2 July 2011 | 30 Sivan 5771 | Numbers 19:1-22:1

Around the holiday of Passover, you will inevitably hear me talk about the 5 cups of wine at the Passover Seder.  Yes I said 5 because so often we forget Elijah’s cup and its important significance. Interestingly, once people begin thinking about the cups at their Seder table, inevitably somebody comments, “Rabbi, there are actually 6 cups!  You forgot about Miriam’s cup.” In fact, they are right. At many modern Seder tables, we can find a 6th cup reserved for Miriam. However, this cup is not for wine. Instead, many families are displaying this sixth cup in honor of one of Judaism’s great prophets and filling it with water. In our tradition, Miriam, more than any other figure, is associated with water. There is the story surrounding Moses’s birth where Miriam was given the weighty responsibility of watching her baby brother float down the Nile River ensuring his safety. We can also look at the story of our redemption from Egypt when we stood at the edge of the sea, watching Pharaoh and his legions perish in the Sea of Reeds whereupon Miriam led all the women in dance and song at the water’s edge. Everything notwithstanding, it is this week’s parsha that associated Miriam’s name with water.  

We read in parshat Chukkat:
The Children of Israel, the whole assembly arrived at the wilderness of Zin in the first month and the people settled in Kadesh. Miriam died there and she was buried there. There was no water for the assembly, and they gathered against Moses and Aaron. (Numbers 20:1-2)

This passage, more than any other ties the people’s source of water to Miriam. Because of the apparent lack of water mentioned so closely with her passing, many have been tempted to tie the people’s ability to find water to Miriam’s merit. Therefore it fits that with her passing the people are lacking for this important resource. Although I could not think of a more deserving character to assign such honor, there is a troubling aspect to this type of reading.  If true, that once Miriam died the water ceased to flow, then doesn’t this imply that God is a poor manager, unable to use foresight and predict and needs for the people in His charge and under His protection. Throughout their journey, God has been providing manna and other food that has fallen from the sky.  What happened?  Did God fall asleep on the job and forget to bring the water?

The great biblical commentator Keli Yakar, Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim ben Aaron Luntschitz (1550 - 1619), offers an alternative to the attribution of water to the meritorious character of Miriam. Instead he suggests that it was not Miriam’s death that stopped the flow of water. Rather it was the people’s reaction to the news of her passing or better yet, their lack of a reaction. Unlike other leaders of the children of Israel, whose deaths bring an outward expression of mourning, we hear nothing of the sort for Miriam. We are simply informed that Miriam died and was buried….no tears or eulogies, no tearing of clothing or days of mourning. The people are silent. It was their lack of empathy and emotion that Rabbi Shlomo Ephriam claims was the cause of their drought. Their unwillingness to pay Miriam the tribute she deserved led to a punishment that sealed up the wells and brought a great thirst to the people’s lips. In light of the Klei yakar’s insightful reading of the connection between Miriam and water, I would like to offer a meaning to Miriam’s cup that adorns the Seder table of so many. In a celebration that celebrates our people’s journey from slavery to freedom, a celebration of our people’s great journey which we all continue to this very day, we must be vigilant about remembering all the people who helped us get to this point of the journey.  We must remember them and pay them a proper tribute. If we do so, their memory will continue to sustain and support us as we continue forward.

Shabbat Shalom.