Miriam’s Song

One of the challenges of making the Passover celebration relevant to contemporary egalitarian gender norms is the focus on male characters in the Exodus story. Moses’ sister Miriam stands out as an important exception that recent interpreters have embraced to expand the place of women in this central Jewish narrative. This poem turns to Miriam but adds an important note of caution: the focus on female figures primarily because of their role in supporting important men (Moses, in this case) risks erasing the experience of the women themselves. In this poem, Wilner seeks instead to normalize Miriam as a woman acting as an individual rather than as part of a national narrative.