Righteous Women and Miriam's Cup | Passover haggadah by Jenifer Casey

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Before we move on with our Seder, we must acknowledge the central role of women in the liberation.

It has always been important for our community to repair some of the damage done to all of us, both men and women, through the patriarchal practices that at times marginalized women’s role in Judaism. There is Yocheved, Moses’ mother, Batya, the Pharaoh's daughter, and Shifra and Puah, the famous midwives, and of course, Miriam, Moses' sister, the phrophet.

Reader: We start in our Seder by acknowledging that the Torah tells the story of the first act of rebellion against Pharaoh – the refusal of the Jewish midwives Shifra and Pu’ah to participate in the genocide that the Pharaoh had devised by calling on them to kill the first-born males whose births they facilitated. These midwives’ refusal to participate in the Pharaoh’s nefarious scheme, even under the threat of death, was the first crack in his rule, and it set the precedent for other women to refuse to go along with the genocide that Pharaoh’s followers were implementing. It gave the people courage both to withstand their oppression and to envision how to overcome it. These two brave women are really the first heroes of the liberation struggle.

Reader: There is also Pharaoh’s daughter Batya, who defies her own father and plucks baby Moses out of the Nile. The Midrash reminds us that Batya knew exactly what she doing: When Pharaoh’s daughter’s handmaidens saw that she intended to rescue Moses, they attempted to dissuade her, and persuade her to heed her father. They said to her: “Our mistress, it is the way of the world that when a king issues a decree, it is not heeded by the entire world, but his children and the members of his household do observe it, and you wish to transgress your father’s decree?” But transgress she did.

Reader: There is a special cup on the table, called Miriam’s Cup, which is for water. Water has sustained us all for generations, in the most difficult environments. It is a symbol of purity and sustenance in many faiths around the world. Miriam’s cup is also a symbol of compassion.

Reader: As we know from Torah and Midrash, and as the liquid in her cup attests (hold up the cup of water), the Prophet Miriam, sister of Moshe Rabeinu, our teacher, and Aharon, the first high priest, has always been associated with water. It was Miriam who prophesized the birth of Moses, saying “my mother is destined to bear a son who will save Israel.” It is Miriam who defied the Pharaoh’s death sentence for male Hebrew infants, who placed baby Moses in the basket in the River Nile, a kind of birth canal that delivered him to another woman, the Pharaoh’s daughter, who found and adopted him, assuring his survival.

Reader: It was Miriam who, at the shore of the Red Sea, “took a timbrel in her hand and all the women followed her, with timbrels and with dancing.” And who “sang to them,” leading them through the parted waters, not with hesitation and fear but with music and dancing. Perhaps taking a cue from Miriam, a few millennia later the Jewish anarchist Emma Goldman famously said, “If there’s no dancing, it’s not my revolution.” But it was our foremother Miriam who introduced the notion of radical change as worthy of celebration.

Reader: It was because of the merit of Miriam that miraculously the Israelites, slaking their thirst during forty years, travelled in the desert. After Miriam died, there was no water. God instructed Moses to speak to a rock, asking it for water, as perhaps Miriam had sung and spoken to the land they were traversing, asking it for water. Instead of speaking to the rock, Moses struck it – producing water but also God’s wrath sufficient to deny him entry into the Promised Land. A warning to us: like Miriam, address the Earth as our comrade, rather than making it our slave – or we will lose the Earth itself, our Promised Land.

Reader: Miriam is powerfully linked to all three water sources – river, sea, and well – for good reason. Just as without water there would be no life on earth, without Miriam, there would be no Jewish life. Before he could lead us out of Mitzrayim, Moses had to be kept alive. We have Miriam’s Nile rescue plan to thank for his survival. Without Miriam’s song and dance, there would have been no life-enhancing celebration of our redemption. Without Miriam’s well, we would not have lived through our wanderings.

Reader: The wine with which we fill Elijah’s Cup anticipates the bliss of a future messianic age. The water we place in Miriam’s Cup celebrates life itself, the miracle of joy in the present, and the basic fact of Jewish survival. A people need both, but water comes before wine. Without water, there can be no wine. Without Miriam, we would have had no messianic dream because we would have had no future.

All take a drink of water.

( Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a founder of Ms. Magazine and a member of the Tikkun editorial board, offered the above explanation)

haggadah Section: Rachtzah

Source: The Tikkun Passover Seder Supplement, tikkun.org