In this episode, we explore a woman so important to the Jewish people that several generations of daughters were named for her—including the mother of Yēšūa (Jesus) and at least six other Miryams in the Christian scriptures! Largely drawing on the feminine voices in Rebecca Schwartz’s work, All the Women Followed Her: A Collection of Writings on Miriam the Prophet & the Women of Exodus, Father Jayme helps us to imagine Miryam leading the Hebrew women in singing,  “Ashira l’Adonai—I will sing to Adonai, for Adonai has triumphed gloriously!” A confident, assertive, unmarried woman, Miryam posed a threat to the social order, and her memory as priestess and prophetess was quickly suppressed by the emerging religious hierarchy of the Davidic monarchy. Father Jayme examines the story of Miryam being struck with leprosy (Numbers 12)—a story often disinterpreted with misogynistic overtones—noting that Moshe (Moses) received the same gift when he was commissioned as a prophet (Ex. 4:6). As a result, God was kindled within Miryam, and, like her brother Aharon (Aaron), who prepared himself to become a priest by spending seven days in the desert, Miryam withdrew to the desert for seven days, cementing her place as a priestess and prophetess in the ancient Jewish tradition. Father Jayme concludes with Schwartz’s words, noting that Miryam “symbolizes a messianic era of full equality… as a patron saint for any woman rabbi or scholar who has had to fight for a place at the table.”