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In this week’s Torah reading, Beha’alotecha, God instructs Aaron concerning the Tabernacle Menorah lighting. The Levites are initiated into the Tabernacle service. The “Second Passover” is instituted. At God’s behest, Moses makes two trumpets, and is instructed how and when to use them. The Israelites leave Mount Sinai, and proceed towards the Land of Canaan. The people unreasonably complain about their “frugal” manna diet and receive a meat supplement, albeit with tragic results. Moses appoints seventy elders to assist him in bearing the burden of the people. Miriam speaks negatively about Moses and is punished with tzara’at (a skin disease).
Let’s read from the parsha:
Num 12:1 Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.
Num 12:2 And they said, “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has he not spoken through us also?” And the LORD heard it.
Num 12:3 Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.
Num 12:4 And suddenly the LORD said to Moses and to Aaron and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the tent of meeting.” And the three of them came out.
Num 12:5 And the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud and stood at the entrance of the tent and called Aaron and Miriam, and they both came forward.
Num 12:6 And he said, “Hear my words: If there is a prophet among you, I the LORD make myself known to him in a vision; I speak with him in a dream.
Num 12:7 Not so with my servant Moses. He is faithful in all my house.
Num 12:8 With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly, and not in riddles, and he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?”
The following is based on FFOZ Weekly eDrash from 2009.
So Miriam was shut up outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until Miriam was received again.
Even Aaron and Miriam were not above the sin of grumbling. The passage relates a few details about their complaint against Moses. Apparently they had something against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married. (The Torah does not tell us the details of their gripe, but people are often irritated by their in-laws.)
The complaint against Moses had to do with his role as leader over the assembly. Both Miriam and Aaron were prophets in their own right. They had both personally received prophecies from God. They began to resent Moses’ sole leadership over the assembly. “Has the LORD indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us as well?”, they asked.
Miriam and Aaron assumed that no one could hear their private conversation. It was their own private gripe against their brother. They forgot that God could hear. The Torah says, “And the LORD heard it“
How many times do we indulge in similar “private” conversations, forgetting that God is listening?
The LORD struck Miriam with leprosy as a punishment for speaking evil speech against her brother. Moses immediately interceded on her behalf with a short, urgent prayer. The LORD relented and removed the leprosy, but Miriam still had to be put outside of the camp for seven days until she was ritually fit again.
The most puzzling thing about the story is why Miriam was smitten with leprosy while Aaron was not. Is that fair? Perhaps Aaron was spared because of his responsibility in the priesthood or perhaps it was that Miriam was punished more harshly because she was the instigator of the gossip. Those are possible explanations, but there seems to have been one ancient tradition that taught Aaron was also struck with leprosy. According to that tradition, the Torah does not explicitly mention Aaron’s punishment out of respect for the office of the high priest. Instead, Aaron’s punishment was edited out of the record but remembered nonetheless.
We know this was an opinion in early Judaism because one ancient rabbi warns that “Anyone who says that Aaron was also smitten with leprosy will have to give an account [in heaven]. When God has concealed the matter concerning Aaron [how dare we reveal it?]” (Sifre 105). Clement, the disciple of the Peter, preserved the same tradition. He taught that Aaron was also put out of the camp for seven days. Clement says, “On account of envy, Aaron and Miriam had to make their abode outside the camp” (1 Clement 4:11).
For us, we should always remember that our words are heard and recorded in heaven: We are taught by our Master Himself as it is written, “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
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