (“Let her [Miriam] not be like a dead person whose flesh is half eaten when he comes out of his mother’s womb” [verse 12]). Moses acceded to his request (with a short prayer, “God please, save her please” [verse 13]), but it is difficult not to pay attention to the differences in content, style and length between Aaron’s plea and Moses’ prayer.

The connection between Miriam and Aaron, and Miriam’s standpoint as a prophetess and leader appear in another tradition about Miriam. In the Song of the Sea, Miriam is presented as “Aaron’s sister” and as “a prophetess”: “And Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took the drum in her hand and all the women went out after her with drums and dances. And Miriam answered them: Sing to God, for He is greatly exalted: He has thrown horse and its rider into the sea” (Shemot 15:20-21).

An early hint of these leadership struggles can possibly be seen in the story of the birth of Moses. Moses is the only one among the three siblings for which there is a story of his birth (Shemot 2:1-10). The story opens with the classic formula for the beginning of a successful marriage: “A man went … and he took … and the woman became pregnant and she gave birth to a son” (verses 1-2). From this wording we could conclude that Moses is the firstborn, but from the continuation of the story it becomes clear that he has an older sister (verse 4), that interpretive tradition identifies with Miriam, while Aaron, even though he is older than Moses (Shemot 7:7) is not even mentioned in the story. Therefore the problem arises of how to explain the fact that the narrative presents Moses as the firstborn even though he had older siblings. Various solutions to this problem have been suggested. There are those who gave this story a creative solution: Moses was the firstborn of Amram and Yocheved, while Miriam and Aaron are children of Amram from a previous marriage. There are those who gave this story a stylistic solution: the Bible “compresses” these events in order to focus on Moses. However it is likely that the solution can be found in the area of the polemics within the Bible on the question of who redeemed Israel from Egypt. Presenting Moses as the firstborn, ignoring Aaron and concealing the name of Miriam were aimed at presenting Moses as the one and only person to which the task of redeeming Israel from slavery in Egypt, was given and not to Aaron or Miriam.

Dr Leah Mazor
Bible Studies Department

Geography - “Miriam’s Well”

We can also learn of the important place in Jewish tradition throughout the ages which Miriam, Moses’ sister, held from the traditions which deal with “Miriam’s Well”. In the Tosefta, a composition from the third century, brings Miriam, together with Moses and Aaron, as those in whose merit the children of Israel merited to receive certain gifts, such as the manna falling from heaven. In Miriam’s merit, the Tosefta states (Sotah 11:1), a wondrous well accompanied the children of Israel which provided them with water. The Tosefta continues (Succah 3:11) and describes the well in the following words: “there was a well … like a rock full of holes, trickled and rose like the water of this small jug, it ascended mountains with them and descended to the valleys with them … the princes of Israel surrounded it with their staffs and recited over it the song ‘Rise up well and answer her, rise up well and answer her’ [see Bamidbar 21:17] and it bubbled and rose upwards like a pillar”.

What happened to Miriam’s well after her death. According to the Tosefta (ibid), in Moses’ merit the well continued to accompany the children of Israel, until they reached the land of Canaan, when it became hidden. Where did the well hide and with what waters did its waters mingle. A number of answers are given to this question in the literature of the sages. According to one “Rabbi Chiyya said: whoever wishes to see Miriam’s Well - should go up to the top of the Carmel and look out and they will see a type of sieve in the sea” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 35a) and according to the other the well sank into the Kinneret Sea (Sea of Galilee), “the Sea of Tiberius”, as is told in Midrash Vayikra Rabba (25:5): “It happened that someone who suffered from boils went down to immerse in the waters in Tiberius and it was a opportune time and he saw Miriam’s Well and washed in it and was healed”. The Midrash continues and asks “where is Miriam’s Well?” and answers: “that whoever ascends Mount Yesimon [=a mountain in the lower Galilee that has not been conclusively identified] and sees a type of sieve in the sea - this is Miriam’s Well”. The Midrash also tells that the well is to be found immediately opposite the main entrance to the ancient synagogue of Tiberius. According to this explanation the well did not abandon the nation of Israel and continued to contribute from its wondrous powers even after the biblical period, until the times of the sages.

