The Nativity of Moses

So, Rabbi, we’re starting

another book, the Book of Exodus, and I have

looked at the story of the birth of Moses going

into becoming a prince of Egypt from a different

perspective, how it’s kind of different than

those typical myths where Odysseus is born to a

royal family and then is exiled and comes home.

We’ve always focused on the fact that here Moses

came from a lowly family, went to a royal family

and came back. But today we’re going to focus on the

similarities, not on the differences. And very

soon in our Parsha, in Exodus 2, 2, it says the

woman became pregnant and bore a son. She saw him

and that he was goodly, so she hid him for three

months. Now I use the Fox translation because I was

sure of all the translations Fox would pick up on

a cue. Here the cue is in the Hebrew. It doesn’t

say that he was goodly. It says “ki tov” (it was good).

Come on, that’s from Genesis. That’s right there.

So even though Fox or any of the translations do

not pick up on it, it’s not really true. The

Talmud in Sotah says and the rabbis say at the

time when Moses was born, the entire house was

filled with light as it is written here and when

she saw him that he was goodly ki tov and it is

written there and God saw the light that it was

good. So it literally quotes from Gen. So I think

we’re going to see that the story of the birth of

Moses, I call it the Nativity of Moses, but it

truly fits into that category. There’s danger,

there’s astrologers predictions, there’s drama,

there’s light. This is truly the birth of the

Savior. And we’re going to look at the verses

through that lens. So we start in Exodus 1, and

it says, a new king arose over Egypt who did did

not know Joseph. And he said to his people, look,

the Israelite people are much too numerous for

us. Let us deal shrewdly with them. Havana Lo. I

did point out that lo means with him and not with

them. We’re going to get to that again. The

commentaries pick up on this. Not so much the

translators, so that they might not increase

otherwise. In the event of war, they, or

literally “he” may join our enemies in fighting

against us and rise up from the ground. So this

is unfortunately a trope that has been leveled

against the Jewish people from time immemorial,

maybe against any minority. But watch out. There

are strangers amongst us. They will only multiply

and they will conquer us. But as I said, we’re

going to look at it from the perspective of the

birth of Moses. The Gemara in Sotah, as quoted by

the Ein Yaakov, talks about Pharaoh saying, let’s

deal wisely. It says, come on, let us deal wisely

with him. It should have been with them, said

Rav Chana ben Chanina. This means that he said to

them, come, let us deal wisely with the Redeemer

of Israel. So again, they pick up a cue from the

text that I mentioned that. And I’d never focused

on this before, Rabbi, that it truly was, let’s

watch out for him. So they had a little bit of a

peg to stand. I had not focused on that before.

Right. That’s very good actually, isn’t it?

So. So it goes on. And Rabbi Abba said, in the

name of Rav Yochanan, the following three, I

would add, wise men were there. Bilaam, Job and

Jethro.

This is a great midrash. I mean, whatever it

means, it’s amazing and it’s famous.

It’s famous. I didn’t pull this out of some

arcane book. If you study these texts, you know

this tradition. They were advisors to Pharaoh

concerning the decree to throw him into the water

of the children of Israel. Balaam, who gave this

advice, was killed. Job, who kept silent, was

punished with chastisement. And Jethro, who ran

away, was rewarded for having his descendants

place among the Sanhedrin in the chamber of the

temple. So the first thing that I want to point

out, because we are going to look at some stories

similar to this that preceded it, but I think

most of our listeners will already start having the

bells will start ringing to the nativity scene of

Jesus. And you had the three magi. So here we

have the three kind of prophets. That’s the one

thing that’s of interest. The second is they’re

all famous in our tradition, but they’re all non

Jews. Anyone who studies Balaam, but especially

Job, who people question, was it a real character

or was the whole book of Job just an allegory?

This is kind of make them real. They make them

real. And the thing about throwing them into the

river, some of the commentaries really ascribe to

these advisors a lot of Talmudic and biblical

knowledge. They ascribe to them the knowledge of

the flood of Noah. And they reason that since God

promised Noah he would never destroy the world

again with a flood, they said, well, we don’t

want to burn them, let’s throw them into the

water, because God will never be able to come

back and drown us all. It didn’t work out so

well. But again, it does tie in a little bit to

the, the drowning in the Sea of Reeds that we say.

That none of the three gives really positive

advice. Jethro is the best, and he runs away.

That’s true, that’s true. No one stood up to. No,

no one stood up.

That’s a very important point. Nobody stands up.

We think of Yitro as a hero. His reaction is

not heroic.

Noted, noted. We’ll have to remember that when we

do parshat Yitro!. Right? So, anyway,

the story continues. The king of Egypt spoke to

the Hebrew midwives, it says, which could be the

Hebrew midwives. And as we’ll see, it could also

be the midwives of the Hebrews.

The Hebrews, right? You can’t tell. One of whose

name

was Shiphrah and the other was Puah, saying, when

you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the birth

stool. If it is a boy, kill him. If it is a girl,

let her live. The midwives, fearing God, did not

do as the king of Egypt had told them. They let

the boys live. It goes on with a whole nice back

and forth about Pharaoh saying, why didn’t you

listen to me? And they go, well, these Jewish

women, they don’t need midwives. They can have

children on their own. But then in verse

22, it says, then Pharaoh charged all his people,

saying, every boy that is born, you shall throw

into the river, but let every girl live. So,

Rabbi, this is escalating. Originally it was just

to throw the Jewish boys. He realizes he can’t

count on being so segmental, and so he says all

of them.

