The Tolner Rebbe answers his questions by redirecting our entire understanding of this incident. It is not that Miriam took the drum and then all the women followed her, and they did the dances that women do at chasunah’s. This is not what happened over here.
The explanation is that this was a protest (hafganah!). How does the Tolner Rebbe see this? The word “the prophetess” gives us a clue. Miriam saw what was happening over here with Divine Vision. The normal human eye would not be able to discern this. But she saw what was happening. It was a demonstration.
What was the demonstration about? “What about us! Are we chopped liver?” Chazal tell us, that in the merit of the righteous women, our ancestors left Mitzrayim (Sotah 11b-12a). It was the men who had given up hope, and it was the women who kept them going and encouraged them to procreate. Now, during the final celebration of our exodus, is it just the men who are going to sing praises to G-d? What about us? What are we?
Miriam saw what was happening. She was not happy with the fact that all the women were following after her with drums and dancing because this was not an innocuous celebration. This was a protest! She heard the women complaining, “It is not fair that the men will have all the glory and be the ones who are the celebrants! What about us?”
The pasuk therefore uses the verb “Va’Taan Lahem Miriam” – Miriam responded to them! There was a question here which needed to be answered. The question was “What about us?” And Miriam answered “Lahem” – “Oh! You want to be like the men? Okay, I will answer you like men.” She is answering a question that we hear until this very day. “Why can’t women do this? Why can’t women do that? It is not fair!”
Therefore, her answer was very specifically “Horse and rider were thrown into the sea.” The cavalry, the guys who were riding the horses had to drown in the sea as punishment for their cruelty to us. That we can understand. But what was the crime of the horses? Why did they also need to perish?
The explanation is that the Ribbono Shel Olam gives as much credit or as much blame to the person who facilitates, as He does to the person who actually does whatever was facilitated. The Ribbono Shel Olam considers facilitators just as important as those who act.
This was the essence of the Tolner Rebbe’s lesson: If “all a kollel wife does is bake and cook and clean and diaper and take care of the children, but as a result, she facilitates her husband to be able to sit and learn, she receives the same reward from Heaven as her husband receives. If someone learns Daf HaYomi, and during that time his wife takes care of the children so that he can learn, she receives the same reward.
We see this principle from “the horse and its rider were thrown into the sea.” The Ribbono Shel Olam punishes the horse because it facilitated the rider. If this is the way it works by punishment, by reward it certainly works like that!
Miriam responded to them: “I know where you ladies are coming from, but that is the way the Ribbono Shel Olam built Klal Yisroel. Judaism is a role-oriented religion. Kohanim do some things, Leviim do other things, Yisroelim do other things. Men do some things and women do other things. The system will not work unless everybody pulls their weight and does what they are supposed to do. These are the words of Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzatto in the beginning of his Mesilas Yesharim. “A person must know what his responsibility is in this world.” (Mah chovoso b’olamo).
This is not a popular idea because everybody wants to be the same. Today in “their infinite wisdom” the United States Armed Forces said that women can fight in combat roles just as well as men. I just don’t get it! But “it’s fair!” Fair is fair! This is not the way Yiddiskeit works. Yiddishkeit works with the principle “I have my role and you have your role!” That is why Miriam told the women, “The horse and the rider were thrown into the sea.”
The Tolner Rebbe uses this insight to suggest an awesome insight into a pasuk in Shir HaShirim (1:9) “With My mighty steeds who battled Pharaoh’s riders I revealed that you are My beloved.” Did you ever think about the meaning of this pasuk? It might sound like the Lover is telling his Beloved that she is like a horse! If you go home tonight and tell your wife “I love you like a horse,” see where that will get you! The simple interpretation is that the Lover is saying “You are not just an average horse, you are like the best of Pharaoh’s steeds, as it were. You are the best of women!” This is the simple interpretation.
The Tolner Rebbe explains differently: “I love you because that is the lesson of the horses of Pharaoh’s stables who were thrown into the sea with their riders.” You are my facilitator and I owe everything I have accomplished to you!
The Rebbe related an incident of a woman in her nineties who came to him and told him a story involving a conversation she had with Rav Moshe Feinstein several years earlier. This woman was a cleaning lady in a big Yeshiva for forty years. Someone introduced her to Rav Moshe and told him “This woman cleaned the Yeshiva for forty years.” Rav Moshe told her: You have the same reward as all the students who learned in that Yeshiva for those forty years. The woman started crying as she related this story to the Tolner Rebbe about what Rav Moshe Feinstein had told her some thirty years earlier!
This is the power of a facilitator. The Ribbono Shel Olam grants the same reward (or punishment) to a facilitator as the person being facilitated. Therefore, Miriam told the women (Va’Taan Lahem Miriam) they do not have anything to complain about! You are going to get the same Olam HaBah as the men! (R’ Yissocher Frand)
