06 Jan SHEMOS: MIRIAM TAUGHT THE LESSON OF NOT GIVING UP HOPE

The Mishna [Sotah 9b]
discusses the concept of
Divine reward and
punishment that is
“measure for measure”.
One example cited is
because Miriam waited
to see what would
happen to her brother’s basket floating in the Nile
[Shemos 2:4], all of Klal Yisroel waited for
Miriam for a seven-day period [Bamidbar 12:15]
when she was temporarily “exiled from the camp”
as punishment for speaking lashon hara against her
brother.
At first glance, the fact that Miriam stayed at the
riverbank to see what would happen to her brother
does not seem to be such a great deed on her part.
She may have stayed out of curiosity, it may have
been out of concern, but it does not seem like such
a significant and important act that it should
require all of Klal Yisrael to wait for her in the
wilderness for an entire week.
In order to appreciate the actual significance of her
act, we need to see it in the context provided by the
Gemara in Sotah [12a]. The Talmud states that
Amram (Miriam’s father) was one of the great
men of the generation. When he heard Pharaoh’s
decree to throw all the male children in the Nile,
he gave up hope and decided to divorce his wife
(Yocheved), rather than bring any more children
into the world who would just be drowned in the

Nile at birth. Amram set the pattern for the rest of
the nation and everyone followed suit and divorced
their wives as well.
Miriam told her father that his decree was worse
than Pharaoh’s decree. Pharaoh’s decree was only
directed at the males. Amram’s decree would
affect both the males and the females. Pharaoh’s
decree would only affect the fate of the children in
this world, Amram was decreeing that the children
would not come into existence and therefore
would have no life in either this world or the next
world. Amram listened to the advice of his
daughter. He remarried Yocheved and at the age of
130 she became pregnant and had the child who
grew up to be Moshe Rabbeinu. Again, everyone
else followed Amram’s example and remarried the
wives they had divorced.
The Gemara then relates that when Moshe was
born, the house filled with light. Amram kissed
Miriam on the forehead and told her “Your
prophecy has been fulfilled.” However, when
Moshe was thrown into the Nile (to hide him from
the Egyptians), Amram went over to Miriam and
slapped her on the forehead and asked, “Now what
happened to your ‘great prophecy’?”
It is in this context that we begin to understand the
meaning of the pasuk “And his sister stood away
from him at a distance.” The reward that Miriam
later received was not just for standing at the Nile
for a few moments, it was for being the heroine of
the whole story of Amram and all the Jews taking

back their wives. It was for being responsible for
the birth of the person who became the leader of
the Jewish nation. She saved her brother and in
effect the entire nation because she refused to give
up hope.
Things looked hopeless. At the when time Miriam
spoke up to her father, there were already
thousands and thousands of Jewish children who
had died in the Nile. By standing firm, to see what
would be with her brother, she demonstrated a
particularly Jewish trait – resilience and refusal to
abandon hope. Miriam’s heroic faith and resilience
thus gave courage to the nation and saved them
from the terrible fate of discouragement and
despair.
The Izhbitzer Rebbe expresses a similar idea. The
law is that if one loses an object and gives up hope
of ever getting it back (yeeush), then the person
who finds the object is entitled to keep it. However,
as long as a person has not given up hope of
recovering his lost object then the finder is not
allowed to keep it. The Izhbitzer Rebbe explained
that a person’s hope is the only thing that connects
him to that object. He has lost possession and he
cannot use it. His hope alone still binds him to the
object. Once I give up hope, I’ve severed any
connection I have to my lost object and that is why
the finder can then keep it.
That is why, the Izhbitzer Rebbe said, it is so
destructive to give up hope. Whatever the situation,
as long as one keeps his hope alive, there remains

a potential cure, or a
potential redemption, or a
potential salvation to the
crises. One must maintain hope in order to have a
chance to see that salvation come to fruition.
Had Miriam given up hope, then the last
connection to the future deliverance of the Jewish
people would have been severed. This is why her
act of faith was so crucial. The payback for this
was that when Miriam became a leper and the
Jewish people were in the desert, the Almighty
told them that they must wait for her.
Why was this an appropriate payback? Because
there is one thing that should never be done in the
desert and that is to wait. In the heat, in the adverse
conditions of a desert, one dare not dilly-dally
around. The Jewish people could have said –
“Miriam will catch up with us. We cannot stick
around. What will become of us?” G-d told them.
“No. Remember Miriam. She had faith. She did
not give up hope because she knew that the rescue
of the Almighty comes in the blink of an eye. We
will wait for Miriam. Do not worry about the
water. Do not worry about the lack of food. Do not
worry about the heat.”
Miriam taught us the timeless lesson of not giving
up hope when things look bleak. This valuable
lesson, symbolized by her waiting to see what
would happen to Moshe in the Nile, is certainly
worthy of the payback of waiting for Miriam when
she was not able to travel.