So let’s just take a second to throw the Jewish

boys in. It’s kind of. It’s kind of

counterintuitive. Obviously, he thinks the Jewish

boys become the. The soldiers, but it’s the

Jewish girls who have the children. So wouldn’t

he be better to throw the Jewish girls in to

begin with? I know he changes his mind, but isn’t

that interesting that he starts with the boys

rather than starting with the girls?

Absolutely. And we’re going to see some of the

commentaries attempt to answer it, whether they

answer it successfully or not. I leave that up to

you and the listeners. But it’s a good question.

And again, it’s an issue of segmental punishment,

segmental weaning. I think the easiest answer

that I would give you is that we live in a

patrilineal society and the nationhood was passed

down through the father. If you kill out the

father, you kill out the nation. The women will

be assimilated into the host nation. I think that

probably is the most easy answer. But let’s. I

think it’s a good question. I think more

importantly is we see already segmenting. First

he tries to segment by gender, and then

he tries to segment by nation. And then he

finally says, let’s kill everybody. So Rashi

says, l’hor ami. This may be translated. And

Pharoah gave command regarding all of his people.

And he goes on in to say, for on the day when

Moses was born, his astrologer said to him,

meaning to Pharaoh, today their deliverer has

been born. But we know not whether he is born of

an Egyptian father or an Israelite, but we see by

astrological art that he will ultimately suffer

misfortune through water. So here we have these

astrologists who are looking at the stars and

saying that the Redeemer of Israel is being born.

They didn’t know if he was born to the Egyptians

or to the Israelites. I think by branching it out

a little bit, whether it’s through the three wise

men or here killing also the Egyptians, it also

makes it a more universal story, doesn’t it?

Right.

No question about that.

So that becomes kind of interesting. Now our good

buddy Shadal addresses this question of, were the

midwives Jewish midwives? And so he says that

While many of the commentaries say that they were

Jewish midwives, he says that he believes that

these midwives were of the Hebrews. And he brings

a few proofs. He says, number one, it says that

they feared God. You know, if they were of the

same people, it would say that they loved the

children or they felt united with them. The

other thing that it says is it refers too many

times to how when they talked about these Jews

give birth in the following way. So what I think,

Shadal, but others have said, and this will be of

interest to you, Rabbi, is that they could have

been converts, or at least they felt an affinity

with the Jewish people. Shifrah and Puah, Shadal

points out, are Hebrew Semitic names, not

Egyptian names. He says maybe from the

perspective of the Egyptians, they were. They

were Canaanites. They were just another

Canaanite. But he thinks that they. They were

not. They were not Jewish by birth. And I think,

again, that makes the story that much more

larger, enlarges the story and makes it bigger.

Good. I think that’s. Now you understand, before

we get to a punchline, the idea of making the

story bigger is important because this is the

story of the birth of Moses. This the beginning

of the creation of the Jewish nation. The bigger

you make the story, the better you make the story.

Absolutely. And I think one of the questions that

I think any of us who reads Exodus has, whether

we’re Jewish or not, is how did this story get so

big? You know, why are liberation movements still

quoting it? Why did African Americans tag on to

the story of the Israelite slaves being freed?

Why did it clearly affect the whole Christian

story of Jesus going through the Passover

sacrifice and all that? This is a major story.

And this, in a way, kind of following up on what

you just said. If he’s the redeemer of the

Israelites, in a sense, he’s the redeemer of the

world. Because this was the story that showed

that history can go somewhere, that people can be

free, can become their own people. So, yes, it

would be very natural to aggrandize and make this

story bigger. You kind of referenced before how

the traditional commentaries actually see Pharaoh

going through three stages here. The first is, if

it be a son, you shall kill him, meaning an

Israelite son. Then afterwards, this. The Talmud

seems to think that every child that is born, and

then it says, even if it was an Egyptian, it’s

clearly trying to make this into a large story of

the Egyptian. In the Midrash Tanchuma, it tries

to fill in the Blanks of what did Pharaoh say to

his people? How was he able to orchestrate this

killing of all boys that were born? So he says,

why were they commanded to do this? Because the

astrologers had told him, the redeemer of Israel

will be born on that day, but we do not know

whether he’ll be an Egyptian or an Israelite. At

that time, Pharaoh assembled every Egyptian and

said to them, loan me your sons for a day, as it

said, and every son that is born, ye shall cast.

It does not say every child of an Israelite, but

every son. So here we have also, I’ve always

talked and we’ve talked about the subterfuge that

the people of Israel did to get out of Egypt.

Clearly, Pharaoh, at least through the lens of

our commentaries, was also using subterfuge. He

didn’t just come out and say, kill the Jews. He

created this working through the astrologers, the

astrologers, and then working through the

midwives, then working through his people. Loan

me your child.

It shows that Pharaoh was worried about

something. You only go to the astrologers if you

say, I woke up this morning and I was suspicious

about something, so he went to his astrologers.

Something gave Pharaoh a bad feeling.

Well, absolutely. Now, one of the puzzles that we

need to solve, and I said this in the intro, was

that this story did not really resonate later on.

You almost have it put between parentheses when

Moses came and saw Pharaoh. You don’t even have

Pharaoh relating to the story of Moses killing

the taskmaster and exiling himself. You certainly

don’t have a sense of Pharaoh ever saying to him,

my God, you were a prince of Egypt. You grew up

in my house. It’s really kind of isolated, the

story. The Ramban says it appears that this

decree to drown the Israelite children lasted for

a short time. And he brings of course the fact that

Aaron was born three years before doesn’t seem

like anything else like this happened. So again,

it gets back to this whole kind of narrative that

we’ve been following where this is about Moses.