We would not be surprised then to discover that the well continued travel along with the children of Israel, even in much later times. This we find in a story brought in the book “Likutim Shonim (Various Collections)” (Frankfurt 5642): “It happened that someone suffered from boils and his wife went after the Sabbath to draw water and waited an hour … and she happened to get water from Miriam’s Well … when she came to her husband he was angry with her. He said to her ‘where have you been?’ and she was so angry that her pitcher fell from her shoulder and her pitcher broke and drop fell on his flesh and in every place that the drops touched him he was healed.” It seems that this story reflects a tradition known to us from the writings of the Jews of France and Germany from the fourteenth century - to go out after the Sabbath to draw water, out of a belief that it is then that the wells fill up with water from Miriam’s Well, which, during the rest of the week is found in the Kinneret.

Miriam’s Well has therefore carried out an important task during the history of the nation of Israel: in its merit the children of Israel quenched their thirst in the wilderness; it symbolizes the continuity between the wilderness period and the settlement in the land of Israel and even links between the land of Israel and the diaspora by transferring the healing powers in its waters.

Characters - Yosef ben Matityahu

Yosef ben Matityahu (or by his Roman name: Josephus Flavius), Jewish historian and military leader, lived and worked in the first century CE. According to his own writings, he was born to a Jerusalemite priestly family and his mother had blood ties to the Hasmonean family. Already at an early age he gained significant status and at age 26 he joined a mission that traveled to redeem Jewish prisoners from Rome. When the Jews in the land of Israel prepared for the “Great Revolt” against the Romans, in the seventh decade of the first century, Yosef was appointed commander of the Galilee. It was a surprising decision as he was young and inexperienced, and was even known to have a favorable attitude to the Romans. However, it is likely that it was specifically this attitude at allowed his appointment, since it suited the moderate line that the leadership of the first revolt wanted to take. Almost immediately at the beginning of the revolt, when Vespasian arrived with his army in Israel, the besieged cities of the Galilee fell to him. Yosef ben Matityahu holed himself up in Yodfat and after its fall he fled to a cave with about forty people where they decided to kill themselves and they drew lots to decide who would be the last to die. Yosef ben Matityahu remained with the last fighter and persuaded him to fall into the hands of the Roman, who allowed him to remain alive and eventually even brought him to Rome. Why did the Romans not kill Yosef? How did he remain alive? Did he in fact lead the revolt in the most effective manner? We cannot answer all these questions, nor describe his character, since everything we know about Yosef are the things he himself wrote.

In Rome Yosef gained the patronage of the Caesar and he was even allowed citizenship, something which can be seen in the new name he took for himself. His situation was not comfortable since he was a Jew in Roman surrounding after the revolt and also because the local Jewish society related to him with contempt and saw him as a traitor. His situation is reflected in the four books he wrote in Greek, during the years he lived in Rome, up till his death around the year 100 CE.

(a) “War of the Jews” - a comprehensive description of the revolt, which, if reading between the lines, can be seen as a call not to revolt against the Romans;
(b) “Antiquities of the Jews” - the story of the history of the Jewish nation from the creation of the world till Yosef’s times, a composition which presents Judaism, its heroes and its Torah to the gentile world.
(c) “The Life of Yosef” - autobiography;
(d) “Against Apion” - a responsa which comes to defend Judaism against claims made by anti-semites in the Greco-Roman world.

With respect to Moses, Yosef tells (Antiquities of the Jews 2:10), among other things, about a war that Moses fought as head of the Egyptian army against the Cushim. During this war Moses revealed his military prowess and he dealt the Cushim a crippling blow and forced them under siege. It was there that the daughter of the king of Cush , named Tharbis, saw him from the wall and she was struck with a great love for him. She suggested to Moses that he marry her and she in return would surrender to city to him. This in fact happened and Moses returned to Egypt with the Cushi princess at his side. Is it possible that Yosef presents to us a possible version of a very ancient tradition whereby Moses is associated with a “Cushi woman”, a tradition that the Torah also hints at? We will never know for sure, but the possibility certainly exists.