Were Miriam and Aaron racist?

 What did Moshe do wrong?  Miriam complained to Aaaron about something Moshe did, and they got punished by Hashem for speaking against Moshe. Aaron was stricken with leprosy for a moment (Rashi) and Miriam for a week. What exactly was it that Moshe did, why did they talk about it and what was their mistake?  This story, which is recounted at the end of this week’s Parsha, is one of those perplexing passages that cannot be properly understood without the Oral Torah’s explanations. 

A simple translation of the first two verses of chapter 12 reads:

1 Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses regarding the Cushite woman he had married, for he had married a Cushite woman.

2 They said, "Has Hashem spoken only to Moses? Hasn't He spoken to us too?" And  Hashem heard.

What could be wrong with a Cushite woman?  When they married, the Torah had not been given, and there was no real concept of intermarriage, because all the Jews “converted” at Mount Sinai. In fact, the way Moshe met Tzipporah was because she and her family were being persecuted because they had rejected idolatry and accepted the Jewish idea of Monotheism. Is it possible that they were racist?  Cushite implies black. But this was a nation that had spent 210 years in Egypt among dark-skinned people, and Judaism anyway is not a race. We have had people of every race join us and, at least in the traditional community they have always been accepted as fully equal to the rest of the Jewish community. 

When we read our Sages’ explanation of the story, we gain a whole new understanding of the story and it’s powerful lessons, of which there are several. As usual I cannot do the subject justice in these short lines, but let’s get a preview. 

Tzipporah, Moshe’s wife, was strikingly beautiful. To the extent that anyone getting a glimpse of her immediately noticed her beauty, just like anyone looking at a person from Cush will notice that their skin is black. After the giving of the Torah, Moshe completely devoted his life to spiritual matters and to communication between Hashem and the Jewish people. He separated from all worldly matters, including family life. Miriam found out about this inadvertently and was very concerned about her younger brother, whose life she had saved when he was a baby. 

Now verse 2 has a whole new meaning.  "Has Hashem spoken only to Moses? Hasn't He spoken to us too?"  We know that asceticism is not a Jewish ideal. The point of Torah is to permeate the physical world, and the High Priest had to be married in order to perform the Yom Kippur service in the Holy Temple. So out of concern for Moshe, Miriam spoke to Aaron, questioning Moshe’s decision to leave his wife, something the other holiest leaders had not done, and Aaron participated in the speculation. 

So what did they do wrong?  Is there concern not valid?  The answer is that Moshe was the exception to that rule. Hashem Himself had told Moshe, right after the Giving of the Torah: 

(Devarim 5)

27 Go say to them, 'Return to your tents.'

28 But as for you, stand here with Me, and I will speak to you all the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances…”

Miriam and Aaron’s mistake was that they thought that Moshe would do anything not directly mandated by Hashem. And people of their caliber should not have questioned Moshe, recognizing his greatness as described in the Parsha. 

Among the many lessons that come to mind:  When we read the stories about our great holy leaders in the Torah, it is important to understand that we are dealing with people who are truly righteous. The “sins” that are described are not the kind of sins that we ordinary people may be guilty of. It behooves us to look deeper into the teachings of the Talmud and traditional commentators to get a better understanding of what the stories really mean. 

This is especially true of Moshe, who would not do a single thing that was not in sync with Hashem’s will. If it appears to us otherwise, the answers are there, we just have to look for them in the right places. 

Our Sages taught that Moshe is the first redeemer and the final redeemer, referring to Moshiach. This obviously does not mean physically because Moshiach will be a descendant of King David of the tribe of Judah. Among other things, it means that he will be as holy as Moshe, completely in sync with Hashem, doing nothing that is not His will. It’s time for us to see His revelation.