”Moses Married a Cushite Woman!” The Courage to Be Punished for Speaking Up for Black Lives Matter

The first verse of Numbers chapter 12 famously has Miriam "speaking against Moses on account of the Cushite woman he married."  Though I most often hear people say that this means that Miriam was a racist who is complaining that Moses married a foreign black woman (either Tsipporah or a second wife), that is NOT the traditional understanding of the Rabbis.  it's the opposite:  Miriam is standing up on behalf of her black sister-in-law.  Still, the commentaries are frustrating.  I rehearse Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Rashbam, and the Bekhor Shor medieval interpretations as they could be read as full of enlightenment for us now, or as cringe-worthy -- just as Miriam's statement in the first place.  And it's in that fact that we derive our lesson.