Miriam's Role in the Mishkan Through Her Descendants

Rabbi Zweig analyzes a puzzling formulation in Rashi (רש"י) that appears twice: when describing Chur, Rashi says "Chur ben nosher Miriam v'Kaleiv ba'alah" (Chur was the son of Miriam, and Kaleiv was her husband). The difficulty is obvious: if Rashi wants to identify who Chur was, he should say "Chur ben Kaleiv" or "his father was Kaleiv." Instead, Rashi defines Chur through his mother Miriam and then adds that Kaleiv was her husband. This unusual formulation appears both in Parashas Beshalach (when Moshe, Aharon, and Chur go up the mountain during the battle with Amalek) and in Parashas Vayakhel (when introducing Betzalel ben Uri ben Chur). The shiur proposes that Rashi is teaching a fundamental point: Chur was not there in his own merit, but as Miriam's representative. When the Torah (תורה) says "Moshe, Aharon, and Chur" went up the mountain, Rashi is revealing that it was really "Moshe, Aharon, and Miriam"—but since they don't take a woman for this role, Chur represented his mother. This explains why Rashi says "ben nosher Miriam v'Kaleiv ba'alah"—he's not defining Chur, he's defining Miriam's presence. Chur is there because he's Miriam's son, and the added detail about Kaleiv being her husband further emphasizes that we're discussing Miriam's significance, not Chur's genealogy.