For this week's episode, Jaz and Lulav are joined by guest Julia Franco. Julia introduces us to Tzipporah's gay dads and Miriam's skin condition, Lulav reclaims the word pascal, there are continuity errors, the priests form a long daisy chain of b...
Kosher Queers is a parsha study podcast, and this week, I’m featured on it! You can check out the above link to hear my thoughts on Behaalotecha, continuity errors, and divine leadership versus human leadership.
As lamps give light
and clouds uncover
listen to my words.
Is Miriam your prophet
that you come to her
in wakefulness, speak mouth
to mouth, pour her water?
Why, then, did you spit
in her face, send her away,
whiten her skin like snow?
Please, heal her, I pray.
Now we journey on
listen to my words.
In this week's parsha, Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, initially refuses to go with the Israelites to the Land. (Numbers 10:29-32)
For a convert, the reason Rashi gives has a sting- Jethro only converted because he thought proselytes had a portion in the Land. Now he has discovered otherwise, he does not wish to travel with the Israelites any longer.
The source for this assertion is Sifrei Bamidbar 78:3, "proselytes have no portion in it".
The word here used is גרים - "gerim". In modern day terms, a convert, but referring elsewhere to "strangers" or "immigrants".
Rashi implies that Jethro's conversion was insincere, that he was a nomad who simply wanted land of his own. But ultimately, despite the assertions of Sifrei Bamidbar, Jethro has his share, which is passed down to his descendants.
As a convert, I am wary of us-and-them situations- indeed, the Torah insists upon kindness to גרים no fewer than 36 times. This short passage sparks great discussion, but ultimately the end is the same: Jethro goes with the Israelites and when they pass into the Land, a portion is given to his descendants.
May I ask about something I’ve read regarding Miriam? Is it true that she made a racist remark against Tzipporah, and that’s why she wasn’t allowed into the Promised Land? I could be totally misunderstanding something, but I do remember reading that. Thank you!
I hope you're prepared for a 2000 word answer, because this is a complicated question about a difficult passage. Content warnings for violence, non-explicit discussions of sex, and (maybe) racism.
The incident you're talking about happens in Numbers/Bamidbar 12. Here's what the text says, quoting from the translation by Everett Fox, skipping over some verses that aren’t relevant to the question, and anglicizing Fox’s spellings of names for clarity:
12:1 “Now Miriam spoke, and Aaron, against Moses on account of the Cushite wife that he had taken in marriage, for a Cushite wife he had taken.
12:2 They said: ‘Is it only, solely through Moses that YHWH speaks? Is it not also through us that he speaks?’ And YHWH heard.
12:5 And YHWH descended in a column of cloud and stood at the entrance to the Tent; he called out: ‘Aaron and Miriam!’ and the two of them went out.
12:10 When the cloud turned away from above the Tent, here: Miriam has tzaraat like snow!”
Tzaraat is usually translated as leprosy, but this is a bad translation. What you need to know is that tzaraat is an affliction sometimes caused by angering G-d and, as in this case, it can turn a person’s skin white.
If you're not confused yet, you should be, because this passage gives a lot of confusing information. Why is Moses's wife referred to as a Cushite, when before Tzipporah was called a Midianite? Why is Miriam punished while Aaron isn't? What was their problem with the "Cushite wife" in the first place? Why does the text say that Aaron and Miriam were speaking about Moses's wife, but then the rest of their dialogue is about their roles as prophets?
I'm breaking this down into a series of questions and explanations for better readability.
Question 1: Is the Cushite woman Tzipporah?
You'll notice that the "Cushite wife" isn't named. So the first question we have to answer is, are Miriam and Aaron even talking about Tzipporah? Or has Moses married another woman? (Polygamy would have been fairly normal in this place and time.)
Previously, Tzipporah was described as a Midianite, which would suggest that this is a different woman. However, today we don't know exactly where Midian was. We're not even sure that it was a place; it might have referred to a collection of tribes instead. "Cush" is generally assumed to mean modern Ethiopia, but that's not totally clear either.
It's possible that there was some overlap between Cush and Midian. Maybe the Midianites were a tribe of people living in Cush, or maybe Midian was an area in the larger territory of Cush. This might be the Bronze Age equivalent of saying "Tzipporah was from Texas" and then later saying "Tzipporah was from Houston."
Most Torah commentaries agree that this person is Tzipporah and that’s my interpretation too. For ease of discussion, I will continue referring to her as Tzipporah.
Question 2: Were Aaron and Miriam equally at fault for this situation?
In your question, you mentioned reading that it was Miriam who "made a racist remark," but as you'll notice from the passage, both Miriam and Aaron spoke. What you would miss if you only read this text in English, however, is that in Hebrew, verbs are gendered. In this case, the verb for "spoke" is gendered feminine. Normally, if you were referring to something done by both a woman and a man, you would use the masculine form of the verb.