It’s not about the people, it’s about the

astrologers who said, somebody’s going to be

born. It’s this week, this month, this nine month

cycle. We’ve got to address it. But that also

kind of jives with what modern scholars say in

terms of this story kind of sits by itself. But I

will argue that you don’t have to be a critical

documentary fan to see that this story kind of

stands on its own and didn’t really resonate

later on in this story or elsewhere. One of these

commentaries is a guy named Jonathan Cohen who

wrote a book, the Origins and Evolution of the

Moses Nativity Story. And he says the murder and

annihilation motif disappears completely after

Exodus 2:10, after it has served its purpose of

introducing the birth of the Savior. The motive

also detracts from the crescendo in the theme of

increasing enslavement. And he uses Ramban as an

example of a classical commentary who also kind

of supplements that and confirms it was a one-

off, clearly focused on Moses. But again, it does

give us a little bit of a license rabbi to look

at this as a nativity story. It really

Related to the birth of Moses. And then the

rest of the story is the Exodus of the Jewish

people.

Good. I mean, and we’re combining the two stories

because obviously the whole purpose of

this.

Of the parsha of Shemot is to combine the

nativity story with the Exodus story. And that’s

interesting. And those stories come together at

the burning bush because they have to come

together at a holy moment.

That’s the segue. That’s the segue. So you had

questioned why they only killed the boys and not

the girl. Cassuto gives the following. And it is

a segue itself, he says, similar to the fear that

Avram had when he went down to Egypt with his

wife Sarai. And he says, they will kill me and

you, Sarah, they will let live. What Cassuto is

saying, and this does kind of jive with what some

of the classical commentary said is they wanted

to kill the men and then have the women as sexual

objects, take them as wives or mistresses. So

Cassuto is tying this back to the Abraham story in

the sense that this is what the Egyptians did.

That’s a dvar torah, because that’s not there. So

he says, you see from elsewhere that killing the

men is a way of getting to the women. Okay. It’s

a nice drav Torah. I’m not sure it’s really what

the story means, but.

Okay, I think the real answer is a patrilineal

society.

Right.

Or the war, the war thing that you brought up

before, let’s kill the fighters. But he does,

Cassuto does serve as an interesting segue to the

fact that our Midrashim have a very similar story

about Abraham, the quote unquote, nativity of

Abraham, as they do about Moses. Because

according to many of the commentaries, and I put

some links in the source Notes to Legends of the

Jews by Ginsburg. And he really flushes this out.

But ultimately what they say in this midrash is

that before Abraham was born, their astrologers

looked up in the sky and they saw a very large

star rising. And they said to themselves, what

happens if we don’t share this with Nimrod? We

could get in trouble. And so, so they come to

Nimrod and they said, we have been informed that

a son hath been born unto Terah, thy chief

commander. And we went unto his house last night.

And what they are saying is the king should give

unto Terah the value of that child and we will

slay him ere he grows up and increases in the

land to bring about this great evil. So, Rabbi,

the Midrashim, create a parallel of Abraham, who

clearly could also be considered the father,

founder of the Israelite tradition. And they have

a similar story with astrologers, with wise men

consulting with the king and telling him to kill

this child. It does become fascinating.

Yeah, I mean, right? I mean that’s part of what you

call the nativity scene. Making it more of a

story, including a bigger theme is also part of

the idea of making it more, more significant.

Right? And there’s a midrish about

Mount Sinai that the whole world was quiet when

God gave the ten Commandments. Like, why is that

necessary? Of course it’s necessary because

if revelation is something that’s earth

shattering, the whole world needs to be quiet. So

here too you have something like that. They make

the story bigger in order to make it more

significant.

I think that’s obviously true. I also think that

not only bigger, but they have to add this drama

of danger and supply and demand type of thing

where this is very rare, this is very tenuous.

And of course, I made an allusion before to other

stories similar to this. But even before we go

there, those of our listeners who know the New

Testament know that in Matthew there is this

prequel to the birth of Jesus where again, it

says that Herod heard that the Redeemer of the

Jews was going to be born in Bethlehem and he

made a decree to kill all of the boys born in

Bethlehem. Clearly this story and these Midrashim

were well known enough that they were worth

repurposing, so to speak, for any future

narrative of the birth of a redeemer. And I think

that’s the real takeaway and of course the other

takeaway, Rabbi, is when you and I are in Europe

and we see the painting of the Massacre of the

Innocent. We now know what we’re looking at!

What it is, what that’s all about.

So let’s go now to the second part of the story.

We’ve had, the birth part with the drama of the

birthing mothers and throwing into the Nile. Then

in Exodus 2:1, it says a certain member of the

house of Levi went and took into his household as

his wife a woman of Levi. The woman conceived and

bore a son. And when she saw how

beautiful he was, I referenced this before

Ki tov… She hid him for three months. When he

could hide him no longer, she got a wicker basket

for him. And the word for a wicker basket is a

teyvat, which sounds a little bit like teyvat

Noah (Noah’s ark), right? And corked it with our bitumon and

pitch, put the child into it. Placed it into the

weeds of the bank of the Nile. And his sister

stationed herself at a distance to learn what

would befoil him. We had that a little bit with

Hagar. It’s an important moment. We certainly had

it with Joseph’s story where the brothers threw

him into the pit and they said, let’s see what’s

going to happen with all of his prophecies. And

then we know what happened next. Where Pharaoh’s

daughter took him and she got a nursing mother

who turned out to be his natural mother. So

Miriam and Yocheved are involved. And then in

verse 10, it says, when the child grew up, she

brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, who made her a

son, which is kind of interesting. She actually

raised him at home and then brought him to the

palace and.

