Tuesday afternoon

[cellio]

Continuing with the early history of Moshe and people influential in his life, we spent much of the afternoon looking at Exodus Rabbah 1:26 and its sources. The torah tells us that Paro's daughter retrieved Moshe from the river, that he was beautiful, that she knew he was a Hebrew, and that she raised him as her own anyway. The midrash says that he was a real magnet; people were overcome with his beauty, and even Paro had a soft spot for him. Paro's magicians warned him, when they saw him playing with Paro's crown and putting it on his own head, that this might be the one they'd warned him about, the one who would take away his kingdom. They proposed killing him, but Yitro (!) said no, he's a child and doesn't understand, so how about a test: bring out a gold coin and a glowing coal. If he goes for the coin then ok, you can kill him; if he goes for the coal then leave him alone. They do this, Moshe goes for the coin, and the angel Gavriel pushes his hand to the coal instead. Moshe puts it in his mouth, which is why he is later "slow of speech".

Ok, lots there. Some thoughts:

First, Paro's daughter. How did she pull this off? Was she the only one who knew Moshe's origin? How did she explain suddenly showing up with a child? (What'd she do, fake a pregnancy?) I'm willing to assuume that she could silence her hand-maidens. Or was she thumbing her nose at her father, but the child was oozing so much cuteness that he didn't care?

Paro's daughter paid the wet-nurse, who was a slave and presumably didn't need to be paid? Compassion, or something else?

I'd previously heard midrashim that Yitro was in Paro's court (also Job and Bila'am). I'm still puzzled by it. How much does Yitro know -- is he just proposing a test of an anonymous child, or does he see something of the future? While we're on personnel, I'm mildly curious about the significance of Gavriel in particular being the angel who shows up. I don't have a strong argument for anyone else, but I just wonder where else Gavi shows up.

This is the second time that Paro has heard "there there, it's just a child and can't mean anything by that". By the way, note that this argument is among Paro's advisors; Paro himself doesn't offer an opinion.

One effect of the coal is as stated -- to support the speech issue recorded by the torah for Moshe. Another might be to disfigure this beautiful child so people will stop paying so much attention to him. (The midrash says that Paro's daughter wouldn't let the child leave the palace, but later Moshe (age unknown but closer to adulthood for sure) goes out and kills the Egyptian. Did this incident help him to move more freely? (Is the killing of the Egyptian also a killing of Moshe's identity as an Egyptian?)

Moshe went for the gold (the wrong answer) initially.

Things pointed out by the rabbi: This is the only place in torah (in tanakh?) where a child cries; the others are adults. (Hint of Moshe's maturity?) The introduction of Moshe is with a cry (speech); his undoing is also related to speech (hitting the rock instead of speaking to it, and yelling at the people). There are echos of B'reishit in Moshe's early story; the phrase translated as "handsome" is "ki tov", the same description applied to the days of creation, and he is placed in a "teva" (same word as the ark built by Noach).

"Moshe" doesn't mean "I drew him out of the water" like the torah tells us; it's an active participle. Moshe does the drawing out; he's not being drawn out. (I think I mentioned this yesterday.)

After we'd talked about this for a while we started to look at a text from the S'fas Emet, a 19th-century Chassidic writer. I might be reaching the conclusion that I'm not a fan of the S'fas Emet, but it's possible that we just didn't allow enough time for a difficult text. Maybe I'll write more later.

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

Snacks/ice cream/coffeehouse it is, then. I'll be driving, so it's easy enough to meander around and find something. Would you like me to see whether Tapuz is available?

I'd be happy to print your boarding pass, except that I have no printer at home. :-(

[cellio]

Sorry I didn't see this until too late. Inviting Tapuz would have been just fine.