Sunday, March 3, 2019

Miriam's Tambourine


The following is from a draft book I'm working on about bipolar recovery. In earlier blog posts, we discussed being the hero in your own journey. We continue with that theme ...

Ma nishtana, asks the youngest at the Seder table. “Why is this night different than all other nights?” The occasion is the Jewish celebration of Passover, commemorating God delivering Israel from Egypt. Five or six dishes serve as gastronomic memory aids - bitter herbs, for instance, a reminder of their conditions as slaves, matzah in acknowledgment of their hasty departure.

Upon their safe passage out of Egypt, Miriam the prophetess played her tambourine and sang and there was much rejoicing. Forty years of trial lay ahead, and after that a seven-century path to another Exile, but for right now this was a time for celebration. God tests us, says Ecclesiastes, in order to show we’re no different than beasts. Alas, we meet the same end, drawing the same breath. There is no let-up. God is messing with us.

What is the point?

“Someday I will be laughing at this,” I recall saying to the crisis intervention team that had one look at me and gave me my diagnosis of bipolar. That was back in early 1999. So what kind of a person would I have to be to one day laugh at my current situation? Someone a bit more at ease with himself, in better shape to take on the next round of trials? Someone who can one day laugh? Maybe that’s the point. 

Chronologically, the Hebrew Scriptures ends on the return from Babylonian Exile and the rebuilding of the Temple. The story is set out in the Book of Ezrah, but one pivotal scene exists only in the imagination. So - imagine: A remnant of a remnant has returned back in the land of their ancestors. Somehow, away from home, against all odds, they had managed to keep their faith alive. But now here they are, fearful and cold, huddled together on a windswept peak, standing among the ruins of their old Temple. Their Elder gathers his people closer and tells them a story, one from a faraway time and place.

The people listen, they weep, they take heart. They resolve to recommit themselves to renewal, to rebuild - their Temple, their faith, their nation, themselves. There would have been no shortage of arresting images to give them cause for inspiration: God sending a rainbow, Moses venturing to Sinai, David entering Jerusalem. But the Elder summons another one, no less eye-opening - the spectacle of an ecstatic woman smacking on her tambourine.

Imagine: What kind of person would you have to be, having just narrowly escaped 

Pharaoh’s army, with no home to go back to, with a long road of trials just ahead, to inexplicably find cause for celebration? 

One day, I will laugh it this. Faith in God, that’s easy. Faith in yourself, that’s hard. Could it be that among that remnant on that hill, a girl, emboldened by the story she just heard, said: “Father, mother, one day, I too will play the tambourine. One day, I too, will celebrate.”

And perhaps the girl’s parents reflected upon this. Yes, one day, on this very hill, their daughter would lead her people in celebration, playing on her tambourine. But first, they remind her, looking upon the ruins of their Temple, there is work to do, rebuilding to be done.


John McManamy is the author of Living Well with Depression and Bipolar Disorder and is the publisher of the Bipolar Expert Series, available on Amazon.

Follow John on Twitter at @johnmcman and on Facebook.

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