She named him, you know, we had a grandson.

today. The name is important. And the people

who name are the parents. The grandparents have

no say in the name. Right. It’s the parents who

name. So if the daughter of Pharaoh names the

child, that’s significant, she’s in place of the

mother.

Yep, absolutely. So you’re saying she named him

Moses? This is Bat Pharaoh. We had a little bit

of adoption last week where Joseph adopted

Menashe and Epharim. What you’re arguing is

that Pharaoh’s daughter, by naming him, he was a

true child, prince of Egypt. Sometime after that,

when Moses had grown up. This is a real quick

segue. He went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed

their labors. He saw an Egyptian beating a

Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. He turned this way

and that, and seeing no one about, he struck down

the Egyptian hid him in the sand. When he went

out the next day, he found two Hebrews fighting.

So he said to the offender, why do you strike your

fellow? He retorted, who made you chief and ruler

of us? Do you mean to kill me the same way that

you killed the Egyptian? Moses was frightened and

thought, then the matter is known. When Pharaoh

learned of the matter, he sought to kill Moses.

But Moses fled from Pharaoh. He arrived in the

land of Midian and sat down beside a well, which.

Is the beginning of the of the burning bush story.

And of course, now we have twice that Pharaoh is

wanting to kill Moses. And again, you could make

the case that this is the father trying to kill

his son, certainly an adopted father trying to

kill his son. It is the second time that in a

sense Moses is fleeing. The first time they hid

him and here they put him in to the water. What’s

interesting is the Talmud in Sotah says a sage

teaches Amram, the father of Moses was the great

man of his generation. He saw that the wicked

Pharaoh said, every son that is born shall be

cast into the river. And he said, we are laboring

for nothing. Le shav anu amaylin. He arose and

divorced his wife. And then it’s a beautiful

story. And we could do a whole other podcast on

the critical role of, of women moving this story

forward.

Miriam, especially Miriam, is kind of a forgotten

character. She pops up a few times. But here is

the best story of all about Miriam.

So Miriam confronts her father. You are

a leader of the generation. If you separate from

your wife, all the men will separate from their

wives and you’re going to destroy our people for

good. So at that, Amram accepted his daughter’s

words and arose and brought back meaning. He

remarried his wife. And all others saw this,

followed his example, brought back their wives.

And so the Gemora asks if Amram remarried.

Yocheved, it should have said in return.

For a wife, should he married her.

Again, there’s a little bit of the question of

who was the father, so to speak, because he was,

he was officially married. Then he kind of came

back. And so the rabbis are kind of reading a

little bit of intrigue into

this, which again, Aaron and Miriam dance before

her. So there’s no Moses. This whole story

happens before Moses is born. It’s very odd,

right the top your. Your point is a good point.

The timing is odd.

So the timing is odd. And again, they’re not

pulling this from nowhere. The way the story

starts, starts in the Bible itself is a certain

member of the House of Levi went and took.

You know who it is, right?

It’s innocuous.

His name is never mentioned.

Correct. And that too is part and parcel of these

stories where you don’t have to be a Freudian who

gets into the intrigue of father son

relationships. The idea is, is that this savior

is born. He has to travel out into foreign lands.

He has to prove himself. There are those that

want to kill him, maybe his father. And by

killing that slave master, in a sense, he was

killing an Egyptian, maybe an analog for his

father. It really does have all of the

ingredients of the typical nativity scene. And I

think, you know, similar to Sargon, if you look

into the source sheet, you see additional

information about Sargon, Cyrus Romulus. But I

think, Rabbi, as we finish up, the interesting

thing is we always read the Haggadah and we

always ask, where is Moses? And you love to say

there’s pshat and there’s midrash. So we all have

beautiful midrashim. But I think we can kind of

agree with the higher biblical critics who say

that this story is isolated and that doesn’t much

purchase going forward in the story of the

Exodus, that there was a very strong and deep

bias against hero worship. On the one hand, the

story is there with all its ingredients, and on

the other hand, within our own tradition, it

remained in the background. It remained more, I

would say, the way you like to say it is it’s a

midrash, it’s a nice story, but it didn’t really

affect our people. And I think as we start this

book of Exodus, sometimes the most important

thing is what’s said and sometimes the most

important thing is what is left unsaid. And this

particular story is there because maybe it has to

be. But I think it really is a wonderful

introduction by contrast, into the rest of

the story of Exodus, which is about a people, not

a person.

I think that’s great. I mean, we didn’t even talk

about this idea of growing up in Pharaoh’s house

and why that’s part of the story, right? Why the

leader needs to be exposed to Pharaoh’s house,

even though Pharaoh becomes the enemy. That we

can leave that for next year’s podcast. But I

think that’s part of this story about what the

nativity scene, what, what the birth of Moses,

what that’s all about. This is great.

So anyway, today was the Brit of your grandson.

Mazel tov to you. And we look forward to, to

reading the next Parasha in Exodus next week and

diving into this amazing story that has had such

a great impact on culture, religion and

ideology. Shabbat Shalom Looking forward.

