Yesterday, as we watched the terror attacks unfold in Paris, including the hostage crisis at the Kosher supermarket, I wrote online “Today we are all Miriam!” for like Miriam watching baby Moshe’s basket through the reeds, we too, feel deeply concerned and connected to the situation in Paris, even from a great distance.
But there’s more to the Miriam story. She had a special personal interest in seeing what happened to her baby brother. There’s a beautiful backstory told in the Talmud and Medrash.
Pharaoh’s decree to throw the Jewish newborn baby boys into the Nile, was understandably traumatic for the Jewish people. Miriam’s parents, Amram and Yocheved faced a very difficult choice. They chose to separate, rather than to be faced with the horrible decree of throwing a newborn son into the river. Since they were leaders of the Jewish people, many couples followed suit.
Miriam told her parents, “Your decree is worse than Pharaohs! His decree only affects the boys, while your decree affects future girls as well.” Furthermore she prophetically declared, “You will have a child who will be the savior of our people.” Amram and Yocheved took their young daughters words seriously, and they remarried, and that’s when baby Moshe was born. And following their lead, Jewish couples came together again.
Miriam standing at the riverside, was beyond concern for her own baby brother. She was waiting to see the fulfillment of her prophecy. She was concerned to see the outcome of her vision.
Fastforward to the Splitting of the Sea and Miriam’s Song. The women pulled out tambourines and played joyously on them the song of redemption. But where did these newly freed slaves have these tambourines from? We are told that Miriam and the Jewish women during the exile maintained faith in the future redemption. Even during the darkest challenging times of the Egyptian exile they anticipated the dawn of redemption and fashioned tambourines for that future day.
The image of Miriam’s long-term vision is her waiting eagerly and anxiously on the riverbank of the Nile, and her joyous exhubrant tambourine playing in the midst of the Red Sea.
May we have Miriam’s inspired faith in the Jewish future!