Healing Well of Miriam

Before the Ten Sayings of Creation, the Torah begins the story by stating Elokim created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was empty, with darkness over the face of the deep, and the Divine Presence hovered over the waters.  Wait… He speaks light into being, but He does not speak the waters into being…they’re just there.  What is the mystery of water?

Hashem Elokim later planted a garden in Eden in whose midst is the Tree of Life.  A river flowed out from Eden, from beneath the Tree of Life, dividing into four headwaters—the four primordial rivers that are the “source” of the waters of the earth: Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel, Euphrates.

The Book of Ezekiel says a stream will issue out from the threshold of the Third Temple, becoming a river that flows eastward.  It will go out to all the seas, healing the waters of the earth.  Like the rivers from the Tree of Life, this river will water the trees on its shores, which will have new fruit each month and healing properties in their leaves (Ez. 47:12).

Water is the conduit of information.  The Divine Presence hovered over the waters.  The rivers of Eden carried the message of Life from the Tree to the other trees of the Garden.  The river in Ezekiel’s vision carries this same life-giving vibration from the Temple, “sweetening” (healing) all the earth’s waters and re-vitalizing the plant life.

The Pishon is thought by some to be the Nile.  The Ramban (Rabbi Moshe Ben Nachman) disagreed with this because of the description of Havilah, the land it is surrounds, saying this is India.  So, in his opinion, could this be the Ganges?

The Gihon is said to surround the land of Cush.  There are two heads of the Nile—the Blue Nile and White Nile.  The Blue Nile begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia and flows into Sudan.  The White Nile rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa and flows north through Tanzania, Uganda and South Sudan. The two rivers come together north of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

The Hiddekel flows east of Asshur, a part of Assyria near Baghdad, and is believed to be the Tigris River.  In the Book of Daniel the Tigris was called “the great river.”

The Euphrates River begins in the mountains of Turkey.  In Hebrew it is called P’rath, meaning fruitful, for all it touches becomes fruitful.  It is interesting to think of Noah’s Ark coming to rest in the mountains of Turkey and his planting a vineyard that ripened so quickly.

Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel, Euphrates.  Just the names of these rivers have such healing vibration that a permutation of these is a formula for healing.  Some Kiddush cups are made with these names inscribed inside them.

As I have traveled to other parts of the world, to other countries and cultures, I noticed that there is common motif of a sacred mountain and the headwaters of rivers.  Many times, this is actually four headwaters.  In India there are said to be four heads of the Ganges.  The Hindus believe that if a person can make a pilgrimage to all four, he will not have to reincarnate.  From the mountains of Tibet flow major rivers of Asia: the Indus, the Ghaghara (a tributary of the Ganges), the Lancang River (the Mekong), the Yangtze River, and the Yellow River.  In British Columbia is an area the native peoples actually called the Sacred Headwaters, from which begin the wild salmon rivers:  the Skeena River, Nass River and Stikine River.  Colorado is called the Headwaters State for from her mountains flow the waters of the Rio Grande, the Colorado, the South Platte, and the Arkansas.   These are only examples of places that have sacred significance to the native peoples so ancient that it almost predates memory itself.  Yet it is linked back to the most ancient of our collective memories—Eden and the Tree of Life—which takes us forward to a universal hope of healing redemption fulfilled in the Temple of Ezekiel’s vision.  The beginning is embedded in the end.

Today the waters of the earth have become polluted, the soil so depleted that the produce grown there is barely nutritious, and the people and animals of the world suffer a plethora of illnesses.  After Hashem planted the Garden and the river issued forth from the Tree of Life, He placed Adam there to tend it and guard it.  We are told that rain was withheld until Adam was created, for he was meant to pray for the rain.  This interaction with Hashem was the work for which he had been created—his dominion of the earth.  Adam, who had responsibility for this dimension of Creation, was placed at the headwaters—the original Headwaters.