Why doesn't that happen here? One traditional explanation is that it was Miriam who initiated the discussion. She went to Aaron first and persuaded him to join her in her complaint. Aaron has a history of acceding to what others want (see: the thing with the Golden Calf), which I think is very Hufflepuff of him. Meanwhile, Miriam has a history of taking leadership and persuading others to go along with her plans (see: convincing Pharaoh's daughter to adopt Moses, or leading the Hebrew women in a song of victory after crossing the Red Sea). So this explanation is perfectly in character. Either only Miriam said the part about Tzipporah, or both Aaron and Miriam said it, but Miriam was the instigator. A more fun explanation is that Aaron is trans and prefers feminine pronouns, but I don't know of any other passages that support that reading and in any case, that would be a subject for a different post.
Question 3: Was this about race?
First off, I'll point out that no one in this story would be considered white today. Miriam, Aaron and Moses would be considered Mizrahi Jewish or Middle Eastern by today's standards, while Tzipporah would be considered... well, again, we don't know where Midian was, but Middle Eastern, Ethiopian, or specifically Beta Israel would all be valid modern guesses.
That said, racism can absolutely exist between different people of color. Midianites and Hebrews would have seen each other as different people, if not different races. And there are lots of examples of violence flaring up between those two groups. In Genesis/Bereshit 37:28, Midianites enslave the young Joseph. In Numbers/Bamidbar 31, the Israelites launch a war against the Midianites. In a particularly violent scene from Numbers/Bamidbar 25:8, a Midianite woman and an Israelite man are killed for sleeping together.
So, it's totally plausible that Miriam was being racist. This would explain why Tzipporah’s race is highlighted twice with the repetition of the phrase “Cushite wife.” It would also explain why G-d chooses to punish Miriam specifically with tzaraat. The affliction is described as making her skin look "like snow," i.e. unnaturally white. This might be G-d's way of saying, "You think skin color matters so much? Okay. Let's see how you feel about your skin color now." Rabbi Rick Jacobs interprets the story this way, and has a very good talk about it in this podcast episode.
However, racism isn't the only explanation for what's going on here.
Question 4: Why the abrupt change of subject halfway through the complaint?
As I mentioned above, the text at first says that Miriam was speaking "on account of the Cushite wife." But then the very next line from her and Aaron is, "Is it only, solely through Moses that YHWH speaks? Is it not also through us that he speaks?” Which is a total non-sequitur. Imagine saying to your sibling, "I hate your girlfriend, and also, you’re not that special. Dad gives us special treatment too."
One explanation is that the real issue all along was the issue of leadership. Jenna Reback on an episode of the podcast Bad Jew Weekly says, “The ostensible reason that Miriam and Aaron had for talking badly about Moses wasn’t actually the root of their problem… They’re like, “Ugh, he married this Cushite woman.” And then they really get into what’s actually bothering them, which is that they should be more celebrated by people and by G-d because G-d has spoken to them too. In a way, I think this is one of the reasons that G-d is so mad at them, because they don’t actually just level their complaint… Miriam and Aaron are kind of being surreptitious and saying one thing but meaning another and talking behind closed doors…Miriam and Aaron don’t have the guts to just say it outright.”
In this reading, Miriam at first tries to hide her true intentions, possibly out of shame, or possibly to delegitimize Moses ("How can he lead us when he didn't marry a woman from our people!") before admitting to her real problem. This would explain why her punishment from G-d is harsher. Not only did she criticize her brother; she wasn't even upfront about what her criticism was!
But there's another explanation that ties these two threads together. According to commentary from Chizkuni and Rashi, Miriam spoke "on account of the Cushite wife" not to disparage her, but to help her. They interpret the repetition of “wife” to mean that while Tzipporah was being a good wife, Moses was not being a good husband. He had become too wrapped up in the responsibility of leading his people and stopped paying attention to Tzipporah. From Chizkuni’s commentary: “’Miriam and Aaron spoke out critically against Moses;’ how did either of them know that Moses had separated from his wife? They had both noted that Tzipporah no longer wore the jewelry she had been in the habit of wearing. Miriam asked Tzipporah why she no longer wore that jewelry. Tzipporah replied that it was because Miriam’s brother (Moses) did not pay any attention to her jewelry. This was a hint that he had separated from her. She told Aaron about this and they talked about that situation criticizing him.”
I should point out that the language used here is euphemistic; the implication of “separated” is that Moses and Tzipporah were no longer having sex. Tzipporah was upset about this, and Miriam was angry on her behalf. It’s kind of like that one scene in Brooklyn 99.
Let’s revisit the line, “Is it not also through us that he speaks?” According to Exodus/Shemot 6:23, Aaron was married to Elisheva. No spouse is named for Miriam in the Torah, but one midrashic tradition says that she married Caleb, a man introduced in Numbers/Bamidbar 13:6. I’ll come back to him, but for now let’s think about this setup. All three siblings are prophets. All three are married. But unlike Moses, Miriam and Aaron have remained close with their spouses, despite the challenges of leading their people. That’s why they make this point. This isn’t a challenge to Moses’s leadership; it’s a reminder that fulfilling G-d’s wishes is no excuse for neglecting human relationships.
