Miriam, Aaron, and Moses and Jewish Quotes
For Miriam
"Pray as if everything depended on G-d. Act as if everything depended on you." - Rabbi Ferdinand Isserman
I’ve never really been someone who prays. Those spiritual muscles never got a lot of exercise. Until a few years ago, I would have dismissed prayer. “Thoughts and prayers” is often all talk and no action, for example. And I valued action over the “emptiness” of prayer.
But I’ve since learned about how Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said he “prayed with his feet” during the Civil Rights Movement; actions toward justice are themselves prayer. I’ve been able to rethink prayer while attending synagogue. Now I tend to think of prayer, and Gd, as something that can provide strength: to survive, to do, to act. Praying still doesn’t come naturally to me, but I feel as though I understand it more.
When I came across this quote by Rabbi Isserman (at least a year before I even started converting), I thought of Miriam, who embodies both utterly. She prays, believes that Gd is active in the world, and she also takes action; she doesn’t wait. Prayer and faith give her energy, that powerful tie to life and hope.
For Aaron
This is an hour of change. Within it we stand uncertain on the border of light. Shall we draw back or cross over? Where shall our hearts turn? Shall we draw back, my brother, my sister, or cross over? This is the hour of change, and within it, we stand quietly on the border of light. What lies before us? Shall we draw back, my brother, my sister, or cross over? - Leah Goldberg (as adapted in Mishkan T’filah, the Reform movement’s siddur)
It was during my first ever Kabbalat Shabbat service as a prospective conversion student that I heard this piece. Even though the poem appears on the page adjacent to the Ma’ariv Aravim evening prayer in the siddur (so, thematically it’s being associated with the Creation part of the service, rather than the Redemption), I couldn’t help but link it to Aaron right away, to the moment where, in The Prince of Egypt, he steps toward the parted sea.
It’s so easy for me to imagine these words overlaying that scene. Aaron is such a force of change and redemption and courage, personifying the recovery of hope and faith. In this moment, he is calling not only to his brother and sister to move forward, cross over, with him, but to all of the People of Israel.
I cited this poem in the last personal reflection paper I wrote for my conversion. It will always speak to the anticipation, the anxiety, the power, the journey, of a transition. I feel it deep in my heart. The way it asks, “Will you take the leap?”
The poem also reminds me a lot of Parashat Lech L’cha, the Torah portion named for Gd’s opening call to “go forth” (or “go to yourself,” which offers other powerful interpretations). There’s that linguistic connection, too: In the text Avram is called an Ivri (Hebrew), a word whose root means “cross over.”
For Moses
It is not your duty to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it. - Pirkei Avot 2:21
Commentary says, “Do not be discouraged at the magnitude of what remains to be accomplished: Gd does not expect one individual to complete it alone. Man is required only to do as much as his abilities allow.” “The task” is often daunting. The task given to Moses is daunting. Even Tzipporah tells him that he’s just one man. However, Moses has never gone through life alone; it’s clear that he’s not alone. And this is advice that applies to everyone.
One of the more frustrating, yet oh-so-human, things about Moses is that he almost does desist from the task. I’m not talking about the way he protests at the burning bush. Rather, it’s that he runs away and “[hides] in the desert” for at least ten years (according to The Prince of Egypt‘s timeline). My frustration regarding this has always been over whether he would have just stayed in Midian indefinitely, quiet and content, never wishing to return to Egypt, out of fear of facing murder charges, of confronting his own shame, or from a belief that he can’t change the slaves’ lives. My sense is that he probably would have stayed there, had Gd not lit a burning bush under him. These fears and sense of inertia are understandable (who hasn’t struggled with these things?), but hiding is what this line from Pirkei Avot warns against. Moses isn’t free from his responsibility to do what’s right. He’s not free, no one is free, to look away while knowing that people are suffering. This is one of the most powerful lessons Moses learns, and he does learn it, especially in The Prince of Egypt film.
Last edited: 10/17/21