-
3. Miriam's Dance
- University of Illinois Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
46 3 Miriam’s Dance Miriam is considered a prophetess, and she sang a song of triumph with the Israelite women after the crossing of the Red Sea (Exod. 15:20). A miraculous well accompanied the Israelites in the wilderness because of her merits. When she died, MIRIAM’S WELL was transferred to the Sea of Galilee, where its healing waters are still to be found. At the great banquet, in the time of the Messiah, Miriam will dance before the righteous. Mystics believed that the water of Miriam’s Well helped refine the body, and those who drank from it were thus able to understand the teachings of the Kabbalah. —Alan Unterman, The Dictionary of Jewish Lore and Legend Art and Symbol as Text When I wrote my first biblical studies paper, I told the professor that I wanted to study Miriam. He attempted to persuade me to focus instead on Deborah, because she was a general. While he did not have a problem with the dancing Miriam as a topic, his concern was that there was not enough critical evidence on the biblical character. At the time, there was little historical research available on the dancing prophetess and what she represented in the Torah text. The scientific study of religion did not seem to view a dancing woman as particularly important, although rabbinic literature had ample mention of Miriam and dancing women in the Talmud, midrash, and Zohar. There were also beautiful depictions of Miriam and dancing women in medieval Spanish Passover manuscripts. Legends in themselves can be a wonderful picture of a community’s beliefs. In these stories of Jewish written text, the image is of a strong female Jewish leader who was a singer and dancer. The paintings might provide further insight into how the tradition was interpreted. According to dance scholar Judith Brin Ingber, through a reading of these pictures it is possible to discover a surprising amount of evidence about community history. If carefully interpreted, they might allow for a better understanding about the meaning of Miriam for the community, and how the tradition was embodied in the leadership of the tanyaderas, the women who served as dance and drum leaders of festive celebration.1 One purpose of looking at stories and paintings of Miriam is the recovery of history. The few available images provide essential clues. This is a worthy pursuit, as the movement depicted can relate a community’s social and ethical values. However, a larger question looms: Why is the dancer Miriam so important? What symbolic value did she have in the original biblical text, and then later in Jewish communities? In sum, what was the Miriam tradition? Insight into Jewish women’s dance rituals , especially in the Sephardic communities, can perhaps provide some answers, expanding Jewish history to be more inclusive of women. Illuminated medieval Spanish Passover seder guides, Haggadot, offer beautiful and colorful views into the past. Four are known to be extant— the Sarajevo Haggadah, the Golden Haggadah, the Hispano-Moresque Haggadah, and the Sister Haggadah. All are from the fourteenth century (the Hispano-Moresque Haggadah may be slightly earlier), and all include a page or section on women dancing. In the Golden Haggadah and the Sarajevo Haggadah, there are large illustrations of Miriam and the women celebrating at the shores of the Red Sea. The biblical account of Miriam is quite memorable, and the paintings in these texts might simply depict this story. According to art historians, however, there is more present. The depictions in these Haggadot are contemporized in terms of dress and stylization, as are the other pictures. So the manuscripts “allow us to discover aspects and scenes of medieval Jewish life through the biblical ‘stories’ they portray [in] the appearance and everyday dress of medieval Jews, through the biblical heroes at the time of the patriarchs.” Thus it is possible to view Jewish understandings of life in these depictions, as “Jewish iconography was not bound by the conventions and strict codification of Christian iconography.” Significantly, “the frequent occurrence Miriam’s Dance 47 [44.210.236.0] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 13:21 GMT) of ritual images [in the manuscripts] provides us with a fairly complete picture and, hence, a more specific interpretation of the religious aspects of medieval Jewish life.”2 What we see, then, is at least as much about medieval Jewish life as it is about Jewish tradition. Art historian Beth Haber considered the characterization of Miriam in the Sarajevo Haggadah...