Episode 1: Spiritual Chutzpah
This episode introduces the spiritual guide Morah Miriam as an ancestor of boldness and audacity and defines spiritual chutzpah as essential living Torah from Miriam that empower us to act courageously. R' Jericho talks about the power of a Sufi sermon, the narrow place, Spiritual Chutzpah, razzle dazzle slave economics, time travel, moishiachtzeit, and a practice for bringing Miriam’s living Torah into our own lives.
The idea that Miriam has unique Torah to teach us is rooted in a passage in the Zohar (Shlach 12:116) that describes Miriam’s celestial yeshiva in which people learn the workings of the universe.
The lineage of Miriam is established in Exodus 1:21
The quote from Reb Zalman comes from Pnai Or Wisdom School https://cudl.colorado.edu/MediaManager/srvr?mediafile=/VIDEO/UCBOULDERCB1~68~68/4657/narv_zalman_133_5_wisdomSchoolResults_a.mp4 With gratitude to Seth Fishman.
The Sufi song you heard can be found here.
The idea that Mitzrayim refers to a narrow place can be found in the Recanti on Vayigash.
We don’t actually know the economic breakdown of the ancient land of Egypt. This data reflects the economics of a similarly modern narrow place—America in the early twenty first century.
The chief ob/gyn is identified in the Hebrew Bible as Shifrah and her apprentice Puah. The medieval commentator Rashi (Rashi Exodus 1:15), picking up on a Talmudic idea (Sotah 11b), affirms the longstanding Jewish tradition that these are in fact Yocheved and Miriam.
The Hebrew word for Yocheved’s job is “miyaledet haivrit” which is usually translated as midwife of the Hebrews. Misogyny can cause us to devalue jobs traditionally held by women, so I prefer the gender neutral chief ob/gyn to better convey the role.
“Visions of Amram” is an ancient document discovered in the caves of Qumron that describe Amram’s shamanic visions. More here https://macsphere.mcmaster.ca/bitstream/11375/13143/1/fulltext.pdf
The sacred text of Shir HaShirim Rabbah 2:15:2 describes one of the surveillance systems created to find Ivri babies.
The story of Yocheved and Amram separating and Miriam, their daughter, challenging them can be found in the Talmud, Sotah 12a:11
The Ani Maamin prayer of faith in liberation is based on the 12th of Maimonides 13 Principles of Faith.
You can find more information on the Ani Maamin sung in cattle cars here: https://holocaustmusic.ort.org/places/ghettos/warsaw/ani-mamin/
The specific Ani Maamin song you heard can be found here.
The literal view of moshiach, a savior, on a calico donkey is described in the Talmud in Sanhedrin 98a:14.
I learned of Reb Zalman’s idea of Moshiachtzeit from my teacher, Reb Zalman’s student, Rabbi Victor Gross.
The notion that the right hand is connected to compassion, left hand strength can be found in Zohar Bereishit 15:173
To learn more Torah with Rabbi Jericho, find them on Substack at Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness or on Instagram @thealef or join them for a Temple of the Stranger ceremony.
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How are you doing? How is this political moment hitting? How are you holding up in the avalanche of very shitty news? And Lord knows what you’ve got going on in your personal life, what you’re carrying on your shoulders. So please, take a breath.
Here’s the thing: For some of us, this moment can feel like disaster, like the end of the world, but it’s not the first time in history my people have found themselves afraid, vulnerable, lost in a spiritual wilderness. Jewish people get some things wrong, but one thing we’re very good at is cultivating wisdom for surviving terrible situations
I want to share with you some of that Jewish wisdom, this wisdom is based on the Torah of Miriam. Each episode we’ll explore one of the five elements of Miriam’s core Torah through stories, teachings, and a meditative practice. This isn’t archaeological Torah, it’s ancient living Torah, it draws on mystical wisdom that was kept secret for many generations. My teacher, Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi believed now is the time to share these secrets with people of all backgrounds. He thought that every major faith tradition has essential vitamins to offer the world: I’m convinced the people who are most alive are the hyphenated ones, the ones who have gotten a little vitamin from another discipline, from another tradition, from another religion.
So whether you’re Jewish, Jew-ish, or not-Jewish, I’m so glad to be here with you today to explore this living Torah, this Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness, a gift of Jewish wisdom from the ancestors to you.