This explanation seems random, I know. Where are Rashi and Chizkuni getting this backstory from? Turns out, there's a story about Miriam intervening in a similar situation between a wife and a husband. According to Rashi, back in Egypt when Pharaoh gave the "kill all the baby Hebrew boys" order and before baby Moses was born, Yocheved's husband Amram divorced her. Amram's argument was that if all baby boys were going to be murdered, there was no point in having more children, and therefore no point in being married. How Yocheved felt about this isn't elaborated on.
Miriam, however, was ready to fight. Rav Chanina says that Miriam “told her father: ‘Father, your decree is harsher than that of Pharaoh! He only decreed against the males, but you have decreed against both the males and the females. It is doubtful whether the decree of the wicked Pharaoh will come to pass, but you are righteous, and so your decree will be fulfilled.’ Amram immediately took back his wife.”
Keep in mind, most commentary says Miriam was only six at the time. Please picture a tiny, furious six year old girl standing up to her father and refusing to let him break their family apart. This is why I love Miriam.
Anyways, that story sets a precedent that A) Miriam is willing to intervene in extremely personal matters if she thinks it's for a good reason and B) when there’s a dispute between a husband and wife, Miriam intervenes on the wife's side. Feminist solidarity FTW.
Recap: I know that was a lot of information, so in summary, here are three possible explanations for what happens in this section.
1) Miriam spoke against Tzipporah and Moses because she was being racist about Tzipporah.
2) Miriam and Aaron resented not getting a bigger leadership role, but rather than admitting this directly, Miriam initially pretended that their problem with Moses was that he had married Tzipporah.
3) Moses was neglecting Tzipporah and Miriam tried to talk to Moses on her behalf.
Addendum: In your question, you asked if Miriam "wasn't allowed into the Promised Land" because of this incident, and at first, I was going to say no. In Numbers/Bamidbar 14:27-14:35, G-d states that because the Hebrews will not stop bickering amongst themselves and doubting their G-d, they will wander for another forty years. The generation that was enslaved in Egypt will not set foot in the Promised Land, but their children will. I always assumed Miriam was included in the category of the generation from Egypt.
However! There are three exceptions to G-d's pronouncement. One is Joshua, who doesn't matter for this discussion.
The other is Moses because G-d plays favorites. And the third person is Caleb.
Remember the midrash I mentioned earlier about Caleb being Miriam’s husband? Well, if we take that as true, that implies that Miriam would have been allowed to enter the Promised Land with him. Especially since the other exception to G-d’s declaration is Moses, her brother. They’re supposed to settle in the land and raise families who will never have to suffer under slavery. Doesn’t make much sense for G-d to deliberately break up a family.
But let’s go back to Moses. Because guess what? He messes up. In Numbers/Bamidbar 20, G-d instructs Moses to summon water from a boulder by speaking to it. Instead, Moses strikes the boulder with his staff. G-d’s response is, “Because you did not have trust in me … you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I am giving them!” And with that, Moses is barred from entering the Promised Land.
From this we know that G-d can and will revoke Promised Land privileges for certain offenses. The incident with Tzipporah may have been one such offense. Maybe that is why Miriam doesn’t make it to the Promised Land, and why she is the first of her siblings to die.
There’s a lot that I didn’t cover. Sefaria lists 77 commentaries just on the first sentence of Numbers/Bamidbar 12. If you want to read more about this passage, I’ve linked some of my sources in the post and listed two others below.
Miriam in the Desert with Alicia Jo Rabins: a video discussing, among other things, popular interpretations of Numbers/Bamidbar 12
Sefaria: an all-purpose encyclopedia of Jewish texts and commentary
I have a lot of emotions about this week’s Torah portion, Behaalotecha, so here are some resources I’ve consulted which may be helpful to other people:
1. Alicia Jo Rabins - “Snow/Scorpions and Spiders”
This song imagines what Miriam experienced while exiled in the desert. It’s part of Rabins’s thesis on women in Torah and incorporates various midrashim about Miriam. You can hear Rabins talk more about her project and the traditional commentaries she consulted here.
2. Bad Jew Weekly - Radical Amazement, Spiritual Audacity and Holy Cravings
This podcast episode from Jenna Reback features a summary and in-depth discussion of the entire Torah portion. The irreverent humor may be off-putting for some people, but she does an incredible job of tying all the different elements of Behaalotecha together.
3. Chabad - Parshat Behaalotecha
The Chabad website includes a summary, some midrashim, and a list of themes for Behaalotecha. For once in the history of the internet, the comment section is also worth reading.
4. On the Other Hand - Ten Minutes of Torah
This weekly podcast from Rabbi Rick Jacobs offers discussion of each Torah portion. Here are the Behaalotecha episodes for 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.
5. Sefaria
You can read the full text of Behaalotecha plus commentary on Sefaria, a digital archive of Jewish texts.
6. YaeL (thesometimeswarrior) - “Bitter” and “A Servant of”
These two modern midrashim show the viewpoints of Miriam and Aaron, respectively, in the immediate aftermath of Behaalotecha. They’re short but very emotionally impactful.
I just realized the next Torah portion is Behaalotecha, which is the one where Miriam gets cursed with leprosy, and let me tell you I am NOT EMOTIONALLY PREPARED FOR THIS.