Shabbat Shalom.So, Rabbi, we’re starting

another book, the Book of Exodus, and I have

looked at the story of the birth of Moses going

into becoming a prince of Egypt from a different

perspective, how it’s kind of different than

those typical myths where Odysseus is born to a

royal family and then is exiled and comes home.

We’ve always focused on the fact that here Moses

came from a lowly family, went to a royal family

and came back. But today we’re going to focus on the

similarities, not on the differences. And very

soon in our Parsha, in Exodus 2, 2, it says the

woman became pregnant and bore a son. She saw him

and that he was goodly, so she hid him for three

months. Now I use the Fox translation because I was

sure of all the translations Fox would pick up on

a cue. Here the cue is in the Hebrew. It doesn’t

say that he was goodly. It says “ki tov” (it was good).

Come on, that’s from Genesis. That’s right there.

So even though Fox or any of the translations do

not pick up on it, it’s not really true. The

Talmud in Sotah says and the rabbis say at the

time when Moses was born, the entire house was

filled with light as it is written here and when

she saw him that he was goodly ki tov and it is

written there and God saw the light that it was

good. So it literally quotes from Gen. So I think

we’re going to see that the story of the birth of

Moses, I call it the Nativity of Moses, but it

truly fits into that category. There’s danger,

there’s astrologers predictions, there’s drama,

there’s light. This is truly the birth of the

Savior. And we’re going to look at the verses

through that lens. So we start in Exodus 1, and

it says, a new king arose over Egypt who did did

not know Joseph. And he said to his people, look,

the Israelite people are much too numerous for

us. Let us deal shrewdly with them. Havana Lo. I

did point out that lo means with him and not with

them. We’re going to get to that again. The

commentaries pick up on this. Not so much the

translators, so that they might not increase

otherwise. In the event of war, they, or

literally “he” may join our enemies in fighting

against us and rise up from the ground. So this

is unfortunately a trope that has been leveled

against the Jewish people from time immemorial,

maybe against any minority. But watch out. There

are strangers amongst us. They will only multiply

and they will conquer us. But as I said, we’re

going to look at it from the perspective of the

birth of Moses. The Gemara in Sotah, as quoted by

the Ein Yaakov, talks about Pharaoh saying, let’s

deal wisely. It says, come on, let us deal wisely

with him. It should have been with them, said

Rav Chana ben Chanina. This means that he said to

them, come, let us deal wisely with the Redeemer

of Israel. So again, they pick up a cue from the

text that I mentioned that. And I’d never focused

on this before, Rabbi, that it truly was, let’s

watch out for him. So they had a little bit of a

peg to stand. I had not focused on that before.

Right. That’s very good actually, isn’t it?

So. So it goes on. And Rabbi Abba said, in the

name of Rav Yochanan, the following three, I

would add, wise men were there. Bilaam, Job and

Jethro.

This is a great midrash. I mean, whatever it

means, it’s amazing and it’s famous.

It’s famous. I didn’t pull this out of some

arcane book. If you study these texts, you know

this tradition. They were advisors to Pharaoh

concerning the decree to throw him into the water

of the children of Israel. Balaam, who gave this

advice, was killed. Job, who kept silent, was

punished with chastisement. And Jethro, who ran

away, was rewarded for having his descendants

place among the Sanhedrin in the chamber of the

temple. So the first thing that I want to point

out, because we are going to look at some stories

similar to this that preceded it, but I think

most of our listeners will already start having the

bells will start ringing to the nativity scene of

Jesus. And you had the three magi. So here we

have the three kind of prophets. That’s the one

thing that’s of interest. The second is they’re

all famous in our tradition, but they’re all non

Jews. Anyone who studies Balaam, but especially

Job, who people question, was it a real character

or was the whole book of Job just an allegory?

This is kind of make them real. They make them

real. And the thing about throwing them into the

river, some of the commentaries really ascribe to

these advisors a lot of Talmudic and biblical

knowledge. They ascribe to them the knowledge of

the flood of Noah. And they reason that since God

promised Noah he would never destroy the world

again with a flood, they said, well, we don’t

want to burn them, let’s throw them into the

water, because God will never be able to come

back and drown us all. It didn’t work out so

well. But again, it does tie in a little bit to

the, the drowning in the Sea of Reeds that we say.

That none of the three gives really positive

advice. Jethro is the best, and he runs away.

That’s true, that’s true. No one stood up to. No,

no one stood up.

That’s a very important point. Nobody stands up.

We think of Yitro as a hero. His reaction is

not heroic.

Noted, noted. We’ll have to remember that when we

do parshat Yitro!. Right? So, anyway,

the story continues. The king of Egypt spoke to

the Hebrew midwives, it says, which could be the

Hebrew midwives. And as we’ll see, it could also

be the midwives of the Hebrews.

The Hebrews, right? You can’t tell. One of whose

name

was Shiphrah and the other was Puah, saying, when

you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the birth

stool. If it is a boy, kill him. If it is a girl,

let her live. The midwives, fearing God, did not

do as the king of Egypt had told them. They let

the boys live. It goes on with a whole nice back

and forth about Pharaoh saying, why didn’t you

listen to me? And they go, well, these Jewish

women, they don’t need midwives. They can have

children on their own. But then in verse

22, it says, then Pharaoh charged all his people,

saying, every boy that is born, you shall throw

into the river, but let every girl live. So,

Rabbi, this is escalating. Originally it was just

to throw the Jewish boys. He realizes he can’t

count on being so segmental, and so he says all

of them.

