10 Jun BEHAALOSCHA: EVERY CHILD NEEDS A MIRIAM A SINGLE GESTURE TOWARD A BABY REVERBERATES THROUGHOUT HISTORY

Miriam’s Skin
Disease
At the end of this
week’s parsha
(Behaaloscha), we
catch a rare and
fascinating glimpse
into the interpersonal
relationship of Moshe, his brother Aaron, and
their sister Miriam.
Miriam, speaking to her brother Aaron, was
critiquing Moshe’s marriage. The Torah is
decidedly cryptic about what exactly she was
criticizing, stating merely that “Miriam and
Aaron spoke about Moshe regarding the Cushite
woman he had married.” There are various ways
to explain what it was she said and who this
Cushite woman was. Whatever the case is, an
older sister voicing criticism of her baby
brother’s marriage is easy enough to
understand—even if that younger brother
happens to be Moshe himself.
G-d hears their conversation and decides to
clarify to Aaron and Miriam who their younger
brother is. He says to them: “Please listen to My
words. If there are prophets among you, I make
myself known to them only in a vision or a
dream. Not so is My servant Moshe; he is
faithful throughout My house. With him, I speak
mouth to mouth… he beholds the image of the
Lord. So how were you not afraid to speak
against My servant Moshe?”
G-d departs in a huff, and Miriam – and
according to Rabbi Akiva in the Talmud, Aaron
too—is left stricken with leprosy, the biblical
punishment for slander. Moshe then intervenes,
crying out to G-d: “I beseech you, G-d, please
heal her!” G-d limits her affliction to seven days,
that she (like all lepers) must spend in isolation
outside the camp. Following these seven
quarantined days, she would be healed and could
reenter the camp. In the words of the Torah:
“She shall be quarantined for seven days outside
the camp, and afterward can she re-enter.”
The Torah finishes the story: “And the people
did not travel until Miriam had re-entered.”

The greatest biblical commentator, the 11th-
century French sage, Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki,

known as Rashi, quoting the Talmud, tells us
that the nation waiting for Miriam was a unique
honor conferred upon her in the merit of
something she had done eight decades earlier. At
the beginning of Shemot, Pharaoh decreed that
all male Jewish children be drowned in the Nile
Delta. Moshe’s mother had placed her infant
Moshe in a basket and had set him afloat in the
Nile. It is here that Miriam debuts in biblical
history: “His sister stood from afar, to know
what would happen to him.” It is the merit of her
waiting for Moshe that the nation now waited for
her.
Although the nation was ready to embark on the
next leg of its journey, they stopped for seven
days, waiting for Miriam who was quarantined
outside of the camp, as a reward for her noble
deed decades earlier when Moshe was an infant
floating in the river.
Would They Let Her Die?
Yet, upon deeper reflection, this explanation by
Rashi is deeply disturbing.

Is the only reason the nation waited for Miriam,
while she was quarantined for a week because
she once waited for Moshe as an infant? What
was the alternative? Not to wait for Miriam and
leave her alone in a parched and barren desert,
without food, water, or any protection, a place
the Torah describes as “a desert great and
awesome, full of snakes, vipers, scorpions, and
drought, where there was no water?”
Suppose Miriam would have never watched
over Moshe as an infant. Would she have then
not been rewarded this “honor” and left to die in
the desert alone?
Equally disturbing is the expression Rashi uses
that the Jewish people waiting for Miriam was
an “honor” (“kavod”) bestowed upon her. Yet,
this was no honor; it was a matter of life and
death. It is impossible for any human being, let
alone an elderly woman (Miriam at that time
was 87, being seven years older than Moshe,
who was 81 at the time), to survive alone in a
dangerous desert.
And what happened to the other lepers expelled
from the camp, who did not receive this special
“honor” of the nation waiting for them? Were
they simply abandoned to die whenever the
people continued their journey?
The Camp
In an ingenuous presentation, the Lubavitcher
Rebbe (in an address delivered on Shabbos
Behaaloscha 1965) presented the explanation.
We must draw attention to two words in the text.
The verse states: “She shall be quarantined for
seven days outside the camp (mechutz
lamachaneh), and then she should reenter.” Each
word and expression in Torah is precise. The
words “outside the camp” intimate that her
exclusion and expulsion would be effective
when the people are encamped; when they are
dwelling in one place as a camp (“machaneh” in
Hebrew means to dwell in one place, as in the
term “vayachanu”), and she would remain
outside of the camp.
Only if she is quarantined for seven days outside
of the nation’s dwelling when it constitutes a
stationary “camp”, would she fulfill her duty and
would be able to heal and reenter the community.
What this meant was that travel time did not
count for this seven-day quarantine period. Even
if Miriam were to travel in isolation behind the
rest of the nation, this would not be counted as
part of her seven-day quarantine necessary for
her healing and reentry, since she was not
quarantined “outside the camp”, because during
their traveling the Jews did not constitute a
“camp”, a “machaneh.”
Thus, if the nation would not have waited the
seven-day period for Miriam, she would have
certainly traveled along with them. But she
would not have had the ability to go into isolation
for seven days to heal until the nation would
cease traveling and become a “camp” once
again. This would have delayed her healing
process as long as they were on the move.
This, then, was the special honor bestowed upon
Miriam. By delaying their journey for seven
days, Miriam could be quarantined immediately
outside of the camp, and at the conclusion of the
week, reenter the camp after a full recovery. Her
leprosy would not linger for even one extra day.