In this episode, we’ll talk about the power of a Sufi sermon, the narrow place, Spiritual Chutzpah, razzle dazzle slave economics, time travel, moishiachtzeit, and a practice for bringing Miriam’s living Torah into our own lives.
I’m Jericho Vincent, your local feminist trans Kabbalistic rabbi andThis is a Survival Guide for a spiritual wilderness. Let’s get started on the path.
Imagine: a mosque in downtown Manhattan, a room with white painted brick walls and about sixty people kneeling on carpets, the walls still resonating with Sufi poetry of the evening prayers.
In the front of the mosque: a woman wearing a white cap and shawl, the sheikha, a female Sufi leader. With some opening blessings, the sheikha begins her sermon. It’s about Miriam. Miriam who guided the ancestors out of slavery. Miriam the prophet, Miriam the superstar who led the people to freedom with her song and her dancing. Miriam and, oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention, her two backup singers, Moses and Aaron. In the sheikha’s audience, at the back of the mosque, there’s a seeker in their early twenties, with curly hair cut short. They’re wearing a red pokemon t-shirt and baggy jeans and their mouth is slack, eyes gaping, mind blown. That seeker, that’s me.
I grew up in ultra-Orthodox rabbinical Jewish family. I knew all about Miriam, a bit character, a member of the supporting cast, she was practically an extra on the set of the big grand story of superheroes Moses and Aaron. Women always were. To be the main character you had to be a man. It turned my world inside out when I heard the sheikha put Miriam in the spotlight, allowing me to see Miriam in her full power. There was so much spiritual chutzpah in that move, to realize– wait– we can tell this very old patriarchal story in a totally new way, in a way that shifts focus, that lets non-men identify with the hero, that liberates instead of limits. And then when you start reworking the story it awakens curiosity—wait, who’s been making choices about how we tell this story up until now? And wait, what did those people leave on the cutting room floor?
What the Sheikha did, putting Miriam in the middle of the story, it shifted the trajectory of my life.
I’m nonbinary, but I was raised as a girl in a culture where only men could be spiritual leaders, only men could know the will of God. Women’s public voices were immodest. Women and girls had to keep quiet and obey. In my family, our life revolved around my father’s decisions and desires, and I didn’t question it. I just wanted to be close to my father. When we’d gather for Sabbath meals, I’d beg to be seated next to him. When he gave his little sermons at the meal, my brothers and sisters would fidget, waiting for him to finish, while I sat by his side, soaking in every word he said.
But when I was twelve, my oldest sister, who was eighteen, got married. One of the first big holidays after the wedding, she came home to visit with her new husband. Who was put in the seat next to my father that used to be mine. And I was told to sit at the end of the table with the rest of the girls. During this meal, instead of directing his words of wisdom to me, like he usually did, my father started sharing his thoughts with my new brother-in-law and my older brother, and he wasn’t speaking English—my father was speaking in the patois of Aramaic, Yiddish, and Hebrew that men of my community spoke—a language that he did not use with me and that I did not understand.
I felt a wave of frustration. I wanted to be close to my father. I wanted to learn his Torah, his wisdom. I had this surge of chutzpah–not from any desire to act out, but simply from a sense that I was being blocked from the truth, and I called out from the end of the table—Tatte–that’s Yiddish for father– I said: Tatte, can you please explain that in English? The room fell silent. One of my sisters snickered and said: someone wants attention.
I’d understood that I was a girl, but I hadn’t fully understood what that meant until that moment. I hadn’t realized that because my family thought I was a girl, I could not be part of what mattered most– the very core of our spiritual lives. Only men could be in the thick of it.
So when I heard the sheikha center Miriam, it brought me back to my parents’ dining room, to that moment when I’d put in my place. And I saw Miriam, smiling at me, saying: you’ve got the right instinct. Come with me, there’s another way.
I fell in love with Miriam. Since then, she has been my guide through many of the spiritual wildernesses that I have wandered. I wouldn’t be a rabbi today without her.
I love that I met Miriam because of the sheikha’s spiritual chutzpah, and that she impacted me so deeply because of my chutzpah as a child, because one of Miriam’s major attributes is Spiritual Chutzpah. And that’s the first tool in our Survival Guide.
