By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel in Chula Vista, California
The life of a spiritual leader is never easy—especially if your name happens to be Moses. Having a Ph.D. in Kvetching is practically a job requirement when working for the Jewish people. It’s not just tradition; it’s practically in the contract. As the old joke goes: “How many congregants does it take to screw in a lightbulb? One to actually do it… and nine others to stand around reminiscing how much better the old lightbulb was.”
Being a rabbi—or in Moses’ case, the rabbi of an entire wandering nation—means signing up for a lifetime supply of grief. In this week’s parsha, Moses finds himself on the receiving end of a particularly stinging family broadside. The surprise? It comes not from the usual malcontents in the camp, but from his own siblings, Miriam and Aaron.
While encamped at Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses “on account of the Cushite woman he had married.” They grumbled, “Is it only through Moses that the Lord speaks? Does He not speak through us as well?” And the Lord heard it. (The Torah immediately adds that Moses was the meekest man on the face of the earth—perhaps the biblical equivalent of saying “he doesn’t even read the group chat.”)
Miriam’s dig at the “Cushite” wife (widely understood as Zipporah) drips with disapproval. Was she objecting to a second wife, a dark-skinned foreigner, or simply someone who wasn’t part of the original family business? Commentators offer three main theories: (1) Moses took a Nubian wife while Zipporah was back in Midian (because apparently even the greatest prophet needed complications in his personal life); (2) Zipporah had passed away and he remarried; or (3) it’s the same woman—Zipporah was simply a striking, dark-skinned Midianite. Whatever the case, the “Cushite” remark was never really about skin color or marital status.
It was about power.
Classic sibling rivalry dressed up as piety. Miriam and Aaron felt sidelined when Moses appointed the 70 elders without giving them prominent roles. The wife complaint was just the pretext—the ancient equivalent of “It’s not about the dishes; it’s about how you never listen to me!”
God, however, was not amused. In a moment of divine poetic justice that even the biblical narrator seems to deliver with a raised eyebrow, Miriam is struck with tzara’at—turning chalk-white. It’s as if the Almighty said, “You have a problem with dark skin? How do you like being the whitest person in the desert right now?” Cosmic karma delivered with surgical precision and a touch of heavenly sarcasm.
Moses, ever the humble shepherd, doesn’t gloat or even bother defending his honor. Instead, he immediately prays for his sister’s healing: “Please, God, heal her!” Family is family—even when they throw you under the manna.
The lesson cuts deep, both then and now. Racism has no place in a people forged by slavery and liberation. Sadly, the same ugly dynamic Miriam displayed still surfaces in Israel today, where Ethiopian Jews—who endured unimaginable hardship to reach the land of their ancestors—sometimes face discrimination from segments of the Haredi and Hasidic communities. It’s a painful irony: a nation born from “You were strangers in the land of Egypt” still struggles at times to fully live that truth.
Our Torah doesn’t merely suggest welcoming the stranger—it repeats the command 36 times, more than any other mitzvah. “You shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Lev. 19:34). As Henri Nouwen beautifully put it, our vocation is to turn the hostis (enemy/stranger) into hospes (guest), creating spaces of fearless belonging.
Even Leo Tolstoy marveled at this command given the brutal realities of ancient life: “Love the stranger… because you were strangers in Egypt.” Moses taught this in savage times when conquering and enslaving others was the national pastime.
Let us take this lesson to heart—with humility, humor, and resolve. May we purge every trace of prejudice from our communities, treat every immigrant and fellow citizen with genuine dignity and respect, and ensure that no one in our midst ever feels like an outsider in the house of Israel. After all, we have been the stranger long enough. It is time to extend the welcome wholeheartedly—and while we’re at it, maybe even fix that lightbulb together.
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Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista, California.