Weekly D'var

PARSHAT BEHA'ALOTCHA
Teddy Gutstein

Shabbat Shalom. It is great to see you all from here. The last time I got to do this, I talked about the blasphemer in Parshat Emor on my bar mitzvah. Thank you, George, for organizing this and giving me the opportunity.

This week’s Parsha is Beha'alotcha, and we get a couple of interesting stories. Some notable events are that you couldn’t offer the Pesach sacrifice if you had been in contact with a dead body recently. We are told of the cloud over the mishkan, or tabernacle, during the day and the fire over it at night. When the cloud moved, the Israelites would know to pack up and build the mishkan wherever it was.

G-d explains the shofar, telling that if the Israelites are attacked, Moshe has to blow a Teruah, the 8 short blasts, and G-d will save them.

We also hear about the story of the “craving Israelites,” too vivid not to mention. 600,000 people were craving this meat because they hadn’t eaten anything like that since Egypt. Moshe is overwhelmed with the responsibility and all these people crying out to him for meat. He goes to G-d, and G-d says, ok I’ll give them meat until it “comes out of their nostrils”. The craving Israelites eat and eat the quails that G-d gives them, until they literally die, and are buried in the “Graves of the Craving.”

Now, in the 7th aliya, we are presented with the final story of the Parsha, the one that I want to focus on.

Miriam and Aaron are talking together, each of them critical of Moshe and how he married a Kushite woman. They complain that G-d only talks to Moshe, a man who isn’t even marrying a Jew. That triggers a response. G-d summons all three of them outside. He emphasizes that Moshe is his faithful servant, the humblest man in the world, and here they are talking down on him. G-d inflicts Tzaraat on Miriam and commands her to quarantine for seven days. Aaron begs Moshe for mercy and pleads with him to ask G-d to heal their sister.

Moshe says the famous 11 letter prayer that we repeat today אֵ֕ל נָ֛א רְפָ֥א נָ֖א לָֽהּ: - simply, “Please G-d, Heal her please.”

Interestingly, Rabbi Rachel Baranblat, a modern British rabbi, connected this 11 letter prayer to another significant 11 letter phrase - אהיה אשר אהיה. This is how G-d referred to Himself when He introduced Himself to Moshe.¹

In saying this prayer, Moshe passionately called upon G-d to heal Miriam. OK, G-d is moved, but why were they punished in the first place? After all, Miriam and Aaron were only talking to each other.

Ibn Ezra (12th century Spaniard) points us to Parshat Acharei Mot in Vayikra, specifically chapter 18 verse 28 which says: 

וְלֹֽא־תָקִ֤יא הָאָ֨רֶץ֙ אֶתְכֶ֔ם בְּטַמַּֽאֲכֶ֖ם אֹתָ֑הּ כַּֽאֲשֶׁ֥ר קָאָ֛ה אֶת־הַגּ֖וֹי אֲשֶׁ֥ר לִפְנֵיכֶֽם:

Or – And let the land not vomit you out for having defiled it, as it vomited out the nation that preceded you.

This Pasuk comes after the Torah lists abominations that will get you thrown out of Bnei Israel, most of them revolve around adultery and things of that nature. The point is, if you do something that warrants getting rejected from Bnei Israel, the Torah doesn’t hesitate to tell us that you get thrown out.

So I read that a couple of times, and saw Rashi had a similar explanation for this separate passage - he took an example of a person eating something that their stomach couldn’t handle and violently throwing up.

Graphic, I know, but it relates. He connects it to Eretz Israel, and how they do the same thing with sinners, rendering them physically unable to be in society. In this scenario, Miriam is literally being vomited out of Bnei Israel. God is making the point that Lashon Hara is so bad that it will warrant you getting vomited out, or thrown out of the community.

So this makes sense, but it brings back the very question I set out to answer in the first place: Aaron sinned too, it wasn’t just Miriam, so why was it only Miriam that was afflicted with tzaraat?

Rashi points us to a midrash compiled in third century Israel by a group of scholars led by Rabbi Yishmael. The midrash basically says a “father is mercifully inclined to his son,” so even in times of His wrath (i.e. giving tzaraat to Miriam), G-d appears to mercifully spare Aaron.

But this explanation leads me to think there has to be more. G-d doesn’t favor Aaron over Miriam; in fact, he may have reason to favor Miriam over Aaron. Because let’s go back to when Moshe was a baby and Miriam saved him and when B'nai Israel escaped Egypt, what was the first thing Miriam did? She pulled out her timbrel and started to dance and sing in praise of G-d.

So why would it look like G-d punished only Miriam for doing the same thing that Aaron did?

I tried to find an answer in a couple of pasuks before, when G-d tells Moshe, Miriam, and Aaron to step outside - here, more commentators tell us that G-d alone punishes those who oppose him - same thing, Miriam opposed him but again, SO DID AARON.

Rashi says that the word וַתְּדַבֵּ֨ר, (to speak), which leads off the pasuk telling about how they were critical of Moshe, is in the feminine form, meaning Miriam initiated the conversation, so therefore she should get the punishment. Abarbanel, a Portuguese commentator in the 15th century, agrees with this statement.

Another perspective that spoke to me were the Rabbis and commentators’ takes. They say that Aaron, in fact, was punished, even though it wasn’t as severe as tzaraat. After all, the pasuk does say “G-d incised THEM” and not just Miriam. Rabbi Akiva says Aaron was also punished with tzaraat, but his infliction was transient and didn’t last. Rabbi Yehuda says it was just a lapse in judgement for Aaron and his punishment was being reprimanded by G-d during what he calls a “divine Rebuke.”

I was still confused - If Miriam was the one who truly initiated the conversation, and was the first one to say those things about Moshe and his wife, then it makes sense that she was punished in the way she was. However, Aaron, who might not have started the conversation and wasn’t the sole perpetrator, still was the bystander and went along with everything, and didn’t try to stop it, and yet he wasn’t punished, or some accounts say he was.

The point is - I’m not crazy. The Rabbis are doing the same thing as me and grappling with this entire passage.

After taking a step back, I asked myself - could this be the point of the passage? Is this confusion supposed to happen? I mean, I still didn't know why only Miriam was punished, because all of the answers that the Rabbis gave were unsatisfactory to me. The main argument, that she started it, doesn’t resonate with me because just by starting it doesn’t mean she bears full responsibility.

If we broaden our perspective to consider Miriam and Aaron and what they have done, it lends another answer. I was only looking at this passage as if this was the first time both Miriam and Aaron were mentioned in the Torah - like they were completely equal and had experienced the same things. I completely forgot to take into account everything that had already happened in the Torah up to this point - for both Miriam and Aaron.

Just a few months ago, we read that B'nai Israel was punished for building the golden calf. Aaron was the leader, as Moshe was up on Har Sinai, and was forced to melt down the jewelry to make this calf. When the punishment came, 3,000 men died, Aaron bore responsibility. A bit later, two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, offered a sacrifice with “alien fire” and both sons died on the spot. So not only did Aaron bear responsibility for the golden calf incident, he also was dealing with the loss of two of his own sons.

So, was Miriam punished because she was the instigator? Was she punished because G-d wanted to make a statement about Lashon Hara? Was Aaron not punished because he already had a lot on his plate from past experiences? I think that is for each one of us to decide. I’m not up here to tell you the RIGHT or WRONG answers - I think the grappling is the point. Each of us has to wrestle with our choices and decisions and face the consequences. At the end of the day, what good is learning Torah if everything has a simple answer?

Good Shabbos.

¹ https://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2006/03/a_tiny_teaching.html