Spiritual Chutzpah is essential for surviving and thriving in any spiritual wilderness, whether it’s familial, religious, communal, or political.
Long ago, the ancestors of the Jews were called the Ivri people. First the Ivri people were a family, and then they grew into a clan of tribes. When a famine hit, they emigrated to Egypt, and after some time passed, the Egyptians turned on these refugees, and they enslaved them.
In the Hebrew Bible the word for Egypt is Mitzrayim, which literally means “a narrow place.” The mystics say that no matter who we are or where we’re living, any of us can find ourselves trapped in Mitzrayim, a narrow place, a spiritual wilderness where we feel disempowered, vulnerable, lost.
One day, the pharaoh's oracles came to him and said an Ivri boy child will soon be born who is going to free the Ivri slaves.
The Pharaoh couldn’t have that. The entire Egyptian economy was predicated on the existence of an Ivri slave class. See, 1% of Egyptians hoarded 30% wealth, and the bottom 50% of the population had to make do with just 2.6% of the wealth. The way to ensure the ultra-wealthy could hold on to their money was to distract the poor by keeping them at each other’s throats– distract them with conflicts on nationality, race, gender– anything other than money. All the low-income Egyptians were offered minimum wage jobs overseeing Ivri slaves, they were taught to fear and hate Ivri people, to stress about their impending uprising---the Pharaoh gave ‘em the old razzle dazzle to keep them occupied, and he and his kids and cronies kept eating caviar off of diamond spoons.
If some Ivri boy child was going to help the Ivri slaves seize their freedom, the Pharaoh's whole hierarchy of power would come undone.
What’s Pharoah going to do to keep his pyramid from toppling? If the oracles say an Ivri boy child is about to be born who will one day grow up to free the Ivri slaves…well, kill all the newborn Ivri boy children. Egyptian soldiers start monitoring Ivri pregnancies, they set up a surveillance system to scan Ivri neighborhoods for the wail of newborn babies. If they find a newborn and it’s a boy, the soldiers take him and kill him.
In the Ivri community there’s a power couple, Yocheved, she’s the chief ob/gyn of the Ivri people, and Amram, a dreamer of shamanic dreams. They already have two young children, Aaron and Miriam. Amram and Yocheved are devastated by the Pharaoh's edict, so they decide to separate so no new children will be born, to avoid the risk of having a boy child who will be killed. And all of the other couples in the community follow their lead and also separate.
The ancient text of the Talmud tells us that little Miriam, their young child, marches up to her dad Amram and says: You’re worse than Pharoah.
Amram is stunned by this accusation, but he’s a wise man, and he already senses there’s something special about his daughter of his, so he says: Why?
Miriam says: Pharaoh made a decree against Ivri boys, but your choice means we won’t have Ivri boys or girls. Also, who is to say that the Pharaoh's will shall actually come to pass? When you preemptively surrender, you actualize your own worst fears. Our people call the Divine Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh– I will be what I will be— God is mystery. You’re submitting your will to what you assume is inevitable. Leave a little room for other possible futures.
Imagine the spiritual chutzpah of this child. Her community is crumbling under the Pharaoh's edict. Her family is being torn apart as her parents are separating. Personally and politically her world is bleak and the future looks worse. But yet, somehow, Miriam has the spiritual chutzpah to imagine possibilities different than the ones everyone insists are fact. She can imagine that perhaps the Pharaoh is not as all powerful as he claims he is. She can imagine a better world.
And then Miriam has the audacity to believe her own radical imagination. Not to dismiss it as naive, but to take it seriously. And to act on it with confidence by challenging her father, this major authority figure.
When I was a kid and I challenged my father at the Sabbath table by asking to be a part of the men’s conversation, the conversation about Torah, sacred wisdom, I was shamed by my family. And that shaming wounded me. It was powerful to realize that in some small way, without knowing it, what I was doing then was not embarrassing or sinful. I was stepping into the lineage of Miriam. And it’s very possible that you have already, in your own life, stepped into the lineage of Miriam - or you’re about to.
Miriam's spiritual chutzpah changes the fate of her family, her people, and ultimately, world history, and most of our lives, because Miriam’s father and mother listen to her. They get back together. They conceive a child, Moses. We’ll talk about what happens next in our second episode, but let’s pause here to really savor Miriam’s Spiritual Chutzpah.
