A rather odd collection of material today - these ancient scrolls certainly seem to be more like a 'patchwork' than a systematic record.
Red Heifer
Reading this part of the narrative sparked memories for me of a time, more than a decade ago, when I reflected on this ritual in conjunction with the more familiar (if often not accurately recalled) account of the scapegoat. At the time I noted that the heifer is slaughtered whereas the scapegoat is sent, alive into the wilderness to carry away sin.
The red heifer rite is concerned with ritual cleansing after contact with a corpse. The ashes, mixed with 'living water' - spring water rather than collected rain water - are sprinkled on contaminated people or items to bring about cleansing.
Theologians see some parallels with baptism, and certainly there are some broad similarities to the sprinkling with 'holy water' of people and objects carried out in Catholic and Orthodox traditions.
Whilst we would not consider anyone or anything defiled by the contact with or of a corpse, it is fair to say that we value rituals to help us move forward after a death. Funerals as we know them did not exist until comparatively recently, and they have certainly evolved enormously in the time that I've been conducting such services.
"Last rites" by a priest, and "last offices" by a nurse (or in some faiths by appointed people), are rituals that remain even in a secular age. Rituals for the living, apart from funerals, are not part of my experience. So I am left wondering what might be gained or lost with other practices.
Miriam and Aaron
In the course of a few paragraphs, both Miriam and Aaron die, seemingly of old age, and each is buried.
Miriam's death is recorded with minimal detail, she dies at Kadesh and is buried there.
Aaron's death is preceded by the ceremonial passing on of his office to his son Eleazar, in a private ceremony on Mount Hor, at the edge of Edom. This death triggers thirty days of mourning.
Had it not been for Miriam, the story would be totally different - it was she who kept watch over her baby brother, hidden in the rushes; she who spoke to Pharaoh's daughter; she who enlisted her own mother to nurse and wean the child. It was Miriam who led the women in celebrating the crossing of the Red Sea. It was Miriam who bore in her body the consequences of hers and Aaron's actions.
There is no funeral, no eulogy, just a burial by persons unknown, who later had to perform a ritual cleansing before being allowed back 'in'.
There is no funeral or eulogy for Aaron either; he, too, is buried without ceremony, laid to rest by unknown hands. But his is deemed a signifcant death, so much so that a month of national mourning ensues.
Nowadays it often seems to me that national outpourings of grief arise almost at the drop of a hat - some minor celebrity, or some long retired singer or actor dies, often at a decent age, and suddenly flowers are left at 'shrines' and there is much pulbic expression of grief. Perhaps I'm unfair... maybe these deaths and the responses they generate trigger something deep for some people. Perhaps in a culture that has clinicalised death, and that increasingly minimises the 'committal' element of funeral rites whilst maximising the "celebration", people are meeting an inner need for ritual, for outward expression of inner feelings. Perhaps it is 'safer' or 'easier' to be part of a shared public expression of grief than to be open about the agonies of personal loss?
Polite Request
The people need to pass through Edom, so Moses does the sensible thing and contacts the authorities to request safe passage. When this is denied, he asks a second time, offering reassurances that the people will pay their way.
In what we know to be a bloody and violent story, this seems an important detail. It makes good sense, and doesn't require any comment, save to note that it is there, and that someone considered it worth recording.
A Familiar Pattern...
Another account of the people experiencing difficulty and grumbling about their lot. The spies had spoken of a rich land, had brought back grapes, figs and pomegranates but this land is dry and barren, nothing will grow here!
Moses is furious! Thus far he has done as God told him and has more than once begged God not to destroy the people. This time his frustration and anger finds outward expression. Instructed by God to hold the staff and command water from the rock, he goes further, hitting the rock twice and causing water to gush from it.
This one act, the product of frustration, fatigue, disillusionment or whatever, hardly seems to warrant the consequences that ensue - lack of trust in God means that neither Moses or Aaron will enter the Land of the Promise.
Perhaps, because these stories are all written looking backwards, what we see is an attempt to make sense of a sad reality. When Moses died before journey's end, maybe attempts were made to make sense of this - it hardly seems fair that after all he had done he didn't get there. Maybe he had angered God. Perhaps people recalled times when they had, collectively, made life difficult for Moses, times when he had shown his less lovely side, becoming angry, acting rashly. Possibly such reflection led them to deduce that God had denied Moses the achievement of the goal, and that somehow the responsibility lay with him alone.
I find myself wondering about the stories told of powerful leaders in our own time, and how readily they are identified as 'good' or 'bad', and how they are usually accorded full responsibility for the public expression of their actions and words... There will always be unwritten, untold stories of what went on behind the scenes, of the struggles and frustrations they encountered along the way, always indivduals or groups whose words or actions have contributed, for good or ill, to the overall story. Probably not every story is 'redeemable', certainly some stories are horrific and the people described apparently wicked. At the same time, I choose to believe that no-one is all bad or beyond the touch of God's redemptive grace...
Rather a lot of death and dying today. But even so some things worth pondering.