So let’s just take a second to throw the Jewish

boys in. It’s kind of. It’s kind of

counterintuitive. Obviously, he thinks the Jewish

boys become the. The soldiers, but it’s the

Jewish girls who have the children. So wouldn’t

he be better to throw the Jewish girls in to

begin with? I know he changes his mind, but isn’t

that interesting that he starts with the boys

rather than starting with the girls?

Absolutely. And we’re going to see some of the

commentaries attempt to answer it, whether they

answer it successfully or not. I leave that up to

you and the listeners. But it’s a good question.

And again, it’s an issue of segmental punishment,

segmental weaning. I think the easiest answer

that I would give you is that we live in a

patrilineal society and the nationhood was passed

down through the father. If you kill out the

father, you kill out the nation. The women will

be assimilated into the host nation. I think that

probably is the most easy answer. But let’s. I

think it’s a good question. I think more

importantly is we see already segmenting. First

he tries to segment by gender, and then

he tries to segment by nation. And then he

finally says, let’s kill everybody. So Rashi

says, l’hor ami. This may be translated. And

Pharoah gave command regarding all of his people.

And he goes on in to say, for on the day when

Moses was born, his astrologer said to him,

meaning to Pharaoh, today their deliverer has

been born. But we know not whether he is born of

an Egyptian father or an Israelite, but we see by

astrological art that he will ultimately suffer

misfortune through water. So here we have these

astrologists who are looking at the stars and

saying that the Redeemer of Israel is being born.

They didn’t know if he was born to the Egyptians

or to the Israelites. I think by branching it out

a little bit, whether it’s through the three wise

men or here killing also the Egyptians, it also

makes it a more universal story, doesn’t it?

Right.

No question about that.

So that becomes kind of interesting. Now our good

buddy Shadal addresses this question of, were the

midwives Jewish midwives? And so he says that

While many of the commentaries say that they were

Jewish midwives, he says that he believes that

these midwives were of the Hebrews. And he brings

a few proofs. He says, number one, it says that

they feared God. You know, if they were of the

same people, it would say that they loved the

children or they felt united with them. The

other thing that it says is it refers too many

times to how when they talked about these Jews

give birth in the following way. So what I think,

Shadal, but others have said, and this will be of

interest to you, Rabbi, is that they could have

been converts, or at least they felt an affinity

with the Jewish people. Shifrah and Puah, Shadal

points out, are Hebrew Semitic names, not

Egyptian names. He says maybe from the

perspective of the Egyptians, they were. They

were Canaanites. They were just another

Canaanite. But he thinks that they. They were

not. They were not Jewish by birth. And I think,

again, that makes the story that much more

larger, enlarges the story and makes it bigger.

Good. I think that’s. Now you understand, before

we get to a punchline, the idea of making the

story bigger is important because this is the

story of the birth of Moses. This the beginning

of the creation of the Jewish nation. The bigger

you make the story, the better you make the story.

Absolutely. And I think one of the questions that

I think any of us who reads Exodus has, whether

we’re Jewish or not, is how did this story get so

big? You know, why are liberation movements still

quoting it? Why did African Americans tag on to

the story of the Israelite slaves being freed?

Why did it clearly affect the whole Christian

story of Jesus going through the Passover

sacrifice and all that? This is a major story.

And this, in a way, kind of following up on what

you just said. If he’s the redeemer of the

Israelites, in a sense, he’s the redeemer of the

world. Because this was the story that showed

that history can go somewhere, that people can be

free, can become their own people. So, yes, it

would be very natural to aggrandize and make this

story bigger. You kind of referenced before how

the traditional commentaries actually see Pharaoh

going through three stages here. The first is, if

it be a son, you shall kill him, meaning an

Israelite son. Then afterwards, this. The Talmud

seems to think that every child that is born, and

then it says, even if it was an Egyptian, it’s

clearly trying to make this into a large story of

the Egyptian. In the Midrash Tanchuma, it tries

to fill in the Blanks of what did Pharaoh say to

his people? How was he able to orchestrate this

killing of all boys that were born? So he says,

why were they commanded to do this? Because the

astrologers had told him, the redeemer of Israel

will be born on that day, but we do not know

whether he’ll be an Egyptian or an Israelite. At

that time, Pharaoh assembled every Egyptian and

said to them, loan me your sons for a day, as it

said, and every son that is born, ye shall cast.

It does not say every child of an Israelite, but

every son. So here we have also, I’ve always

talked and we’ve talked about the subterfuge that

the people of Israel did to get out of Egypt.

Clearly, Pharaoh, at least through the lens of

our commentaries, was also using subterfuge. He

didn’t just come out and say, kill the Jews. He

created this working through the astrologers, the

astrologers, and then working through the

midwives, then working through his people. Loan

me your child.

It shows that Pharaoh was worried about

something. You only go to the astrologers if you

say, I woke up this morning and I was suspicious

about something, so he went to his astrologers.

Something gave Pharaoh a bad feeling.

Well, absolutely. Now, one of the puzzles that we

need to solve, and I said this in the intro, was

that this story did not really resonate later on.

You almost have it put between parentheses when

Moses came and saw Pharaoh. You don’t even have

Pharaoh relating to the story of Moses killing

the taskmaster and exiling himself. You certainly

don’t have a sense of Pharaoh ever saying to him,

my God, you were a prince of Egypt. You grew up

in my house. It’s really kind of isolated, the

story. The Ramban says it appears that this

decree to drown the Israelite children lasted for

a short time. And he brings of course the fact that

Aaron was born three years before doesn’t seem

like anything else like this happened. So again,

it gets back to this whole kind of narrative that

we’ve been following where this is about Moses.

