Chukat-Balak 5786

By Rabbi Margie Cella

I often ponder the awesome dual nature of water. I only learned how to swim as an adult; I am keenly aware of the danger presented by water for those unable to swim. 

I have already heard this year multiple stories of people drowning in pools and at the beach. Water can take a life, yet it is necessary for life; in the desert, one dies for lack of water. No biblical personality understood this more than Miriam, the only female sibling in the triumvirate of leaders who led our ancestors out of Egypt and through the desert.

Miriam watched as her brother floated in his protective basket in the Nile. The water kept him alive until the Egyptian princess found him, adopting him as her own. Miriam even devised a way to arrange for his own mother to nurse him. How many Israelite baby boys before him had been drowned in those same waters? 

Years later, when the nation stood on the shore of the Red Sea, paralyzed with fear from the encroaching Egyptian chariots, God miraculously opened the waters for them to walk through on dry ground. Miriam had been the one who had the foresight to bring drums and tambourines on the journey so that they were now able to sing praises to God.

In this week’s parashah, we read of the death of Miriam [Numbers 20:1]. Immediately, we read in the next verse that the nation was without water. From this juxtaposition the rabbis deduced the idea that it was in Miriam’s merit that a mythical well had followed the nation in the desert. That well, it seems, had now dried up.

God continues to sustain us today through Mayim Chaim, the words of Torah.

Oseh Shalom, Maker of Peace, may we be like our foremother Miriam, claiming the awesome power of Your sacred words.