Parashat Huqqat
Numbers 19.1-22.1
“And the Children of Israel came, the entire community, to the Wilderness of Tzin on the first month, and the people camped at Qadesh; and Miriam died there and she was buried there.” (Num. 20.1)
Abraham Ibn Ezra comments: “ ‘On the first month’ – of the fortieth year [of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt and wandering in the desert]. Thus, there is not a single story or prophecy in the Torah except for those of the first year and of the fortieth year.”
Who could have known? As they prepared Miriam for burial they brought out scroll after scroll, all inscribed in her handwriting. Thirty-eight scrolls, each marked with a year’s date, each one a diary of what had transpired during the long trek through the wilderness during that year.
Those were the years of our silence and our shame. After the debacle of Korah’s rebellion we marched on in silence. Moses was there for anyone who had a question or a dispute to be settled. Moses would listen and respond. But he hardly anymore entered the Tabernacle to commune with the Eternal. Looking on from the outside, he made sure we broke camp when the Cloud of Glory moved away from the Tabernacle, and he made sure we set up camp again when the Cloud came to rest. Aaron officiated at the necessary rituals and tried to circulate among the people to keep their spirits up. And Miriam hang out at the well, meeting everyone as they came to draw their water, engaging them in conversation on matters small and large, personal and global.
Who could have known that, in the evenings, after she returned to her tent, she wrote it all down? She kept tabs of who passed away from the Generation of the Exodus, and she recorded the new births, too. And the squabbles and the weddings and the landscapes and the trades. They say that one of the last things she wrote about was how Moses and Aaron were told by God to come to her and find out how to mix the ashes of the red heifer with the waters of her well, so that the people, beset by the impurity of recurring deaths, could revive themselves in purity.
When she died we silently placed her in her grave, and silently we placed the scrolls upon her and then we covered her and them with earth. For she had left very strict instructions: “At my death, no eulogies. And bury me with my scrolls!” So we have no record of eulogies for Miriam. And we have no record of those thirty-eight years, when we all wandered together.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David Greenstein
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Image: “homework-eraser-math.jpg” by r. nial bradshaw is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Photo has been altered and is used with permission.
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