Freema Gottlieb - Her Song: Miriam at the Red Sea

Her Song: Miriam at the Red Sea

Parshat Beshallach

The Jewish People were redeemed from Egypt due only to the merit of the righteous women of that generation."(Sotah 11b:4)
And who was the leader of that cohort of righteous women, but Moses' sister. At the very moment that Israel was delivered from the hordes of Egyptian chariots by the miraculous splitting of the Red Sea, the whole of this newly born nation exploded into song. Then Moses and the children of Israel sang this song: "Let me sing unto the Lord, for He has triumphed absolutely"(Exodus 19:1).
It is followed shortly by:
And Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took a hand drum, and all the women went out after her in dance with hand drums. And Miriam responded [in refrain to the song initiated by her brother]: "Sing unto the Lord for He has triumphed absolutely"(Exodus 19:22).
Ostensibly, it seems, in her song there is nothing new except that it was delivered in public by a woman. Indeed, according to commonly accepted typology, from a superficial point of view, her rendering is an abbreviated copy of the men's. Was there anything original in her song—some "female" component that was necessary for redemption?
If so, how do the parallel descriptions of "male" and "female" types of song pinpoint Miriam and the unique contribution of the Jewish women's ?
R. Kalonymos Kalman Epstein, the Maor va-Shemesh, an eighteenth-century Chassidic teacher, explains that the world as it appears falls into various categories: masculine and feminine, light and darkness, among others. However, in the messianic age, no such divisions will exist, for all will come to realize equally His divine light, that God is at the center of things.
He compares this to dancing in a circle, where every part of the circle's circumference is equidistant from the center. Then everyone will absorb the clear light of the Divine in equal measure, as is written, "'They shall teach no more everyone their neighbor, and everyone their brother and sister," for they shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,'" says God (Jeremiah 31:34)
Rabbi Kalonymos continues: "When the Talmud says that in the future the Holy One will make a circle dance for the righteous and sit in their midst "(Taanit 31a), this was already Miriam's perspective from biblical days. She had all the women follow her and she performed circle dances (hakafot) with them in accordance with the mystery of "a woman shall encircle a man" (Jeremiah 31:21) in order to draw upon the higher light from the place where the categories of masculine and feminine do not exist.
What Moses said—"I will sing to the Lord" (Exodus 15:1)—is expressed in the future tense. This is because Moses spoke while still limited by the categories of masculine and feminine. He and the male representatives of Israel had faith that one day they would be able to sing the ultimate song. But Miriam, through her circle dance, actively drew down the supernal light and attained the highest perspective possible on the spot. .She was therefore able to sing that song not only as a pale counterpart to the men but as in response and as a rejoinder to God for redemption at that time. "Sing [now] to the Lord," now that you [the women] have attained the highest possible level." By starting a circle dance, she drew down the supernal light, from the source, where the categories of male and female ( and countless other such divisions ) do not apply.
(Based on R. Kalonymos Kalman Epstein, Maor va-Shemesh to Beshallach)
At a time of myriads of life-storing miracles but no ultimate answer, what the "righteous women" of that time had to give is a resource for us now.

Selected Works

“A masterful work, and so timely; there is a spiritual yearning in the country, which The Lamp of God will help to satisfy.”
—Bill Moyers, Public Affairs Television, Inc.

“Freema Gottlieb’s beautiful book The Lamp of God is written in black fire on white fire; it is the kind of book that had to be written, that comes from the deep sources of both the author and the Jewish tradition, and whose brilliance blazes off its rough edges.”
“Both a very conservative book, in love with roots, with nuances of orthodox tradition, immersed in sources, and an entirely radical, free-thinking one, that gives one a sense of understanding stories in the Bible, and mitzvoth, in a way that they have never been understood before.
—Francis Landy, professor of Religious Studies, University of Alberta, Midstream,.

“Of deep interest to all who want to know more about the extraordinary achievements of those who, through so many ages, have given their poetic and imaginative power to the enrichment of an ancient tradition. A dedicated performance and an admirable book.”
—Frank Kermode, Fellow of the British Academy, professor emeritus of English Literature at Cambridge, member of the working party on interpretation, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, coauthor The Literary Guide to the Bible, and author of The Oxford Anthology of English Literature and many other works

“Freema Gottlieb weighs into history, the history of our beginnings, like a true poet. Light in her hands is tangible; it can be felt, it can be held. Her art is truly transformational in the best sense: it treats its subject as though for the first time, and will certainly cause a stir.”
—James Ellison, former executive editor, Book-of-the-Month Club, and book editor of Psychology Today

“Freema Gottlieb is a truly talented storyteller gifted with a luminous and original imagination.”
—Judith Rossner, novelist, author August, Looking for Mr. Goodbar and other novels.

“The writing is not linear and expository, but associative and reflective. Some passages appear to have been written in a meditative consciousness and might serve as the objects of spiritual contemplation.”
—Nehemia Polen, associate assistant professor of Jewish Thought, Boston Hebrew College ,and author of Esh Kodesh, the Warsaw Ghetto writings of Rabbi Kalonymos Shapiro.

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The Lamp of God: A Jewish Book of Light

A meditation on 3,000 years of Jewish sources to which the light metaphor is key.

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"A Love Made out of Nothing"

Jewish Week, March 13, 2017

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Gut Renovation is a memoir-in-progress about the transformation of an apartment that originally was a Jerusalem water well.

Quick Links

INTERVIEWS

“Emmanuel Levinas Face to Face.” Forward, (August 1991). “From Mao to Moses: An Interview with Benny Levy, Leading Maoist and Sartre’s Secretary.” Partisan Review (Fall 1994). “West Bank Women: A Double Defiance,” in Jewish Press Features, reprinted in Genesis 11, 1979, and other newspapers. “A Talk with Aharon Appelfeld.” New York Times Book Review, November 23. 1980 “A Talk with Nathan Rappaport, Sculptor of the Warsaw Memorial.” Hadassah, December 1981.

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For Jews of Vichy's "Free Zone" in the early 1940s, the idyllic scenery of the remote village of Aulus-les-bains, nestled amid the intense greens of the Garbet valley at an altitude of about 2,500 feet, on the Pyrenean mountains of the Franco-Spanish border, presented nothing but a deathtrap.