Editor’s Note: This Guest D’var Torah for the Pesach Festival comes from frequent JSA contributor, Chaplain Barry Pitegoff, BCC.
The movie awards recognize the actor / actress in the best supporting role. Perhaps we need to do that more often in our stories from scripture. For Purim, we think of Esther. Vashti, the “other woman” in Megllat Esther, is in a supporting role, maybe even more so than Mordecai, as Vashti’s stance at the opening of the story enables Esther to even consider possibly becoming Queen.
Pesach (Passover), quickly approaching, clearly places Moses center stage, at least among the humans. The story of Passover, unlike Purim, clearly has G-d in the story. For Moses to have even gotten into the story, we need to look at the supporting role of Miriam, Moses’ sister, older than him by only five years. Moses first comes into the story of Pesach because Miriam, only five years old at that time, sees the basket coming down the river with Moses inside, consistent with the decree to slay the new Hebrew sons, intercepted the basket, and handed it over for safekeeping. Let us consider this a major supporting role for Miriam in the story.
Pesach celebrates our freedom from slavery in Egypt and our freedom from Egypt altogether. I have been pondering how to simplify this story to explain it to Adult Ed classes at houses of worship of different faiths.
One Pesach concept is the progressively more challenging ten plagues G-d inflicted on Egypt, announced by Moses’ messages to Pharaoh. Instead of changing Pharaoh, the plagues “hardened his heart.” Rabbi Sharon Brous, in her contemporary book, The Amen Effect, expounds on why Darkness, the ninth and next-to-last plague, could be considered worse than boils and frogs and hail, preceding plagues. Excerpting from Rabbi Brous, “The Bible describes the darkness so thick that ‘no person could see another, or even rise from their places’ …. More than physical discomfort, it brought spiritual anguish. …. ‘The deepest darkness,’ wrote one nineteenth-century Polish rabbi, ‘is when one cannot even see his neighbor, and therefore can’t join him in his suffering and pain. Once a person no longer feels his pain, it renders him completely impotent.’ When we are unable to support each other in our suffering, our lives are stripped of meaning. Surely, that is among the most devastating of plagues: the terror of total disconnection.”
Pharaoh finally gives in to Moses’ nagging of “Let my people go” with the threat of the tenth plague, the death of every firstborn son in Egypt, both human and animal, except, of course, the homes of the Jews/Hebrews because the Angel of Death noticed the blood of a lamb smeared on its doorposts. Did this plague actually begin or was the threat of it strong enough to persuade Pharaoh? One theory is that Pharaoh realized that he, too, was a first-born son. He, too, would not be spared.
Pharaoh’s words were not, “You’re free. Leave.” Rather, his words were “Go and worship your G-d.” The Egyptians, with multiple gods, had a problem getting their hands around the concept that there could be only one G-d.
The Hebrews/Israelites, as they were known in the story, left in such haste that the bread still being baked had to be taken with them, becoming the origin of matzah. What else was taken in haste? Stay tuned.
They head towards The Promised Land but, oops, there is a river in the way, and Pharaoh had a change of heart and sent warriors, chariots, and horses after them. As is taught in Exodus, “When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his courtiers had a change of heart about the people and said, ‘What is this we have done, releasing Israel from our service?’ He ordered his chariot and took his force with him …. and he gave chase to the Israelites ….” Pharaoh, himself, was one of the warriors in pursuit. [Imagine the anger fueling him.]
Adonai says to Moses, “Hold your arm over the sea, that the waters may come back upon the Egyptians and upon their chariots and upon their riders …. But Adonai hurled the Egyptians into the sea.” [The narrative does not say what happened to Pharaoh. [A question for Midrash.]
The Israelites are on dry land, the sea has closed behind them, and there is the urge to rejoice in song. Although some crossing the dry river were in families, the men were with the men only, walking ahead of the women, two separate groups. Moses led the men. Moses rang out the song deigned for rejoicing, stanza by stanza. Each time the men heard a stanza, then men repeated it in song. Behind the men were the women. Miriam, Moses’ sister, was standing at the head of the women. The men heard each stanza and responded in song. Behind was Miriam, close enough to hear the men, was a true pioneer and did the same.
Miriam repeated the song, stanza by stanza, just like the men. The women sang the song, stanza by stanza, just like the men. This was a first, a breakthrough. The women assumed equality and the men accepted it.
The women contributed more than the men in a special way. The men had only their voices. The women had their voices and timbrels. It is not clear exactly what these timbrels were. Often they are translated as drums. In more modern times, they are translated as tambourines. A modern tambourine has the metal clacking chimes all around its circumference, but it also has the equivalent of a drum skin across the top. In effect, the timbrels may have been a combination or both a drum and a tambourine.
There was still one problem with this song of rejoicing. Moses began the song exactly as Adonai had dictated it a few sentences earlier, beginning with, “I will sing to Adonai, for He has triumphed gloriously; Horse and driver he has hauled into the sea. ….” That line is in the Torah. We are sort of stuck with it, but we do not have to emphasize it.