Pharaoh says: This is how it’s going to be, all your babies are going to die.
Miriam’s dad says: Guess we better get with the program and adjust accordingly.
But Miriam, she has the inner spaciousness, the creativity to say don’t obey in advance, instead imagine a radical tomorrow that looks nothing like today.
As my dear friend, Rabbi Zvika Krieger, rabbi of chochmat haLev says: What was audacious about Miriam was not so much that she confronted her parents, but it’s that when everyone was reconciled to a hopeless future she dared to present a hopeful vision.
From the perspective of Kabbalah, every single one of us has a similar capacity for spiritual chutzpah. This capacity can be strengthened with inspiration, with practice, with ancestral guidance.
I want to define this capacity that you have within. You practice Spiritual Chutzpah when you raise the ax of radical imagination to splinter an oppressive “fact” of life and unleash a flood of justice, healing, and creativity.
“Facts” say only men can be the heroes of ancestral stories… My sheikha splintered that fact with her radical imagination, putting Miriam in the center. Facts say this is the end of the world. Climate apocalypse is inevitable. We’re powerless in the face of a corrupt government. Right now, we’re in a spiritual wilderness. How are we going to use our radical imagination to splinter those facts?
I call in the ancestor Miriam, I call her into this space between you and me, I ask her spirit to hold us, I ask her to gift us with her wisdom, to nourish us with her living Torah, to strengthen our spiritual chutzpah in our lives.
The chutzpah to see possibilities for more justice, more healing, more creativity, when it looks like there are no possibilities. The chutzpah to notice who is being left out of the story. The chutzpah to take our own audacious visions of a better tomorrow seriously. The chutzpah to challenge authority with wisdom.
One of the ways that Miriam’s Spiritual Chutzpah flourishes in the lineage of mystical Judaism is in the idea of Moshiach, or liberation. In the worst nightmares, our people would sing out: Ani mamin bmeunsha shlcime biviyas hamoshiach ani maamin
I believe with a peaceful faith in the coming of liberation, I believe. That tune you just heard, that was sung by Jews packed into cattle cars on the way to concentration camps during the Holocaust.
What is Moshiach, or liberation? The mystics say this is not a man riding a calico donkey swooping down from the sky to save us. My own teacher, the mystical master Reb Zalman, he talked about moshiachtzeit, messianic time- a movement through a progression of events with a liberatory consciousness, one that can find liberation in any place, at any time.
When we practice spiritual chutzpah by investing in a vision of a more liberatory future, we are letting moshiachtzeit into the world. That works on every scale.
When you get into a fight with a loved one, and your mind starts racing ahead to all the ways you’re sure your loved one is going to hurt you in ways others have hurt you in the past, you practice spiritual chutzpah when you notice that you’re letting your wounds colonize your future, when with compassion, you pause, and you begin to invest in daydreaming or journaling about positive alternative outcomes. And that’s letting a little moshiachtzeit into our life and our world.
We’re living in unprecedented times. You have a role to play, a role in which you’re going to let more moshiachtzeit into our world and your life. This isn’t some gigantic role. I’m talking about a small role in which we take the small actions that are the actual ways that everything is ultimately changed.
And nurture Spiritual Chutzpah to insist that our small actions can have major consequences. Remember that famous rule we know from sci fi: if someone invites you into a time machine you have to be careful when you go back in time, not to change anything, don’t smile at the wrong person, don’t say too much, don’t turn the wrong corner – if you do, step into time machine, return to present, and you’ll find everything changed. Smallest action can transform everything.
And those of us learning Miriam’s Torah, those of us practicing her spiritual Chutzpah, we know this time travel rule works when we think about the future. We know that our choices can dramatically transform the look of our future lives, and the world.
I recognize that even the act of imagination can feel naive in a time like this. But this is the foundational act of spiritual chutzpah. Let’s use our chutzpah to take a clear eyed view at the suffering in the world right now. And then imagine a world in which we rise and obstruct evil plans, abolish billionaires, institute universal basic income, offer free high-quality wellness-centered healthcare for all, support the thriving of trans folks, establish a national department of peace, convert to 100% renewable energy. Taking the time to imagine the world we want to live in is a powerful act of spiritual chutzpah. From that vision action arises.