It’s not about the people, it’s about the

astrologers who said, somebody’s going to be

born. It’s this week, this month, this nine month

cycle. We’ve got to address it. But that also

kind of jives with what modern scholars say in

terms of this story kind of sits by itself. But I

will argue that you don’t have to be a critical

documentary fan to see that this story kind of

stands on its own and didn’t really resonate

later on in this story or elsewhere. One of these

commentaries is a guy named Jonathan Cohen who

wrote a book, the Origins and Evolution of the

Moses Nativity Story. And he says the murder and

annihilation motif disappears completely after

Exodus 2:10, after it has served its purpose of

introducing the birth of the Savior. The motive

also detracts from the crescendo in the theme of

increasing enslavement. And he uses Ramban as an

example of a classical commentary who also kind

of supplements that and confirms it was a one-

off, clearly focused on Moses. But again, it does

give us a little bit of a license rabbi to look

at this as a nativity story. It really

Related to the birth of Moses. And then the

rest of the story is the Exodus of the Jewish

people.

Good. I mean, and we’re combining the two stories

because obviously the whole purpose of

this.

Of the parsha of Shemot is to combine the

nativity story with the Exodus story. And that’s

interesting. And those stories come together at

the burning bush because they have to come

together at a holy moment.

That’s the segue. That’s the segue. So you had

questioned why they only killed the boys and not

the girl. Cassuto gives the following. And it is

a segue itself, he says, similar to the fear that

Avram had when he went down to Egypt with his

wife Sarai. And he says, they will kill me and

you, Sarah, they will let live. What Cassuto is

saying, and this does kind of jive with what some

of the classical commentary said is they wanted

to kill the men and then have the women as sexual

objects, take them as wives or mistresses. So

Cassuto is tying this back to the Abraham story in

the sense that this is what the Egyptians did.

That’s a dvar torah, because that’s not there. So

he says, you see from elsewhere that killing the

men is a way of getting to the women. Okay. It’s

a nice drav Torah. I’m not sure it’s really what

the story means, but.

Okay, I think the real answer is a patrilineal

society.

Right.

Or the war, the war thing that you brought up

before, let’s kill the fighters. But he does,

Cassuto does serve as an interesting segue to the

fact that our Midrashim have a very similar story

about Abraham, the quote unquote, nativity of

Abraham, as they do about Moses. Because

according to many of the commentaries, and I put

some links in the source Notes to Legends of the

Jews by Ginsburg. And he really flushes this out.

But ultimately what they say in this midrash is

that before Abraham was born, their astrologers

looked up in the sky and they saw a very large

star rising. And they said to themselves, what

happens if we don’t share this with Nimrod? We

could get in trouble. And so, so they come to

Nimrod and they said, we have been informed that

a son hath been born unto Terah, thy chief

commander. And we went unto his house last night.

And what they are saying is the king should give

unto Terah the value of that child and we will

slay him ere he grows up and increases in the

land to bring about this great evil. So, Rabbi,

the Midrashim, create a parallel of Abraham, who

clearly could also be considered the father,

founder of the Israelite tradition. And they have

a similar story with astrologers, with wise men

consulting with the king and telling him to kill

this child. It does become fascinating.

Yeah, I mean, right? I mean that’s part of what you

call the nativity scene. Making it more of a

story, including a bigger theme is also part of

the idea of making it more, more significant.

Right? And there’s a midrish about

Mount Sinai that the whole world was quiet when

God gave the ten Commandments. Like, why is that

necessary? Of course it’s necessary because

if revelation is something that’s earth

shattering, the whole world needs to be quiet. So

here too you have something like that. They make

the story bigger in order to make it more

significant.

I think that’s obviously true. I also think that

not only bigger, but they have to add this drama

of danger and supply and demand type of thing

where this is very rare, this is very tenuous.

And of course, I made an allusion before to other

stories similar to this. But even before we go

there, those of our listeners who know the New

Testament know that in Matthew there is this

prequel to the birth of Jesus where again, it

says that Herod heard that the Redeemer of the

Jews was going to be born in Bethlehem and he

made a decree to kill all of the boys born in

Bethlehem. Clearly this story and these Midrashim

were well known enough that they were worth

repurposing, so to speak, for any future

narrative of the birth of a redeemer. And I think

that’s the real takeaway and of course the other

takeaway, Rabbi, is when you and I are in Europe

and we see the painting of the Massacre of the

Innocent. We now know what we’re looking at!

What it is, what that’s all about.

So let’s go now to the second part of the story.

We’ve had, the birth part with the drama of the

birthing mothers and throwing into the Nile. Then

in Exodus 2:1, it says a certain member of the

house of Levi went and took into his household as

his wife a woman of Levi. The woman conceived and

bore a son. And when she saw how

beautiful he was, I referenced this before

Ki tov… She hid him for three months. When he

could hide him no longer, she got a wicker basket

for him. And the word for a wicker basket is a

teyvat, which sounds a little bit like teyvat

Noah (Noah’s ark), right? And corked it with our bitumon and

pitch, put the child into it. Placed it into the

weeds of the bank of the Nile. And his sister

stationed herself at a distance to learn what

would befoil him. We had that a little bit with

Hagar. It’s an important moment. We certainly had

it with Joseph’s story where the brothers threw

him into the pit and they said, let’s see what’s

going to happen with all of his prophecies. And

then we know what happened next. Where Pharaoh’s

daughter took him and she got a nursing mother

who turned out to be his natural mother. So

Miriam and Yocheved are involved. And then in

verse 10, it says, when the child grew up, she

brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, who made her a

son, which is kind of interesting. She actually

raised him at home and then brought him to the

palace and.