When the Midrash for this portion was developed, the consensus was that HaShem criticized those chanting the beginning of this song, saying, “Those are My people drowning also. You cannot rejoice about My people drowning also.”
How to handle this dilemma, that the exact words are in Torah, but should not be embraced? Like many popular songs, the introduction leads to the refrain. The refrain is what we remember. Take “The Shadow of Your Smile,” the Academy Award winning song of 1966. Before we get to “The Shadow of Your Smile,” we hear, if the vocalist so chose, “One day we walked along the sand. One day in early spring, You held a piper in your hand, To mend its broken wing. Now I’ll remember many a day, And many a lonely mile. The echo of a piper’s song. The shadow of a smile.”
The midrash teaches us to de-emphasize the song’s lyrics rejoicing that the chariots and riders were tossed into the sea. The liturgists developing the modern siddur or prayer book, emphasized two major teachings from the lyrics of the Song at the Sea. One is Line 11, the Mi Chamocha. The Reform Gates of Prayer introduced the Mi Chamocha as, “When Israel saw Your might displayed in Egypt, they put their faith in You and in Moses Your servant. Now let all be free, and let them sing as Israel did at the shore of freedom’s sea: “Mi Chamocha … Who is like You, Eternal One, among the gods that are worshipped? ….” Here the middle of the song becomes its topic sentence.
Then, the liturgists developing the siddur took the last line of the song and made it the ultimate, the song’s climax: Adonai yimloch l’olam va’ed, “Adonai will reign for ever and ever!”
How do we know this is the last one of the Song at the Sea? The Torah does not have italic or quotes. The editor of the Chabad translation of the Song at the Sea placed a closed quote punctuation after the Mi Chamocha.
The Song at the Sea has become known as Miriam’s Song. Debbie Friedman (Z”L), the great modern liturgist-as-songwriter, gifted us with her version of “Miriam’s Song.” Its lyrics include:
“And the women dancing with their timbrels
Followed Miriam as she sang her song
Sing a song to the One whom we’ve exalted
Miriam and the women danced and danced the whole night long
….
And Miriam the prophet took her timbrel in her hand
And all the women followed her just as she had planned
And Miriam raised her voice in song
She sang with praise and might
We’ve just lived through a miracle
We’re going to dance tonight”
Miriam’s crucial role in this story is at least twofold then. One is to rescue baby Moses in a basket going down the river, or there might not have been a Moses and a story of Exodus. Two, is to empower the women to be equal, singing with the men, but also adding instruments.
Professor of Midrash at Hebrew Union College, Norman Cohen, commented on this in 2001. If the bread had to be yanked from its cooking to make the exodus, how did the women know about the instruments? Professor Cohen’s article is titled, “Miriam’s Song: A Modern Midrashic Reading.”
Professor Cohen expounds: “… where did they get the musical instruments in the desert? One can almost picture that, as the people hurriedly gathered their possessions and fled Egypt in the middle of the night, Miriam called back to the the women, saying: ‘Hannah, Sarah, don’t forget the drums … we’ll need them to celebrate our freedom.’ As a matter of fact, the Midrash, in interpreting this passage, emphasizes that the righteous are always prepared for the moment of redemption. Perhaps it is this sense of personal preparation which is the lesson that Miriam can teach us.”
For saving Moses’ life and for empowering women to sing in celebration, plus adding the timbrels, there are two reasons to consider Miriam for Best Supporting Role in the Exodus Story.
This year, for me, another line in the Haggadah has become very prominent. In Pirkei Avot 5:22, attributed to Ben Bag-Bag, we are taught, “Turn it over and turn it over, for everything it in it.” Torah does not change, but we are different every time we return to it. Just a few sheets of parchment before the Exodus story, we are reading about Joseph. One of Jewish history’s heroes and role models, Joseph saved Egypt from famine and rose to Viceroy. How did we get from there to pleading for release from slavery?
In the middle of the Seder, the leader is tasked with explaining the story of the Exodus from Egypt so that everyone present understands it. Here, the Haggadah text begins with, “There arose in Egypt a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph.” It is worth repeating. “There arose in Egypt a Pharaoh who did not know Joseph.” Indeed, know your roots. Know your history. Know from where you came. Leaders carry a torch that others carried before them.
May you have a zissen Pesach.
Barry Pitegoff is a Staff Chaplain at Bon Secours Community Hospital in Port Jervis, New York. Barry enjoyed thousands of hours of volunteer chaplaincy at hospitals, hospices, and prisons while he was vice president of market research for Visit Florida, the state’s tourism board. After retirement, Barry transformed into professional chaplaincy by taking a second Master’s Degree and two years’ of hospital internships. Barry was awarded the title of BCC, Board Certified Chaplain, at the May 2019 conference of the NAJC (Neshama: Association of Jewish Chaplains). Chaplain Barry serves on the Board of NAJC, where he is also the Treasurer and the volunteer webmaster.
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