THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK Chukkat

“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” Numbers 20:1

Miriam the poet and leader will not reach the Promised Land. Here is a woman whose power, prestige and impact reverberates through time and leaves the Israelites with a spiritual and physical thirst.

The prophet Micah describes her alongside her brothers as responsible for the Exodus from Egypt: “For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam” (Micah 6:4).

As the brilliant biblical commentator Phyllis Trible notes: “Prophecy includes her, though not by name, within its eschatological vision. Jeremiah says that in days to come, Israel will have a new exodus. It will go forth again with drums, dances, and merrymakers.”

In fact, there is some thought that the Song of the Sea, attributed to Moses, was really Miriam’s song, like the other women’s songs in the Bible (Deborah and Hannah). Which makes us wonder about how the role and impact of women would have been preserved differently had the canon been created and edited by women and not men. The echoes of Miriam are the glimpse of what might have been. Perhaps it is thousands of years later that we see the balance restored. For what is quite remarkable and poorly known is the number of highly popular and successful Jewish Victorian women who were involved in writing novels and telling stories. (Rabbi Julia Neuberger has promised to bring them to life with her short course for the Lyons Learning Project at West London Synagogue).

And all this brings us to today. The figure of Miriam represents those in our community who are able to weave meaning out of our experience. The question we should ask now is what if we gave more space to the hidden voices to tell their stories? Perhaps through their inspiration, redemption would come even sooner.