please, heal, please, her: Parashat B’ha`a lot’kha 

sparks

Parashat B’ha`a lot’kha 
Numbers 8:1 – 12:16

This Torah portion comprises many distinct elements, many having to do with the issue of leadership. It begins with an inspiring image of the priestly lighting of the seven lamps of the menorah. It ends with the unsettling story of the Israelites waiting seven days for Miriam to be cured of her skin affliction that she incurred for complaining against her brother Moses.

That story is disturbing for various reasons. One is that it tells us that the previously harmonious relationship between the leadership triumvirate of Israel, the three siblings, Miriam, Aaron and Moses, has fallen apart. Miriam complains to Aaron about her brother, Moses, the very brother whom she did so much to protect when he was but a baby. Now God’s rage is directed toward her and she is transformed, in Aaron’s horrific image of a baby “who, on emerging from his mother’s womb, has half his flesh eaten away.” (Num. 12:12) Aaron implores Moses to pray on behalf of his sister.
Moses’ plea comprises five halting but euphonious words: “God, please, heal, please, her – el na r’fa na lah.” (v.13) Some have wondered about the brevity of this petition. Our Etz Hayim commentary suggests that, “It’s brevity seems to reveal Moses’ lack of enthusiasm and minimal compliance with Aaron’s plea.” (p. 835) I find this reading to be a disappointing failure of attention to the text and a failure of imagination.

The context for reading this brief prayer has been established by the way the narrator tells us this story. First the storyteller relates Miriam’s resentful complaint against her brother and says: “And the Eternal heard.” (v.2) God furiously confronts the three siblings. (v.4) But, before that verse can continue the story, the narrator seems to feel compelled to insert a special comment to the reader: “And the man Moses was very humble – more than any human being on the face of the earth.” (v.3) However we might wish to understand the quality of humility attributed to Moses, it seems to at least mean that he was not a person occupied with feelings of self-importance, resentful of what others thought of him. We should appreciate that the narrator felt that it was particularly necessary to tell us of this quality of Moses right here, when Moses’ own sister betrayed their bond. And we should further appreciate the tone of wonder that suffuses this sentence. No one else in the entire world could compare to Moses in this respect.

So I feel that it is a mistake to understand Moses’ prayer as deriving from anger or lack of caring. How then might we read those words? One possibility is to delve into their depths, reading them as concentrated and pressurized utterances. Or, perhaps the prayer is not meant to be eloquent – for the shaken Moses has been returned to his earlier state of being “heavy of mouth and heavy of tongue,” (Ex. 4:10) when he lacked faith in his own ability to do God’s bidding.

Or, perhaps we should notice the word that immediately precedes his prayer. The verse reads: “And Moses cried out to the Eternal, to say (lemor): “God, please …” (Num. 12:13) The word “lemor” is hard to translate. It is often rendered as “saying.” Or, because it seems redundant or superfluous, it is not translated at all. But commentators have also suggested that this word, literally meaning “to say,” serves to indicate that what is being said is then meant to be repeated by others. For instance, at the Song of the Sea we find: “Then Moses and the children of Israel sang …and they said, saying.” (Ex. 15:1) The meaning there is that they instructed all those present to repeat their words of song along with them. Similarly, here it is possible to imagine Moses repeating these words again and again, and perhaps teaching Aaron to repeat them along with him. Contrary to the stingy reading mentioned above, I choose to believe that those few words of prayer for healing were feelingly uttered and echoed, and so they have reverberated down to our own time.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Greenstein


Subscribe to Rabbi Greenstein’s weekly d’var Torah

Image: commercial stock image, no attribution.

Latest posts by Rabbi David Greenstein (see all)

What do you think?