So let’s settle in for a moment and work together on our Spiritual Chutzpah muscles. Let’s take a deep breath in, hold it for a moment and then a very long sigh out the open mouth.
Pick one place in your life where you’re feeling powerless, trapped, lost. Maybe a work situation, maybe a friendship, maybe something in the world, anywhere you feel is kind of spiritual wilderness for you right now, that feels not too overwhelming to try and work with.
Kabbalistically, your left hand is your hand of strength, your right, the hand of compassion. If it’s safe to do so, lay your left hand, palm up, in your right hand, also palm up, so that your hands make the rough shape of a heart and your fingers almost look like wings.
Imagine standing in your palm is a tiny figure of you, in the situation of your spiritual wilderness. So if there are other people in this situation, see them tiny in your hand, interacting with you in the way they do.
As you hold this tiny diorama of your spiritual wilderness in your hands, notice--- what feelings does this spiritual wilderness trigger in you? Frustration? Confusion? Depression? Anger? Anxiety? Grief?
Notice where these feelings live in your body. Don’t push them away. Be tender, welcome the feelings in for this experience, even if they’re pokey or uncomfortable.
Now, imagine far off in the distance, a river of purple blue, indigo energy.
This river is flowing towards you. It’s the energy of the ancestor Miriam--- a loving energy, that has within it a calm clarity about possibilities for a better tomorrow that you can’t even imagine yet.
Let the indigo river approach at a speed that feels okay to you. When it arrives at your body, it circles your hands and begins to flow into the scene of your spiritual wilderness, around your miniature body you’re envisioning holding in your hand, around the shapes of any other people or things that are part of this scene for you. The river touches every element of your scene with tenderness, with compassion, it brings ease into every tight place, it loosens the energetics of the scene.
This is a moment to pray. To ask the river of energy, to ask the ancestor Miriam: what are the possibilities I’m not seeing? Where are the opportunities for me to act with spiritual chutzpah?
Continue to watch the river of blue purple Miriam energy flow around the scene, and maybe it encircles your entire physical body, maybe it fills the room you’re in.
Notice what shifts. You can pause the podcast and stay here as long as you’d like.
When you feel ready, thank the little figure of yourself in your hand for allowing you to be present with it in this way. Thank yourself for permitting this, for an encounter with uncomfortable feelings. Thank yourself for making the space for this exploration.
Now, call attention to your use your hands to gather up that indigo energy, folding it into a small condensed seed, and now put the seed of energy into your right hand, the hand of compassion, place in on your belly, and your left hand, the hand of strength on top of it, to plant Miriam energy within.
Tomorrow when you wake up, open your phone, and inevitably stumble across some piece of bad news, notice how your limbic system reacts… in that moment, notice what assumptions you make about the future.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. Neither do any political pundits. What I do know is that we can return to that seed of Miriam’s energy in our belly, calling on that seed to build our spiritual chutzpah, to foster dreams of impossible goodness, to take our own hope seriously, to act on it in the ways we can. In this way, raising the ax of radical imagination, we can splinter oppressive “facts” of life and unleash a flood of justice, healing, and creativity. Remember, Miriam walks beside you. If she’s your biological ancestor or your spiritual ancestor, her power flows in your blood.
But what do you do in the meantime--- as you’re exercising spiritual chutzpah, as we’re waiting for our vision to become reality. How do we relate to the unfolding uncertainty? Join us next time for the second tool of Miriam’s Wisdom: Wait for What, the secret Jewish mystical meditation taught to us by the ancestor Miriam, a gift for you, in this season of your life.
I'm rabbi Jericho Vincent, and I'm so excited to take this trip with you, guided by the ancestor Morah Miriam. This is a Survival Guide for a spiritual wilderness. I'll see you on the path.
Thank you to Ella Joy Meir for the beautiful original music; to Rabbi Zvika Krieger for his torah, to Kanfei Edges Group, to creative partner Ben Blum, to Morah Miriam for her guidance, and to Ruach Haolam, the oneness within, between, and beyond us all. Survival Guide for a Spiritual Wilderness is part of the Judaism Unbound family of podcasts made possible with support from Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah.
