Search Library

Miriam's Cup Pt. 1: Bitter Sea
Contributed by Noraa Kaplan

  • TOP HAGGADAHS FOR 2023

One remarkable thing about the Exodus story is that despite its grand scope, it counts many normal, common people in its cast of characters. Among the larger-than-life personalities of the evil Pharaoh, the heroic Moshe, and God Himself at His most epic, we find ordinary women altering the course of history. The Talmud teaches that it was “through the merit of the righteous women of that generation that we were redeemed from Mitzrayim.” Two midwives, Shifra and Puah, risked their lives and defied Pharaoh’s order to kill all male Hebrew babies. Moshe Rabbeinu may have saved the Jewish people, but time and time again, the women in his life saved him. Moshe’s upbringing was anything but a conventional nuclear family. Moshe had two mommies, his biological mother and wet-nurse Yocheved, who taught him about his culture, and Pharaoh’s righteous daughter, Batya, who found him as a baby floating in a basket and decided to adopt him as her own. Years later, when Moshe was returning to Mitzrayim with his family, his wife Tziporah saved his life from Hashem’s wrath by circumcising their son.

But there was no greater woman in her generation than Miriam the Prophet. As a girl, Moshe’s older sister Miriam saved her brother’s life by putting him in a basket on the Nile and watching to make sure he was safe. When Pharaoh’s daughter decided to adopt Moshe, Miriam cleverly convinced her to allow Moshe’s mother Yocheved to be his wet-nurse. Years later, when her prayers were answered and B’ney Yisra’el was finally free, Miriam led the Israelites in the Song of the Sea, and “picked up a timbrel and all the women followed her dance.” (Exodus 15:20)

The name Miriam comes from the words mar yam, meaning “bitter sea.” Interestingly, the first place B’ney Yisra’el stopped after crossing the Red Sea was a place called Marah, which means “bitter.” The water they found there was too bitter to drink. Hashem instructed Moshe to cast a piece of wood into the well. When he did so, the water became sweet. Jewish tradition holds that while they wandered in the desert, B’ney Yisra’el drank from a miraculous well that followed Miriam wherever she went. But what if the well wasn’t following her? What if instead the well was already there wherever B’ney Yisra’el camped, and Miriam’s gift of prophetic vision allowed her, like Hagar before her, to simply open her eyes and see it?

Since the 1980s, Jewish feminists have placed a cup for Miriam on the seder table in addition to the cup traditionally left for Eliyahu. To honor the source of water she provided in the desert, many have adopted the custom of having each guest pour a little water from their own glass into her cup. Tonight, as we add our water to Miriam’s cup, we say the name of something that embitters our lives and makes us furious, so we may pour out our wrath and let go of it. Let the undrinkable waters of our bitter sea be made sweet, and quench our thirst. 

(Each person at the table pours some water from their glass into Miriam’s cup.)

וּשְׁאַבְתֶּם-מַיִם בְּשָׂשׂוֹן מִמַעַיְנֵי הַיְשׁוּעָה.
Oo-shavtem mayim be-sason mi-mainey ha-yeshu’a.
You shall draw water joyfully from the wells of redemption. (Isaiah 12:3)
 
haggadah Section: Bareich
Source: Min Ha-Meitzar: An Abolitionist Haggadah from the Narrow Place by Noraa Kaplan

Featured clips


More clips from Noraa Kaplan