As this week’s Torah portion opens, Aaron and Miriam unexpectedly disparage their brother Moses:
When they were in Hatzerot, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married: “He married a Cushite woman!” (Parashat Beha’alotecha, Numbers 12:1)
Moses’ siblings’ comment is confusing on a number of levels. In the first place, it’s not quite clear who this “Cushite woman” actually is. Cush is commonly understood to refer to ancient Ethiopia (in Genesis 10:6 we read that the Cushites descended from Ham, the son of Noah.) However, the text makes it clear that Moses’ wife Zipporah is a Midianite, not a Cushite. As Rashi would say, what’s the deal here?
Commentators have handled this discrepancy in different ways. Some suggest that Zipporah and the Cushite woman are the same person. (Many point out that Habbakuk 3:7 refers to a Midianite tribe named Cushan). Other Biblical scholars posit that the reference to the Cushite wife is a fragment of a larger (essentially lost) literary tradition. These theories are interesting as far as they go, but in the end they fail to address the most troubling dimension to this episode: namely, the patently racist nature of Miriam and Aaron’s words.
Indeed, whatever else might be going on in this strange Biblical narrative, it seems clear that it is, at least in part, an anti-racist polemic. Though Miriam and Aaron later indicate their anger at Moses also stems from their resentment of his being chosen by God to lead the Israelites, the text judges their prejudiced words with undeniable harshness. It is notable that after disparaging their brother for marrying a black woman, Miriam is stricken with tzara’at - the infamous Biblical skin disease that manifests itself with “snow-white scales.” (12:10) In a sense, God seems to be saying to Miriam: “You like white, I’ll show you white!”
Classical Jewish commentators famously understand tzara’at to be a physical manifestation of the sin of lashon harah - negative speech, or gossip. This interpretation is less compelling as theology (i.e. illness understood as divine punishment) than it is as a metaphor for the virulent nature of harmful words. Taking our cue from the rabbinic commentators, we might well extend this insight to address the radically infectious nature of hate speech and racism.
Indeed, just like a virus or infection, racism has the very real potential to spread through society if left unchecked. This is no less a reality for us today, centuries after these Biblical words were written. To be sure, the infectious nature of racism has “mutated” in new and frightening ways as we enter the 21st century. As former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has remarked:
Despite decades of efforts to eradicate it, the virus of racism continues to infect human relations and human institutions in all parts of our globe. Today, the old strains of this disease, such as institutionalized discrimination, indirect disadvantage, racist violence, hate crimes, harassment and persecution, are compounded by new forms of discrimination, seemingly defying many of the gains we have made. The Internet is used for the propagation of racism, the number of victims of human trafficking is growing, xenophobic arguments in political discourse are on the rise, and innocent people are “racially profiled” in the name of distorted notions of security. Even anti-Semitism is once again rearing its ugly head, six decades after the liberation of extermination camps in which the entire world saw the barbaric extremes to which racism, if not confronted, can lead.
As we learn this week, our penchant for racism and intolerance has been with us from time immemorial, even as it finds ever new and more insidious forms of transmission. What will we do to address the pandemic?