This Shabbat is Shabbat Shira, the Shabbat of song. Pharaoh, in the wake of the last plague, lets the people go, and they travel via the reed sea. Stopping at the shore, they find out that Pharaoh has had a change of mind, and has his chariots in close pursuit. But a miracle occurs and the sea splits, allowing the people to walk on dry land through the sea. When they reach the other shore the sea closes up on the approaching Egyptians, swallowing them up in the sea. Moses and the people rejoice by singing a song. So important was this song, parts are recitesd in the liturgu every day after the Shema, mi chamocha
Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders? (Ex 15:11)
After the Song, we are told
20. And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a tambourine in her hand; and all the women went out after her with tambourines, dancing.
Midrash is created when there are questions about what the Torah has as its words. This verse about Miriam has many such questions. The question the rabbis ask is why Miriam is mentioned here as a prophetess, but as the sister of Aaron, not of Moses. From this they deduce that she only prophesized about the birth of Moses, once Moses was born she stopped prophesizing.(Megillah 14a)
This is the third instance of the wordנביא navi, "prophet" in the entire Torah, and the first as a title and the first in the feminine. The first use of prophet is in reference to Abraham (Gen 20:7) the second to Aaron (Exodus7:1). Both are God declaring them prophets, but Miriam is the first where it is part of her title. Aaron is known as “Aaron the priest” Moses is either known as “the man of God” or “the servant of God” but Miriam is know as “the prophet” The next two people to be called “the prophet” will be Gad and Nathan in David’s time, and of course Elijah much later.
There is another word that also interests me. תףTof or frame drum. Often translated as tambourine, this word is not often found in the entire biblical text, only in 17 places and only twice in the Torah. Yet these verses give us lot of ideas about this instrument. Five of these references (Exodus 15:20, Judges 11:34, I Sam 18:6, Jer. 31:3, Psalm 68:26) mention women playing the drum. Dancing is noted 7 times (Exodus 15:20, Judges 11:34, I Sam 18:6, Jer. 31:3, Psalm 149:3, Psalm 150:4, Job 21:12) Other instruments, namely stringed instruments and flute occur 11 times and 4 time respectively. All but Isaiah 30:32, which use the harp and drum as weapons, have a connotation of joy involved. Most like Exodus 15, concern victory, but Job 21, and Isaiah 5 are about drunken frivolity.
But it is I Samuel 10, where Saul is instructed to become king, which provides one of the most intriguing comments:
5. After that you shall come to the hill of God, where the garrisons of the Philistines are; and it shall come to pass, when you have come there to the city, that you shall meet a company of prophets coming down from the high place with a lute, and a tambourine, and a pipe, and a lyre, before them; and they shall prophesy; 6. And the spirit of the Lord will come upon you, and you shall prophesy with them, and shall be turned into another man
Miriam is called a prophet in Exodus 15:20, but in no other verse in Torah. Saul prophesizes here, but does not prophesize again. It could very well be that it was the music, and most notably the one instrument found in each case, the frame drum, which might be the element which transforms a person temporarily into a prophet.
Frame drums are known in the Middle East as duff, daf, or tar; all have names with similar phonetics to tof. In both ancient Egyptian and Sumerian cultures goddesses played drums, and hence their priestess played frame drums. Near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, there was Innana, by the Nile there was Hathor, maybe not coincidentally a horned cow goddess. Significantly, they play drums without visible bells or clappers, but instead are perfectly round like the sun or moon, not tambourines but simple frame drums.
As drum historian, ethnomusicologist, and former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart noted, a lot of drummers in ancient time were women, especially of frame drums. Priestesses would communicate with their goddess through the trances created by drum. The evidence from the biblical text would seem to indicate that in Israelite culture as well women were very often playing the frame drum. Like Miriam and Saul the drum induces brain states leading to a trance like state - the state of prophecy. As Hart write his book Drumming on the Edge of Magic these changes in the brain do happen and do have effects on the human psyche, utilized by many cultures as the bridge to communicate with the spiritual. Rashi makes an interesting comment about frame drums too - that the righteous women of Israel knew to bring them to celebrate a miracle with songs of praise and drum - a miracle that hadn’t happened yet. Not only Miriam was involved in prophecy, but other women too.
Miriam very well could have been a prophet because of her drum, and may have as a prophet filled a role a priestess would have. She, like many others had the power of prophecy though the beat of a drum. It is therefore interesting to note what the Babylonian Talmud does with frame drums: it seemingly bans them.
