{"id":35054,"date":"2020-06-26T03:40:56","date_gmt":"2020-06-26T10:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=35054"},"modified":"2020-06-25T16:40:31","modified_gmt":"2020-06-25T23:40:31","slug":"women-sail-to-miriams-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2020\/06\/26\/women-sail-to-miriams-well\/","title":{"rendered":"Women sail to Miriam\u2019s Well"},"content":{"rendered":"

Left to right: Devorah Abramson, Yehudit Dribben and Sheva Chaya blow the shofar at Miriam\u2019s Well on Lake Kinneret. (photo by Aviva Spiegel)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In the annals of the current COVID-19 pandemic, artist Maureen Kushner has a rare happy story \u2013 and likely the only one dating back some 3,500 years.<\/p>\n

For the last 12 years on the anniversary of the death of Miriam the Prophetess on Nissan 10 in the Hebrew calendar, New York-born Kushner has been chartering a vessel from Tiberias-based Holyland Sailing Ltd. to bring a boat full of women to the spot on Lake Kinneret where, according to Midrash (Bamidbar Rabbah 1:1), the mystical spring known as Miriam\u2019s Well now rests.<\/p>\n

Typically, 126 women and children (corresponding to Miriam\u2019s age when she died) equipped with rams horns, violins, harps, drums, flutes, guitars and tambourines have made the maritime pilgrimage. They sail on the Sea of Galilee, also called Lake of Gennesaret, to what Jewish tradition considers the exact spot where the miraculous spring that supplied the Children of Israel with drinking water during their 40 years of wandering in the Sinai Desert ended its own journey.<\/p>\n

This year, the yahrzeit<\/em> (death anniversary) of Miriam fell on Friday, April 3, immediately before Passover. Kushner \u2013 who is named in Hebrew after the miracle-working older sister of Moses and Aaron \u2013 booked the sailing for Thursday, April 2, in order to allow Sabbath-observant women from Jerusalem and other distant cities to join in the f\u00eate. All was set for this year\u2019s celebration when Israel\u2019s Health Ministry locked the country down in an attempt to halt the spread of the coronavirus.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Many passengers short, because of COVID-19 restrictions, 40 women were still able to sail on the King David across the Kinneret to Miriam\u2019s Well. (photo by Aviva Spiegel)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thanks to those regulations, which at their most severe restricted Israelis to remaining within 100 metres of their home and still prevent almost all non-citizens from landing at Ben-Gurion Airport, the pandemic has somewhat abated. Recently, the Health Ministry began lifting its pandemic regulations.<\/p>\n

Without any tourists arriving, the pilgrim boats remained moored in Tiberias and at Kibbutz Ginosar for three months. But, on Wednesday, June 3, the ministry allowed Kushner and her social distancing-reduced group of 40 women and children \u2013 each bringing facemasks, water, hats, sunscreen and kosher snacks \u2013 to make their 135-minute voyage on the lyre-shaped lake. When the vessel King David raised its anchor, it was Holyland Sailing\u2019s first boat trip since quarantine regulations went into effect.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a hallelujah for our beloved Kinneret!\u201d said Kushner, who was the artist-in-residence at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver \u00a0in 2005.\u00a0\u201cWhat a hallelujah in honour of our great, great, great Hakodesh Baruch Hu<\/em> [the Holy One Blessed Be He], who is filled with goodness and compassion and love and blesses Am Yisrael [the Jewish people] with rain and dew and sustenance and a good life here in Eretz Israel, the good land.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kushner was especially excited that this past winter has seen heavy rains that filled Israel\u2019s main freshwater reservoir to the brim, at 209 metres below sea level after five years of drought.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Kinneret is full! In great and abundant thanks to Hashem<\/em> [God] in the zechut<\/em> [merit] of Miriam Hanivia<\/em> [Miriam the Prophetess], we celebrated with shofarim, drums, flutes and the harp,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Miriam the Prophetess today has become a popular figure for many Jewish women.<\/p>\n

The Torah relates she was married to Caleb ben Yefunah. Though she died in the wilderness of Zin, her widower miraculously carried the spring named in his wife\u2019s honour across the Jordan River on Nissan 10, the anniversary of her death, explained Kushner.<\/p>\n

Miriam\u2019s death is described in Numbers 20:1 and, in the next verse, the Israelites are described as complaining of the lack of water at Kadesh. The text reads, \u201cMiriam died there, and was buried there. And there was no water for the congregation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Jewish texts, this abrupt transition between her death and the lack of water was explained by postulating that a \u201cWell of Miriam\u201d appeared after she died. Further elaboration identified the rock that Moses struck to bring forth water in Exodus 17:5-6 with this well.<\/p>\n

So powerful was the tradition of Miriam\u2019s Well in Judaism that, even after the spring disappeared into Lake Kinneret some three-and-a-half millennia ago, it has occasionally miraculously appeared in the Diaspora.<\/p>\n

According to Chassidic lore, once, just before Yom Kippur\u2019s Kol Nidre prayer began, Yitzchak Isaac Taub (1751-1821), who was the sage of Nagyk\u00e1ll\u00f3 (Kalov in Yiddish) in eastern Hungary, called on his assistant Rabbi Yaacov Fish to harness his horse and wagon. The two set out to Fish\u2019s fields, where they found a small pool. Immediately, the holy man disrobed and immersed himself, while Fish stood by transfixed. After the Day of Atonement, Fish returned to his fields, but the pond had disappeared. Fish asked his master, \u201cRabbi, as you know, despite our long friendship, I never mix into your affairs. But I beg you to enlighten me about the pool of water that appeared and disappeared so mysteriously in my fields.\u201d<\/p>\n

The holy man, who founded the Kaliver Chassidic dynasty, smiled: \u201cIf Rabbi Yaacov had had the sense, he would have dipped himself the same as I did, for, at that moment, Miriam\u2019s Well passed by.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gil Zohar<\/strong> is a writer and tour guide in Jerusalem.<\/em><\/p>\n

(Note: This article has been updated from the print version to note that Maureen\u00a0Kushner was the artist-in-residence at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver \u00a0in 2005.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Left to right: Devorah Abramson, Yehudit Dribben and Sheva Chaya blow the shofar at Miriam\u2019s Well on Lake Kinneret. (photo by Aviva Spiegel) In the annals of the current COVID-19 pandemic, artist Maureen Kushner has a rare happy story \u2013 and likely the only one dating back some 3,500 years. For the last 12 years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4329],"tags":[218,3513,9979,9978,5701],"class_list":["post-35054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","tag-judaism","tag-lake-kinneret","tag-maureen-kushner","tag-miriams-well","tag-spirituality"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}