תֵּ תַ צַַּו
ה ־ יֵּעָשֶַׂמ דֵ עָ֕ הְל קֹ֑ח רֵָמ חֹ תֲ֖א
But I read it differently . For this broken moment my “ she ” is human , an ancestor . It is Miriam , Miriam the slave girl , Miriam the prophet .
Why Miriam ? Because she stood . And in that standing “ she ” (!) ultimately saves an entire people .
She stood while her imperiled baby brother – who was so threatening to the Pharaoh that he wanted him dead – was placed by his heartbroken mother in a basket in the reeds by the River Nile .
And she stood . Miriam watched him . She waited . She would not abandon him .
She waited for “ de ’ ah ” for revelation , for the moment when she was called to act .
And when was the right moment ? When her enemy , her enslaver , the one who wanted her brother dead , the daughter of Pharaoh , came down to the Nile with her servant girls to bathe . To bathe !! As if all was right in her empire , as if Hebrew babies were not being drowned in the Nile . She went to bathe as if innocent blood was not drenching her land and flowing through the waters of the river where she bathes .
But Miriam knew better than to see her oppressor as simply an oppressor . As less than human . She expected humanity even from her enemy . Impossibly , she watched with eyes of hope .
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