Racism

Numbers 12: 1-13

When they were in Hazerot, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married:  “He married a Cushite woman!”  They said, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?  Has He not spoken through us as well?”  The Lord heard it.  Now Moses was a very humble man, more so than any other man on earth.  Suddenly the Lord called to Moses, Aaron and Miriam, “Come out, you three, to the Tent of Meeting.”  So the three of them went out.  The Lord came down in a pillar of cloud, stopped at the entrance of the Tent, and called out, “Aaron and Miriam!”  The two of them came forward:  and He said, “Hear these My words:  When a prophet of the Lord arises among you, I make Myself known to him in a vision.  I speak with him in a dream.  Not so with My servant Moses; he is trusted throughout My household.  With him I speak mouth to mouth, plainly and not in riddles, and he beholds the likeness of the Lord.  How then did you not shrink from speaking against My servant Moses!”  Still incensed with them, the Lord departed.

As the cloud withdrew from the Tent, there Miriam was stricken with snow-white scales!  When Aaron turned toward Miriam he saw that she was stricken with scales.  And Aaron said to Moses, “O my lord, account not to us the sin which we committed in our folly.  Let her not be as one dead, who emerges from his mother’s womb with half his flesh eaten away.”  So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “O G-d, pray heal her!”   AYL NA R’FA NA LA!

Isn’t it amazing how you can spend more than 60 years reading the same Torah portion year after year and see something new in it each time.  This week’s portion, Behaalotecha, has the phrase that we’ve been privileged to hear Judith Evnen chant for us as part our services on Zoom….AYL NA R’FA NA LA!

We know that Aaron and Miriam criticize their brother for marrying a Cushite woman.  Although we know that Tzipporah, Moshe’s wife, was from Midian,some sages believed that the reference Cushi was actually a reference to Cushan, a Midianite tribe.  The word Cushite, can also refer to an individual with dark skin.  Were these two leaders of the Israelites speaking harshly about Moses because of the color of his wife’s skin or her origins?  Were they exhibiting racial prejudice and did their statement indicate that they felt differently about her as a result of the color of her skin?   Is that why Miriam was struck with white scales on her skin?  Was that in response to her statement about the darkness of Tzipporah’s skin? 

We do have reference to the affliction of white scaly patches of skin, tzaraat, in other parshiyot which often relates the condition to being a physical manifestation of an inner moral fault.  Was this the case in this instance?  And if so, what was the moral fault?  Was it speaking harshly of another based on the color of their skin? What are the boundaries of acceptable speech?

And if it was a punishment for criticizing Moshe for marrying a Cushite woman, why was it that only Miriam was afflicted with the disease.  Was this a miscarriage of justice based on gender?

So obviously there are several issues that this parsha has sparked.  The first is about exhibiting racial prejudice related to the color of one’s skin. It’s hard to think that this behavior was occurring during the time the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness especially since many of us might think of racial hatred as a modern day invention dating back only to the 1930’s and Nazis Germany.

Even for many of us gathered here today, the words that Martin Luther King uttered in 1963 seem like ancient history.  His words still express the hopes and dreams of the black community in America. “I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character”.   Many younger adults and children don’t remember the days of racial segregation in this country.  Many younger adults and children have not been privy to times when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission did not exist to enforce federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.  They have however, been around to see an upsurge in violence against blacks in our country and hatred being spewed by white supremacy groups that re-emerged from the underground when Charlottesville erupted in 2017.

Years ago, I believe it was 1997, Danny Neiden and I put together a showing of Liz Swados’ the Hating Pot followed by a panel of Lincoln Public School Teens talking at Tifereth Israel about what it was like to be part of a minority group going to school in our city.  The conversation that ensued was an important one to hear and at that time of listening to the voices of African American, Asian, Hispanic, and Jewish youths, no one dared insist that the students’ experiences were not real as experienced in their high schools.  Today, we are hearing the voices of individuals who are standing in solidarity with the black community that is subject to pain and suffering at the hands of systemic racism. And yet, we still have individuals who are insistent on saying that the experiences of the black community are not genuine.  There’s a statement in Torah, expressed by the Israelites when given the Torah.  They said, “We will do and we will hear”….DOING…Actions/ behaviors are most important for any group to undertake together in unity.  Hearing comes second, because we each may have different understandings of the reality around us, but as long as we are unified in our actions, the world can be healed.

Was the language of Miriam and Aaron an example of a moral fault or would we be saying today that it was an expression of free speech?  As difficult as it might seem, and as foreign as it might seem, Judaism does have a stand on using slurs and slanders when referring to others.  “ We do not have to like each person, let alone what each person does, but we must use our ability to speak in a way that respects the image of God in each person…. We can only share negative information about someone when the hearer has a practical need to know it.” “The respect demanded by the Jewish tradition for each and every human being does not mean that we must accept everything that anyone does. After all, the Torah is filled with laws that categorize certain forms of human behavior as prohibited and others as required, and if Jews fail to abide by those laws, the Torah demands “Reprove your kinsman and bear no guilt because of him” (Lev. 19:17). But that reproof must be given in private so as not to disgrace the person in public and must be done constructively and with respect for the ultimate human dignity inherent in each of us.  (Rabbi Elliott Dorf)   By that standard, both Aaron and Miriam were guilty of having missed the mark for appropriate speech. 

As to why Miriam was punished and not Aaron that remains a mystery.  The text does not give us any insight into the reason why.  The text does however show us that Aaron took responsibility for his part in the misdeed as well.

And now for the final part of the text we’ve looked at today.  Moses cries out to the Lord, “O G-d, pray heal her.”  These 4 words in Hebrew constitute the very first prayer uttered for healing in the Torah.  As much as I know that this prayer was uttered to heal the physical manifestation of the disease inflicted upon Miriam for her improper speech, I also like to think about it as a prayer for healing in the fullest sense of the word.  If racial hatred is fueled by words that hurt and refuse to take into account the divine nature of another human being, perhaps the prayer can be thought of as a plea to end such hatred as well. 

In that light let me share another prayer written this past week:

“Vaccinate Us”
By Rabbi Jen Gubitz

As our world suffers,
sickened by this virus—we pray:

Inoculate our hearts with fortitude
to dismantle systemic racism
Inject our souls with compassion to love
and then to love harder
Mitigate our structures of power
against abuse, exploitation and violence.
Protect our siblings, among us and beyond,
beloved humans who lay bleeding in our streets

Strengthen those wearied by oppression,
with renewed energy, tenacity, hope and rest.

Fortify our hearts to listen deeply and amplify the voices
of black people
of brown people
of indigenous people everywhere

Immunize us, O Source of Healing,
Immunize us against this viral historic hate,
Course through our veins courage and conviction
to reckon with our implicit bias
to apologize for our role in the pain
to fight to end this oppression

Vaccinate us, vaccinate us, O Source of Healing
with the sacred power of love.