“Miriam died there and was buried there. The community had no water, and they assembled against Moses and Aaron.” (Numbers 20:1-2)
The Torah, a text that lovingly dwells on the smallest details, who begat whom, the exact dimensions of the Tabernacle, the precise ingredients for incense, rushes past Miriam’s death with heartbreaking brevity. No eulogy for the woman who saved Moses as a baby. No mourning period for the prophetess who danced at the sea. No tribute to her decades of quiet leadership. Just a burial in the wilderness, and then, the well runs dry.
Why this silence? Why does the woman who led the Israelites in their first song of freedom exit the story with barely a whisper?
The Rabbis of the Talmud recognised something crucial: when Miriam died, the water disappeared. They understood that some people are so essential to a community’s life that their absence creates a void we can actually feel. They taught that a miraculous well had travelled with the Israelites throughout their wilderness journey because of her merit. Without her, both literal and spiritual sustenance vanished. Miriam wasn’t just a prophetess or Moses’ sister, she was the wellspring that kept an entire people alive in the desert.
And yet, the Torah tells us almost nothing about her death. No ceremony. No acknowledgment of all she had done. She simply disappears from the narrative, and only then do we realise what we’ve lost.
This pattern feels painfully familiar. How often do we fail to celebrate those who sustain us until they’re gone? How often do communities lose their quiet heroes, the grandmothers who cook for everyone, the friends who always listen, the activists who show up to every meeting, and only notice their absence when the well runs dry?
Think of queer Jews, especially our trans women, our elders living with HIV, those rejected by family and faith. They know intimately what it means to disappear from the communal story. They’ve been told their lives don’t belong in our sacred narrative. Their contributions go unrecorded, their wisdom unheard. And when they are gone, their absence is felt not in memorials or tributes, but in the sudden realisation that something vital is missing, a crisis we notice too late.
Tomorrow, London celebrates Pride, and the timing feels significant. Pride is joyfully, unapologetically loud, and it needs to be. It’s a song of liberation, like the one Miriam led at the sea. It’s colour and rhythm and the promise of water in a dry land. It’s a celebration of love in all its forms, a refusal to be silenced.
But Pride is also, necessarily, a form of remembering. Behind every rainbow flag and joyful parade lives the memory of those whose voices were silenced, by shame, by violence, by indifference. Pride carries the spirits of our Miriams, the ones who kept communities alive through the darkest times and who were buried without the ceremony they deserved.
And what of Moses in our Torah portion? After Miriam’s death, when the people cry out in thirst, he strikes the rock in anger. The traditional reading focuses on his disobedience to God’s command. But perhaps there’s something deeper here. Perhaps Moses isn’t just frustrated with the people’s complaints. Perhaps he’s grieving. Perhaps he’s lashing out at a world that let his sister disappear so easily, that gave him and the entire community no space to process their loss.
The LGBTQ+ community knows this feeling intimately. Grief without ritual. Anger without acknowledgment. Joy without safety. And yet, like Moses, we keep moving forward. We keep showing up at the rock, hoping water will flow.
But here’s where we can do better than the wilderness generation. We don’t just wait for wells to appear. We dig them ourselves. We name our Miriams while they’re still with us. We create space in synagogues, schools, and family gatherings for those whose presence has gone unnoticed.
In many Jewish communities today, we’re learning to tell the fuller story. We’re adding Miriam’s Cup to our Passover seders, recognising her role in the liberation narrative. We’re lifting up the voices that have been marginalised, making room for stories that have been buried.
This is sacred work. When we break the silence around those who have been forgotten, when we honour the ones who sustained us without recognition, we participate in a kind of resurrection. The well begins to flow again.
This Pride Shabbat, let us refuse to let anyone disappear without a trace. Let us mourn out loud for those we’ve lost. Let us celebrate the Miriams among us, the teachers, the caregivers, the activists, the quiet heroes who keep our communities alive.
Because water doesn’t only come from striking rocks. It flows from memory, from love, from the commitment to ensure that no one’s story is lost to silence.
When we make space for the voices that have been buried, when we listen deeply to those who have been ignored, we might just find the well bubbling up again, not through miracles, but through the sacred act of remembering.
When London Pride unfolds tomorrow, may we carry Miriam’s memory with us. May we sing her song of liberation while also holding space for those who never got to sing their own. And may we build communities where every story matters, where every voice is heard, where no one disappears into silence.
The well is still there, waiting. We just need to recognise it, honour it, and drink deeply from its waters.
