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I, Miriam, stand at the sea and turn to face the desert stretching endless and still. My eyes are dazzled The sky brilliant blue Sunburnt sands unyielding white. My hands turn to dove wings. My arms reach for the sky and I want to sing the song rising inside me. My mouth open I stop. Where are the words? Where the melody? In a moment of panic My eyes go blind. Can I take a step Without knowing a Destination? Will I falter Will I fall Will the ground sink away from under me? | |
The song still unformed– How can I sing? | |
To take the first step– To sing a new song– Is to close one’s eyes and dive into unknown waters. For a moment knowing nothing risking all– But then to discover | |
The waters are friendly The ground is firm. And the song– the song rises again. Out of my mouth come words lifting the wind. And I hear for the first the song that has been in my heart silent unknown even to me. |
“The Song of Miriam” by Rabbi Ruth Sohn was first published as “I Shall Sing to the Lord a New Song,” in Kol Haneshamah: Shabbat Vehagim, Reconstructionist Prayerbook, 1989, 1995 Second Edition. Reconstructionist Press, pp. 768-769. (This poem was also published in several haggadot and other books and set to music by several composers in the U.S. and Israel.) Rabbi Sohn wrote the poem in 1981 as a rabbinical student after immersing herself in the Torah verses and the traditional midrashim about Miriam, and after writing a longer modern midrash about Miriam. Part of this modern midrash was published as “Journeys,” in All the Women Followed Her, ed. Rebecca Schwartz (Rikudei Miriam Press, 2001).
“שיר של מרים הנביאה | The Song of Miriam, a petiḥah by Rabbi Ruth H. Sohn (1981)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.
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