by Rabbi Avi Billet
Though I touched upon this subject last year, many issues with the tale of Miriam and Aharon speaking about Moshe remain unresolved. One question that should easily stand out is “was Aharon punished?”
The rules of Lashon Hora are fairly clear that both speaker and listener (the mekabel) are guilty of the deed (see the Introduction to Lashon Hora in the Sefer Chafetz Chaim). Even if a person merely listens and does not respond, the person is considered to have been an active participant. If indeed that is what Miriam and Aharon engaged in, and are therefore guilty of, it would seem that Aharon should have been similarly punished.
We could hem and haw about the feasibility of having the Kohen Gadol afflicted with tzara'as. But if the law is the law, it shouldn’t matter that he’s the Kohen Gadol. So what if it would put him out for a week? He too must go through the process and rid himself of the affliction associated with the deed of Lashon Hora!
The question is exacerbated, however, by the fact that Miriam and Aharon seem to have two points of discussion. The first is in 12:1, when the verse seems to imply that Miriam is doing the talking – the word ותדבר suggests AND SHE spoke to Aharon about the Cushite woman Moshe had taken. Verse 12:2 is a seemingly different topic, and they are both engaged in it – ויאמרו, AND THEY said “Did God only speak with Moshe? He also speaks with us!”
Were God to take issue with both comments of theirs, I could verily understand that Miriam is given tzara'as for speaking about Moshe and his wife (despite the comment noted above from the Chafetz Chaim). Seriously, mind your own business! But as God’s comments seems to focus solely on Moshe’s prophesy versus their prophesy, and their not understanding that Moshe is on a different level than they are, it would seem obvious that they should BOTH suffer whatever consequence.
It is worth noting that none of this comes from Moshe. The Torah’s emphasis, specifically here, on Moshe’s being the most humble person ever indicates that whatever they said didn’t affect him in any way. It bounced right off, he didn’t care, and he moved on with his day. It was God Who took issue, as the narrative makes plainly clear.
The Talmud (Shabbos 97a) quotes the verse ויחר אף ה' בם וילך – God got angry at both of them and He departed – to suggest that God did indeed punish them both. Rabbi Akiva suggests “this teaches that Aaron, too, had tzara'as.” Rabbi Yehuda ben Beseira objects, saying “Akiva, in either case you will be
The Talmud (Shabbos 97a) quotes the verse ויחר אף ה' בם וילך – God got angry at both of them and He judged for this teaching, for [if true] the Torah hid this information and you’ve revealed it; if not [true] you are slandering the righteous man [Aharon].”
In looking at this Talmudic passage, Torah Temimah also looks at the verse which mentions how Aharon “turned” to Miriam, noting that he had tzara'as for a second, then as he turned to Miriam his own tzara'as went away and he saw the tzara'as on Miriam. Netziv suggests this turn had nothing to do with tzara'as, and was simply Aharon turning to his sister after God had departed from the scene, looking at her as if to say “What do we do now?” Then he saw the tzara'as.
The Midrash Aggadah follows the Talmud and says Aharon was definitely afflicted with tzara’as, but his went away speedily because he was not the one who actually spoke the Lashon Hora. Hadar Zekenim also goes along this line (12:10) - מכאן שפנה מצרעתו שגם הוא נצטרע ונתרפא:. Or HaChaim quotes the Sifrei and also mentions Aharon getting tzara'as for a brief moment.
There is a larger conversation about who (as in which Kohen) diagnosed Miriam, or were all the Kohanim, namely her brother and two nephews, disqualified from diagnosing her? This approach suggests, as the verse does, that God Himself did the diagnosing and set the quarantine for seven days (12:14).
Alshikh has a long comment in which he talks about God’s punishing forces (angels?) called “Af and Chemah” (אף וחמה) who sometimes make appearances (which is a deeper understanding of words we typically simply translate to mean the flaring of God’s anger), and who had an impact on Aharon here, though not with the affliction of tzara'as.
The Talmud in Arachin (16a) notes that one of the causes for the affliction of tzara’as as arrogance. It seems the person who is demonstrating arrogance here might be most guilty and deserving of tzara’as from that, rather than from Lashon Hora. For if Lashon Hora were the problem, there wouldn’t be a debate regarding Aharon, and he too should have and would have been afflicted. Perhaps God even got on their case for simply referring to Moshe as “Moshe,” leaving out any honorific – such as the one God used in his defense, לא כן עבדי משה – Moshe is MY SERVANT.
But there is another component to this story that cannot be ignored.
In exploring the comments about Moshe’s prophesy versus their own, Or HaChaim suggests they had in mind two factors regarding Moshe that made him “less” of a prophet than them. 1. He first became a prophet at age 80 (or thereabouts), while they are credited with being prophets while only children; 2. The first day he received prophesy he got tzara’as – when his hand was afflicted, albeit briefly, at the burning bush.
Perhaps this suggestion is really what was going on here. Our sages teach us that Moshe as at the Burning Bush for a week. Why a week? The conversation the Torah records there couldn’t have taken more than 10 minutes. Maybe an hour if you want to be generous! Perhaps Moshe’s induction to prophesy did in fact include tzara’as and a week-long quarantine!
If we apply the same rules to here, we get a very different perspective on Miriam's experience. When God calls Miriam and Aharon out from the Tent of Meeting, as they are standing right next to Moshe, and He subsequently tells them that their form and level of prophesy is much lower than Moshe’s, it seems that for that brief moment, when God called them, they too experienced Moshe’s kind of prophesy, as they were not asleep, and they were not having a nocturnal vision.
If you’re going to truly understand what makes Moshe different, Miriam and Aharon, you have to experience what he experienced. He had prophesy and a brief tzara’as. Though Miriam’s tzara’as is mentioned in the Torah, it also seems her tzara’as lasted a very short time, albeit slightly longer than Aharon’s (if he had it, as Rabbi Akiva suggested).
According to these views, Aharon was either punished by אף (God’s punishing force/angel), or he had tzara’as very briefly, which went undiagnosed, and therefore did not require a diagnosis or isolation. But he knew very well what had happened, and like his sister Miriam, for whom he strongly endorsed Moshe’s prayer to have her healed, he learned his lesson really quickly not to question or compare himself to Moshe’s level of prophesy.
