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וַתִּקַּח֩ מִרְיָ֨ם הַנְּבִיאָ֜ה אֲח֧וֹת אַהֲרֹ֛ן אֶת־הַתֹּ֖ף בְּיָדָ֑הּ וַתֵּצֶ֤אןָ כׇֽל־הַנָּשִׁים֙ אַחֲרֶ֔יהָ בְּתֻפִּ֖ים וּבִמְחֹלֹֽת׃
וַתַּ֥עַן לָהֶ֖ם מִרְיָ֑ם שִׁ֤ירוּ לַֽיהֹוָה֙ כִּֽי־גָאֹ֣ה גָּאָ֔ה ס֥וּס וְרֹכְב֖וֹ רָמָ֥ה בַיָּֽם׃
Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, picked up a hand-drum, and all the women went out after her with drums and with dances. And Miriam responded to them [or:sang responsively with them]: Sing to God, for God has triumphed gloriously; Horse and driver God has hurled into the sea. (Exodus 15:20-21)
This section of the Torah holds both the pain of marginalization as well as the seeds of a future complete redemption and liberation.
The Original Primacy of Miriam’s Song?
The people make it through the Red Sea and witness the Egyptians drowning behind them. Moshe and the people then sing the famous Song at the Sea. After that, almost as a strange afterthought, we hear of Miriam and the women coming out with drums and dances and singing a much shorter version of the same song. Some scholars believe that it was Miriam’s song that was actually primary, that Miriam, not Moshe, was the original author of the Song at the Sea, even though it was recorded in Moshe’s name. Their evidence is based on the Dead Sea Scrolls and also on the particularly feminine tradition elsewhere in Tanakh of women coming out to sing and dance after a military victory (see for instance Judges 11:34 and I Samuel 18: 6-7). I think the Torah also hints at Miriam’s primacy by calling her here haneviah, “the prophetess,” as if implying that it is precisely this beautiful poem which she prophesied at this moment.
Marginalization
But you don’t have to believe that Miriam was the original author to sense how she and the women here are relegated to secondary status, pushed to the side in some way, even as their tradition is also preserved and honored. We do hear of their dancing and singing, but it is only after the other lengthy song is sung by Moshe and the people.
I want to pause here for a moment because I think the Torah is speaking to a real experience that we all encounter at some point in our lives, the experience of feeling marginalized, pushed to the side, not valued as much as others, treated as secondary.
Hint Of A Continuing Liberation Process
Now this is a moment in the Torah of great liberation. This is the pinnacle of the attainment of freedom from slavery, from precisely such a secondary social status. The people emerge now, though the birth canal of the splitting of the Sea, as newly liberated creatures, whole and proud for the first time, no longer in bondage, no longer subservient to another human. And yet, as we see here with the women and as we know from our own experience, the process of liberation is not complete. I think the Torah hints here at the possibility of a liberation process that will continue to unfold over millennia. The Torah offers us this hint precisely by including this section on Miriam’s song and dance, a passage that sparkles with energy and joy and innovation, as if offering us a taste of the possibility of things to come. This section is indeed a prophecy, Miriam’s prophecy of a fuller unfolding future liberation for all those who feel marginalized. The seeds are planted here.
Vatikah – “Taking” Space
What is the vision of liberation offered by this section? I want to unpack it by looking closely at the three verbs used here. The first is a verb of taking – Vatikah Miriam – “Miriam took.” She took the hand-drum. We often think of taking as negative and selfish, but taking is also active, energetic, assertive and generative – to take action, to take up space, to take power. Being on the sidelines can breed a sense of passivity, apathy, collapse, and disengagement, a sense that one doesn’t deserve to take up space, to have a voice, that one’s actions don’t matter, don’t have any effect. In the face of this loss of self, Vatikah, to take, is an assertion of agency and empowerment. We won’t wait for permission or to be given something, anything, like a beggar waiting for crumbs. We will take our full place here. It is essential for this self liberation that we do the taking ourselves.
This shift can be felt in the body. There is the low apathetic feeling of being secondary, of not considering yourself important, the way the body collapses in on itself, shoulders rounded and bent over, a hiding shriveling stance that says – I don’t matter. And then there is the shift into taking – physically taking up more space, standing taller, breathing yourself bigger, feeling the power and strength in your arms and muscles to take action, to be assertive, to take your part.
