One Hundred Philistine Foreskins by Tova Reich Page A

our first Pesakh in the ‘leper’ colony of Jerusalem.”
    Let us now at long last give Miriam some credit, our holy mother declared. Moses, Aaron, and Miriam led us out of Egypt, the prophet Micah said—but Micah was only a minor prophet after all. Miriam—her name contains the word bitter—was on the cutting edge of independent women in that she never married, we were horrified to learn from Ima Temima; there is no explicit mention of her marriage in the plain, unmediated text, Ima Temima taught, an unacceptable omission from the point of view of the sages, and so it was ordained that the wife of Caleb son of Yefuneh, a woman known as Azuva—her name means the forsaken one—was none other than Miriam, broken into wife-hood and submission under an alias. “But for us,” Ima Temima taught, “her name will be neither Bitter nor Forsaken. For us her name will be Snow White—because Miriam-Azuva-Snow White was the noblest ‘leper’ of them all.”
    Gevalt, the teachings about Miriam-Azuva-Snow White that dripped from the holy tongue of Ima Temima in the course of our Seder that night, were like honey, they sweetened the innermost soul and touched upon the most private sorrows and disappointments of each one of us, leaving us breathless. By the time we opened the door to the prophetess Miriam and invited her to cross the threshold into our space along with her escort for the evening, the prophet Elijah, and sip from their cups, it was asif her bitterness and abandonment had been transformed into nectar and we had all become one with her, an exalted band of dancing holy “lepers.” For speaking ill of her brother Moses on the matter of his having taken for himself a “Cushite” woman (no offense intended against African Americans or other people of color, our holy mother was quoting straight from the text), who may or may not have been his wife Zippora the Midianite, Miriam was stricken with “leprosy.” She turned white as snow; it was all about skin color in the end—black and white. For the sin of evil gossip she became like the dead who emerges from her mother’s womb with half her flesh eaten away.
    â€œLeprosy” is legendary for its contagiousness, Ima Temima reminded us in the most stunning teaching of all—so from whom did Miriam-Azuva-Snow White catch it? The answer is—from her little brother, Moses. And from whom did Moses catch it? The answer to that one is, from the original carrier, God Himself—first, a mild case at the burning bush, then a virulent case that erupted on his face rendering it so alarmingly incandescent he was obliged to cover it with a veil before meeting his public after spending forty days and forty nights without food or drink on the mountaintop in close quarters with the leper-in-chief, the original carrier, who spoke to him mouth to mouth. Mouth to mouth, that will spread it for sure—and who but Moses has ever been so honored in this way? With Miriam the infection was also communicated, for good measure, directly by mouth, when her heavenly father spit in her face—that will also do the trick—leaving nothing but skin white as death, rashes and lesions, nodules and sores, and a Jewish nose hanging by a scab liable any minute to fall right off. Beware the plague of “leprosy,” the text cautions us. Remember what the Lord your God did to Miriam on the journey when you left Egypt.
    As we reclined on our mattresses nodding our heads straining to absorb in its full relevance this teaching of Ima Temima, Cozbi threw the door wide open, perched her hands on her hips, and in a clear, strong voice for all to hear greeted our holy guests. “Welcome to leper colony, tovarishchi !”
    â€œPour out Your wrath against the nations that never knewYou, pursue them in fury and destroy them from under Your heavens,” a few of the more traditional members of our flock chanted