Miriam’s Names
So far we have seen two of Miriam’s many names: Miriam and Pu’ah. Where do the other names appear? In the Book of Chronicles. The names mentioned in Chronicles perplex those who are intimately familiar with the rest of the Bible; the sages regard these names as not being non-literal and rather requiring interpretation.
In the Talmud, after discussing the identities of the two midwives, the sages go into a discussion of a number of verses from Chronicles, which they associate with Miriam. The first verse is discussed in the context of an opinion that the “household” given to Pu’ah, i.e., Miriam, is the house of royalty.
And the one who says houses of royalty refers to David, who also comes from Miriam, as it is written: “And Azubah died and Caleb took to him Ephrath, who bore him Hur.”
The next verse is “And Caleb, the son of Hezron, begot children of Azubah his wife, and of Jerioth, and these were her sons: Jesher, and Shobab, and Ardon.”
Two final verses are, “And Ashhur the father of Tekoa had two wives, Helah and Naarah” and “And the children of Helah were Zereth [Tzeret] and Zohar and Ethnan.”
In all, we find that Miriam is associated with 8 different names in these verses from these verses. Let us explain their correspondence with the sefirot: Miriam is her “essential” name and thus we place it in the crown. Azubah means “one who is forsaken.” In this case, she had forsaken herself, thereby attaining a state of self-nullification (בִּ טּ וּל) considered the inner experience of wisdom. This is also hinted to by the fact that she is said to have died, i.e., nullified the self. Jerioth literally means drapes or curtains and alludes to the surrounding lights of Imma, the mother principle, associated with understanding (just as the Sukkah we dwell in during Sukkot drapes us and is also known as the surrounding light of the mother principle).
The two names that appear in the same verse, Helah and Na’arah correspond to loving-kindness and might, the two main emotional sefirot. Helah (חֶ לְ אָ ה ) is a notarikon for “sick with love” (לַתֹחו אַ הֲבָה) and the value of Na’arah (הָרֲעַנ) is 325, a number associated in Kabbalah with the harsh judgments of the sefirah of might.
Miriam’s name Efrat (אֶ פְ רָ ת) is clearly related to the sefirah of beauty (תִּ פְ אֶ רֶ ת).
The next three names appear together and correspond to the three habitual sefirot, victory, acknowledgement, and foundation. She was called Tzeret because of her beauty that was so great that other women felt she was competing against them (and winning); thus, Tzeret corresponds to victory. Her name Tzohar means that her face shined like the sun does at noon, called tzahorayim in Hebrew; acknowledgment (hod) also means splendor. The sages say that her beauty inspired men to bring gift to their wives in order to find favor in their eyes, a clear connection with foundation.
Finally, according to the opinion that Pu’ah is Miriam, we correspond this name Pu’ah with kingdom. Pu’ah literally means to coo, since Miriam would do so to the newborn children. Kingdom is associated directly with the mouth and with speech.
Our complete partzuf is thus,
- crown-keter רֶתֶכּ: Miriam
- wisdom-chochmah הָמְכָח: Azubah
- understanding-binah הָינִבּ: Jerioth
- loving-kindness-chessed דֶסֶח: Helah
- might-gevurah הָבוּרְּג: Na’arah
- beauty-tiferet תֶרֶאְפִתּ: Efrat
- victory-netzach חַצֶנ: Tzeret
- splendor-hod דֹהו: Tzohar
- foundation-yesod דֹסוְי: Ethnan
- kingdom-malchut כוּתְלַמ: Pu’ah