Vatetzena – Coming Out of Hiding
The second verb I want to focus on is Vatetzena. After Miriam takes action and picks up her drum, the Torah says vatetzena hanashim ahareha. Miriam’s action has ripple effects: “the women come out” ahareha, “after her.” Sensing her empowerment, they are inspired latzet, to come out, the same verb as yetziat mitzrayim, as the exodus from Egypt, the verb for moving from bondage to freedom. The women free themselves – vatetzena – they come out of hiding, out of the background, stepping out over a threshold, emerging into the sunlight, tall and proud and taking up space.
Making Noise
Not just taking up space, but making noise. The first thing the women do is to make noise, to beat their drums, to let the world know of their presence and celebration. No longer silenced and cowering in the back, they rise up to the front and announce their presence loudly and boldly, as if shouting from the rooftops – we are here! Maybe you can sense that possibility for the hidden and shut down parts of yourself, too, the urge to play a drum, to make noise, to finally be heard.
The Words Of The Torah Rise Up, Too
When we focus on this scene, I can feel and see the Torah passage itself, the written words themselves, emerging out of hiding from among the other words on the Torah page. All the other words stand by now in their black print while these leap up off the page in a burst of bright technicolor, emerging now from their obscurity into the light of our attention, making sound and dancing with joy. Can you see and hear them now? It is their time to be seen and heard.
And it is the time for the parts of us that were pushed to the side to emerge as well. What song does that little child in you that got shut down want to sing? Maybe there is a song she doesn’t even know the words to yet, just an inkling in your chest of untapped potential, of sidelined talent that sits inside you, waiting for the opportunity to blossom. What prophecy lies latent in your chest and your heart? What dance? What creativity? What joyful expression of the holy? How does your heart want to sing and dance in a way that it was never allowed to before, that there wasn’t room for? Miriam is making room for you now. She has come out with her drum to make room for you, too, to emerge, to make room for all the forgotten and sidelined souls. They, too, are part of this liberation.
A Particularly Feminine Way of Being
I believe that what Miriam envisioned that day in her prophecy was nothing less than a radical new way of being in the world, a kind of feminist revolution which I think we are still living into. And it wasn’t radical and feminist just because women were at the forefront, but also because of certain particularly feminine characteristics of this way of celebrating, of this way of leading and being.
Embodied
For one thing, the celebration is embodied. Whereas the song that Moshe and the Israelites sing is only verbal, including many words and lines of text, Miriam’s celebration balances the verbal and the non-verbal, drawing in the body as well as the mind. Yes, there is song with words, but only a few words, and here there is also bodily movement, meholot, dancing in circles with the whole body, and there is drumming, arms and hands moving, creating a rhythm that reverberates and resonates throughout the body. This is full bodied worship. Maybe you can sense that possibility in your own body, the song of praise to the Holy One that wants to emerge not just through words but also through bodily movement and rhythm, every cell and muscle of your body singing out. Kol atzmotay tomarna Hashem mi kamocha – “all of my bones shall say: God, who is like you?” (Psalms 35:10).
For Miriam, we should note, the words of this song actually come from the body. First there is the drum beat and the dance movement and only then the words; the words emerge on their own from her embodied knowing of the divine. Miriam trusted her body to know and to speak. What would that feel like for you, to allow your body to speak, to trust your body’s nonverbal way of knowing the divine, to lean into that mystery and let it sing?
Collaborative
Miriam’s vision is also deeply collaborative. She begins with her drum, the Torah says, and then the other women add the dancing. Together they collaborate and build on each other’s energy, sharing initiative and leadership in a non-hierarchical way.
Here we have arrived at the third verb in the section: Vata’an lahem. She responded to them and sang out her song. It is as if the song is born out of their mutual energy of interaction and engagement. She brings the drum, they add the dance, and then she responds to them with the song, a song that emerges from their collaboration. Miriam envisions a community, a group, a way of being with each other, where there is give and take, speaking and responding, a joint building of something sacred.
Each Person’s Role
We are not always in such a collaborative communal environment or capable of creating it, but we can hold the vision steadfastly as we walk towards it. And I think there is also a more individual message here for each one of us: Tend to your marginalized parts. Notice them and let them take space and make noise and emerge into the light. This scene in the Torah is both an example of such marginalization and a redemption of it, an inkling of the possibility of giving full voice to those parts of us that have been pushed to the side. Sing out your one true song into the world. The redemption continues in you.
Photo by Pixabay at Pexels
