The Prophetesses of Old and Today©
BeShalach 5779/2019
Rabbi David Baum
Jewish mother jokes are a big staple of Jewish humor. There is the story of the son who came to his mother and shared that he would become a rabbi. She said, “you could have been a doctor, a lawyer, but a rabbi? What kind of job is that for a nice Jewish boy?!?”
Please know, when I told my mother that I was going to rabbinical school, she never said that to me. My mother is proud of all of her children, and yes, very proud of her son the rabbi. By now, most of you have received the invitation to our congregation's celebration of 10 years of my tenure as Rabbi of Congregation Shaarei Kodesh. As I thought about some of the things I have accomplished, I have to go back to something I've shared with you before: I've made my mother proud on many occasions, but being on NPR in December was a high point for her. I told you all this fact, but I never shared why she kvelled so much.
Here's why: My mother, one of the greatest teachers of my life, used to make us listen to NPR on the way to school every day, while other mom's let their kids listen to the Top 40 music station. Instead of hearing Justin Timberlake in my head, I heard Carl Kassel and Diane Rehm. My mother was an immigrant to this country, from Communist Poland. She worked hard in school to become the first person in your family to have a college degree. She used her college degree to work in government and rose up through many years to become the first and only, and longest tenured, Finance Director of Miami-Dade County. She is also a very humble person and would hate that I'm giving this Dvar Torah and sharing this information with you. She would bring us to school early in the morning, and come back late at night. We didn't have the typical childhood of mom picking us up from school, play dates, and hours and hours of children's activities. She was the breadwinner in our family, something my father often bragged about to others, but it was atypical for the time (my father would want you all to know that he had a good job as well!). She rarely talked about her work, even though she dealt with Mayors, City Commissioners, Congressmen and women, and even a President.
When she was retiring, the county decided to throw a party for her. The county manager called me and asked if I could fly in to surprise her and give the benediction. Winter in Florida – I really couldn't resist, and so I flew down. I expected it to be a small office party, but they filled an entire hall at the convention center in her honor. They even named the day after her, Rachel Baum day (December 10). At one part of the day, they lined up all the county commissioners from the past. A lot of them spent only a couple years in government and then went on to make a lot of money in the private sector; but they all looked back at their time in government as one of their happy points in their careers.
I asked my mother afterward, why did you stay in government when you could have cashed out like the rest of those guys?!? And she said to me I believe in the people…all the people, that's why I worked in government for my entire career.
And this week's Parashah, we learn about the Exodus how the people left Egypt. But I wanted to take us back one past week to the battle between Pharaoh and Moses, something I shared last week.
There have already been seven plagues, locusts will be next, and Pharaoh's advisors have had enough; they tell Pharaoh to tell Moses that the people can go. So they call Moses back to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh says: “Go! worship your God. Just — who is going?” We can hear in Pharaoh's question that he assumes that only the special, important people will go; he assumes that there’s a hierarchy among the Hebrews, that only some people really matter. Here is Moses's reply:
With our little ones and with our old ones we will go. With our sons and with our daughters.” He even says, “with our sheep and our cattle, we will go.” Moses says, in effect: We’re heading for freedom, and we’re taking everyone with us because every one of us has equal worth. All of us are special, all of us are needed.
And so I want us to return to the Song at the Sea that we stood for this morning, but not the song that we often think of because there are actually two songs at the sea: there is the song that Moses sings, and the song that his sister Miriam sings. Let me read you what the Torah says:
כ) וַתִּקַּח מִרְיָם הַנְּבִיאָה אֲחוֹת אַהֲרֹן אֶת הַתֹּף בְּיָדָהּ וַתֵּצֶאןָ כָל הַנָּשִׁים אַחֲרֶיהָ בְּתֻפִּים וּבִמְחֹלֹת
Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her in dance with timbrels
כא) וַתַּעַן לָהֶם מִרְיָם שִׁירוּ לַה' כִּי גָאֹה גָּאָה סוּס וְרֹכְבוֹ רָמָה בַיָּם
And Miriam chanted for them (masculine): Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously; horse and driver He has hurled into the sea
The grammar here reveals some issues – first, we see Miriam is called the prophetess but also given the epithet, Aaron's sister – so does this mean that she cannot be defined by her own self, that she needs a man to prove her status? Then it says she led the women in dance, but it says she chanted for them in the masculine form, the women and the men. So who was she leading? What was this moment exactly? I want to share one commentary by the Malbim, a 19th century Biblical commentator (Meir Lob Ben Yehiel Michal). Interestingly enough, the Malbim, an Orthodox rabbi, clashed with German Jewish leaders who wished to introduce aspects of Reform Judaism which makes his commentary on these passages even more fascinating. He wrote, “Our Rabbis of blessed memory already said that 'on account of the righteous women, the Israelites left Egypt,' for the women of that generation were more meritorious than the men… and therefore, prophecy at that time was also found among the women. And she [Miriam] was called the sister of Aaron as our rabbis explained that she prophesied when she was only Aaron’s sister before Moses was born – that a son would be born [to her mother] who would become the redeemer and the savior And now that her prophecy was fulfilled, she took the timbrel in her hand.”
The Malbim mentions the role of women during the years of slavery and the Exodus. It was women, women like Shifra and Puah, who took part in saving the children of Israel. It was Miriam who led Moses to safety as an infant in the Nile, and his mother Yocheved who helped raise him as his wet nurse.
The Malbim goes on to mention why Miriam sang to them, the women – because they had an integral role in the miracles of the Exodus. There are beautiful commentaries by many rabbis on how women were not only equal to the men, but also led them. As Rashi famously says in his commentary, “Every woman saw at the sea what even the prophets never saw.”
You are probably wondering, rabbi, why are telling us these things about women that we already know to be true!
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whom we are honoring as a country this Monday famously said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” As we look back at the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, we take for granted that this miracle was not a foregone conclusion. The Midrash tells a slightly different story. As Bnai Israel approached the sea, and the Egyptians were gaining on them, the sea did not split. The people stood there waiting. One man took a chance, Nachshon Ben Aminadav – he took action into his hands and jumped in the waters, and then the waters split. The message was clear – God brings about miracles, but humans must take part in bringing these miracles to fruition. It is up to us to bend the arm toward justice.
I had an interesting experience last week with my fellow colleagues, rabbis of both genders. It was hard to hear what female rabbis still go through as spiritual leaders – when they carry the Torah, they endure comments like: ‘You’re so pretty, I don’t know whom to kiss first — you or the Torah,' or, ‘It’s great to have a hot rabbi on the bima.’”1 When I was offered this position, my wife was eight months pregnant. No one ever asked me, “Rabbi, how are you going to balance work and a family?” Of course, this is a question that many female rabbis receive.
And of course, it is like this in many fields, and yes, my mother experienced issues like these but never shared them with us. And I'm sure many of our mothers, sisters, and daughters also deal with these issues on a weekly if not daily basis.
It is at this time when I am reminded again of Moses's words to Pharaoh when Pharaoh thought only the men mattered, “When Moses said, With our little ones and with our old ones we will go. With our sons and with our daughters, we will go, with our sheep and our cattle, we will go.” He was saying, they are a part of why we are stronger than you, because everyone matters, everyone can be a prophet and leader; our fathers, brothers, and sons; our mothers, sisters, and daughters.
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1https://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/female-rabbis-speak-out-about-pervasive-harassment/
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