She named him, you know, we had a grandson.

today. The name is important. And the people

who name are the parents. The grandparents have

no say in the name. Right. It’s the parents who

name. So if the daughter of Pharaoh names the

child, that’s significant, she’s in place of the

mother.

Yep, absolutely. So you’re saying she named him

Moses? This is Bat Pharaoh. We had a little bit

of adoption last week where Joseph adopted

Menashe and Epharim. What you’re arguing is

that Pharaoh’s daughter, by naming him, he was a

true child, prince of Egypt. Sometime after that,

when Moses had grown up. This is a real quick

segue. He went out to his kinsfolk and witnessed

their labors. He saw an Egyptian beating a

Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. He turned this way

and that, and seeing no one about, he struck down

the Egyptian hid him in the sand. When he went

out the next day, he found two Hebrews fighting.

So he said to the offender, why do you strike your

fellow? He retorted, who made you chief and ruler

of us? Do you mean to kill me the same way that

you killed the Egyptian? Moses was frightened and

thought, then the matter is known. When Pharaoh

learned of the matter, he sought to kill Moses.

But Moses fled from Pharaoh. He arrived in the

land of Midian and sat down beside a well, which.

Is the beginning of the of the burning bush story.

And of course, now we have twice that Pharaoh is

wanting to kill Moses. And again, you could make

the case that this is the father trying to kill

his son, certainly an adopted father trying to

kill his son. It is the second time that in a

sense Moses is fleeing. The first time they hid

him and here they put him in to the water. What’s

interesting is the Talmud in Sotah says a sage

teaches Amram, the father of Moses was the great

man of his generation. He saw that the wicked

Pharaoh said, every son that is born shall be

cast into the river. And he said, we are laboring

for nothing. Le shav anu amaylin. He arose and

divorced his wife. And then it’s a beautiful

story. And we could do a whole other podcast on

the critical role of, of women moving this story

forward.

Miriam, especially Miriam, is kind of a forgotten

character. She pops up a few times. But here is

the best story of all about Miriam.

So Miriam confronts her father. You are

a leader of the generation. If you separate from

your wife, all the men will separate from their

wives and you’re going to destroy our people for

good. So at that, Amram accepted his daughter’s

words and arose and brought back meaning. He

remarried his wife. And all others saw this,

followed his example, brought back their wives.

And so the Gemora asks if Amram remarried.

Yocheved, it should have said in return.

For a wife, should he married her.

Again, there’s a little bit of the question of

who was the father, so to speak, because he was,

he was officially married. Then he kind of came

back. And so the rabbis are kind of reading a

little bit of intrigue into

this, which again, Aaron and Miriam dance before

her. So there’s no Moses. This whole story

happens before Moses is born. It’s very odd,

right the top your. Your point is a good point.

The timing is odd.

So the timing is odd. And again, they’re not

pulling this from nowhere. The way the story

starts, starts in the Bible itself is a certain

member of the House of Levi went and took.

You know who it is, right?

It’s innocuous.

His name is never mentioned.

Correct. And that too is part and parcel of these

stories where you don’t have to be a Freudian who

gets into the intrigue of father son

relationships. The idea is, is that this savior

is born. He has to travel out into foreign lands.

He has to prove himself. There are those that

want to kill him, maybe his father. And by

killing that slave master, in a sense, he was

killing an Egyptian, maybe an analog for his

father. It really does have all of the

ingredients of the typical nativity scene. And I

think, you know, similar to Sargon, if you look

into the source sheet, you see additional

information about Sargon, Cyrus Romulus. But I

think, Rabbi, as we finish up, the interesting

thing is we always read the Haggadah and we

always ask, where is Moses? And you love to say

there’s pshat and there’s midrash. So we all have

beautiful midrashim. But I think we can kind of

agree with the higher biblical critics who say

that this story is isolated and that doesn’t much

purchase going forward in the story of the

Exodus, that there was a very strong and deep

bias against hero worship. On the one hand, the

story is there with all its ingredients, and on

the other hand, within our own tradition, it

remained in the background. It remained more, I

would say, the way you like to say it is it’s a

midrash, it’s a nice story, but it didn’t really

affect our people. And I think as we start this

book of Exodus, sometimes the most important

thing is what’s said and sometimes the most

important thing is what is left unsaid. And this

particular story is there because maybe it has to

be. But I think it really is a wonderful

introduction by contrast, into the rest of

the story of Exodus, which is about a people, not

a person.

I think that’s great. I mean, we didn’t even talk

about this idea of growing up in Pharaoh’s house

and why that’s part of the story, right? Why the

leader needs to be exposed to Pharaoh’s house,

even though Pharaoh becomes the enemy. That we

can leave that for next year’s podcast. But I

think that’s part of this story about what the

nativity scene, what, what the birth of Moses,

what that’s all about. This is great.

So anyway, today was the Brit of your grandson.

Mazel tov to you. And we look forward to, to

reading the next Parasha in Exodus next week and

diving into this amazing story that has had such

a great impact on culture, religion and

ideology. Shabbat Shalom Looking forward.

Shabbat Shalom.