This was not a question of life and death; it was
only a question of how long she would endure
her malady.
81 Years Earlier
Why did Miriam deserve this honor?
Let us now go back 81 years earlier. Let us see
what Miriam actually did for her baby brother
Moshe, and then we can begin to appreciate the
spiritual dynamics of history – how all of our
actions return to us: what we put out there comes
back to us.
Picture the scene: The king of the country, the
most powerful man on the planet, the leader of
the most important civilization at the time, had
decreed that all Jewish newborn boys must be
drowned. Miriam’s baby brother is one of those
slated for death. Their mother had just sent the
infant to his divinely ordained fate by letting him
sail into the Nile, which happens to be the
longest river in the world. This desperate act was
carried out in the hope that perhaps an Egyptian
would, against odds, be aroused to compassion
and save the innocent Jewish boy.
Miriam goes to the river. “His sister stood from
afar, to know what would happen to him.” She
gazes at her brother from a distance to see how
things would play themselves out. Miriam was a
seven-year-old girl at the time. If he is captured
by Pharoah’s soldiers, she knows she cannot
save him; she is also probably too far away to
help if the basket capsizes, nor will she be able
to do much if an Egyptian takes the baby to his
own home. Nor can she nurse the infant if he is
crying for milk.
So what does she actually achieve by standing
guard (besides finding out what might happen to
him)? She achieves one thing. We may see it as
a small achievement, but from the biblical
perspective, it is grand.
When Pharaoh’s daughter discovers baby Moshe
wailing, she naturally attempts to find a wet
nurse to feed him. Moshe, although starving,
refuses to nurse from an Egyptian woman. That
was when Miriam steps in: “Shall I go and call
for you a wet nurse from the Hebrew women, so
that she shall nurse the child for you?” she asks
the Egyptian princess. The princess, Batya,
agrees. Miriam calls the mother of the child.
Batya gives her the child so that she can nurse
him. Moshe is curled up again in the bosom of
his loving mother. He survives, and the rest is
history.
Let’s now engage in the “what if” hypothesis.
Suppose that Miriam was absent from the scene,
what would have occurred? It is likely that after
observing that the baby is not taking to any
Egyptian women’s milk, Batya would have
eventually realized, that Moshe, whom she knew
was a Jewish child (as she states clearly, “he is a
child of the Hebrews”), might take better to the
milk of a Jewish woman. She would have
summoned a Jewish woman and Moshe would
have received his nourishment. It would have
taken longer, Moshe would have cried for
another hour or two, but eventually, he would
have been fed.
So what did Miriam accomplish? Miriam’s
actions caused Moshe’s hunger to last for a
shorter period of time. Miriam alleviated
Moshe’s hunger pangs sooner, shortening the

span of his discomfort.
Miriam caused a young Jewish baby, a
“Yiddishen kind,” to weep for a few moments
less. She alleviated the agony and distress of a
baby.
Eighty-one years pass. Miriam is experiencing
discomfort. She has a skin disease. The nation is
supposed to travel, on route to the Holy Land.
(This was before the sin of the spies, and the
people were still moving towards the Land of
Israel, hoping to fulfill the great dream.) But if
they begin traveling now, Miriam’s agony would
be prolonged, maybe a few hours, maybe a few
days, as long as the Hebrews are journeying. On
the road, she would not have the opportunity to
be quarantined for the requisite seven days.
Because she diminished the discomfort of her
brother, eight decades later an entire nation—
around three million people, men women, and
children—plus the holy Mishkan, the Aron,
Moshe, Aron, all of the leaders, and G-d Himself
— all waited. She minimized her brother’s pain,
and now millions of people waited patiently to
minimize her distress.
Because the energy you put out there is the same
energy that comes back to you, in one form or
another form.
Your Weeping Child
How many times a night do you wake up to your
crying infant who yearns to be fed or just held?
Mothers often awake every few hours (if they
even get that amount of rest) to cradle and
nurture their little wailing angels. Some
husbands do not even take note; they sleep
through the night and then wonder why their
wives are exhausted the next day…
It can become stressful to tend continuously to
the needs of our little ones. Babies certainly
know how to let themselves be heard and we
caretakers often become overwhelmed and
drained in the process. The serene corridors of
office buildings seem so much more serene and
interesting.
Yet, as this Miriam episode teaches us, real
history is not created in office buildings. It is
created in the arms of mothers and fathers
nurturing the souls G-d granted them to create
our collective tomorrow. On a single day, a little
boy was spared, for a short time, hunger pangs.
Eight decades later, millions of people and G-d
himself, interrupted their journey to pay homage
to that individual gesture.
Every child needs a Miriam in his or her life–
and all of us can become that Miriam. We meet
or hear of children or teenagers who are in pain,
starving for nourishment, love, validation,
confidence, and meaning. We may say: They
will grow up and learn how to manage. Or we
may tend to them, be there for them, embrace
them, and shorten the span of their agony.
And when we do that, as little Miriam did,
millions will be thankful to us for making a
difference in that one individual’s life.