AND AGAINST [THE USE OF] THE DRUM [IRUS]. What means IRUS? — R. Eleazar said: A drum with a single bell. Rabbah the son of R. Huna made a tambourine for his son; his father came and broke it, saying to him, ‘It might be substituted for a drum with a single bell. Go, make for him [an instrument by stretching the skin] over the mouth of a pitcher or over the mouth of a kefiz’.(B. Sota 49b)
According to R. Eleazar, a drum with a single sounding chamber, like a frame or barrel drum is banned by rabbinic prohibition. The Gemara continues with R. Huna destroying his grandson’s frame drum, and telling his own son to make an acceptable drum, a two-belled (or goblet shaped) Arabic טבלא tabla better known as a darbouka. The feminine drum is replaced by a decidedly masculine drum, and the drum of prophecy all over the globe is replaced with a drum of very different utility. But following this idea of prophecy, we need to first remember the rabbinic view of prophecy:
R. Abdimi from Haifa said: Since the day when the Temple was destroyed, prophecy has been taken from the prophets and given to the wise (Baba Batra 12a)
In short, the role of divine connection is in the hands of the Rabbis and their learning. The above Gemara is commentary on a line of Mishnah:
Mishnah. During the war with Vespasian they [the rabbis] decreed against [the use of] crowns worn by bridegrooms and against [the use of] the drum.
The war with Vespasian ended with the destruction of the second temple. In one sense, this Mishnah might be a banning of a prophetic device outside their control. There may be another explanation, since in many other parts of the Talmud drumming is discussed as an almost everyday activity. The Mishnah verse, and several pieces of Gemara which use it as proof of other halakah, believe the drum is banned from use as part of the wedding ceremony only, to take some of the joy out of a joyous event in remembrance of the destruction of the temple.
Yet that does not completely explain R. Huna’s actions, unless his grandson was getting married. Ironically, it seems R. Huna was the one who explained the drum prohibition applied only to weddings. His obsession might have to do with a dream (Brachot 57a):
R. Papa and R. Huna the son of Joshua both had dreams. R. Papa dreamt that he went into a marsh and he became head of an academy. R. Huna the son of R. Joshua dreamt that he went into a forest and he became head of the collegiates. Some say that both dreamt they went into a marsh, but R. Papa who was carrying a drum became head of the academy, while R. Huna the son of R. Joshua who did not carry a drum became only the head of the collegiates. R. Ashi said: I dreamt that I went into a marsh and carried a drum and made a loud noise with it.
A dream of a drum in a marsh means you will become powerful. Huna didn’t dream of the drum and got a second in command position. R. Ashi and R. Papa were both heads of Academies. Yet the drum in the marsh was not a tof, but a double-belled tabla. The story wasn’t about destroying a frame drum because frame drums are banned, but that his grandson was not playing the kind of drum he needed to dream about.
In this exploration of one verse of Torah, we’ve talked about the beginning of the verse. But Exodus 15:20 does not end with Miriam alone playing the tof but with all the women. Prophecy comes not just from individual effort but from a collective one. Saul was not alone in his prophecy, and neither was Miriam. It is here that we can appreciate King David’s conclusion to the book of psalms in Psalm 150, which not only mentions drums but all the instruments, that “All life praise YAH!” For those who have played in a drum circle, song circle, or band, this advice hits home. There is something intensely spiritual in the collective beat that isn’t there in the single beat, as all that noise joins into one beat.
Mickey Hart in his introduction to Drumming On The Edge Of Magic wrote an interesting creation story and commentary.
In the beginning there was noise. And noise begat rhythm and rhythm begat everything else. This is the type of cosmology drummer can live with. Strike a membrane with a stick, the ear fills with noise. Unmelodic, unharmonious sound. Strike it a second time, a, third, you’ve got rhythm.
The first rhythm of the world according to Torah is “and there was evening and there was morning.” Day and night created on the first day of creation was rhythm. (Gen. 1:5) As Rabbi Andrea London pointed out to me recently, the first of the mitzvot of Torah given collectively to the Israelites is the mitzvah we read last week; “This will be the first of months for you.” (Exodus 12:2) The first of Nissan is the beginning of the Beat of Judaism, of the syncopated rhythms of time and ritual and life. The beat of our hearts and the rhythm of a woman’s body are always with us. It should be no surprise that Miriam was a prophetess in rhythm, the same way a strong beat cannot help but make us dance.
Let us all then, in the words of the Psalms, Praise Yah in drum and dance.
Note: For those interested in all the biblical and talmudic passages I mentioned, I have collected and posted them to the website www.shlomosdrash.com.
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