[Avodah] Moshe Rabeinu and his family

[Arie Folger]

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 11:57 PM, Zev Sero <zev at sero.name> wrote:
>> Very simple. If you read the text without preconceptions, you see that
>> it highlights a number of interesting twists.

> Sorry, you're seeing things that are just not there.

Or you just try to read the text with the subtility of a five year
old. I know that you think that is the way to read Rashi, and I fully
disagree.

>> It becomes however positively daring when the slave girl* disregards
>> all protocol and addresses the mighty princess directly.

> Who says there was any protocol against it?  And in any case, protocol
> never controls children.  A cat may look at a queen, and so may a seven-
> year-old.

Plain common sense tells us that protocol must have been much stricter
in the times of absolute kings, all the more so when they believed
themselves demigods. The child would have been pushed away long
before. Think about it. Pharao wanted all the Jewish boys killed.
Doesn't sound either peaceful or considerate. It rather seems like the
Nazis' forerunner. So you think the fellow's family and guards would
tolerate a slave girl of the most despised group, no less, to come
near?

>>  When you put all these together

> All of what?  How was Bat Par`o aware of Miriam's role in getting her
> parents to remarry?  She has no idea who this girl is.

I never claimed she was. I do claim that the narrative sets us up to
understand that there is here a qilqul hashurah, with the girl taking
responsibility instead of the adults.

>> ought we not to ask why a girl would, out of
>> nowhere, appear and suggest haeilekh lakh ishah meineqet min
>> ha'ivriyot?

> Why would we ask?  What is unusual about a little girl playing down
> by the river?  And since the girl is Jewish, and sees a Jewish child
> in need of a wet-nurse, what could be more natural than that she should
> offer to be helpful and go find one?

You were never a shy child, were you? And even if you weren't, you
never went playing near the most powerful person of the region, who
constantly decides on life and death, without being fair. Think again.

>> It becomes quie clear to all present that this girl must
>> have some relationship to the boy

> How?

Because she cares and risks her life doing something about the boy.

>> After all, wet nurses
>> don't just run around by the thousands among the poor, the destitute
>> and the downtrodden. It's a profession for those employed by the most
>> wealthy, not for downcast slaves and their cousins.

> Excuse me?!  That is the exact opposite of the truth.  Where *else*
> does one find wet-nurses *but* among the poor, the destitute, and the
> downtrodden?  Who else is it, do you think, who has spare milk?

In order to have a wet nurse, you need to prepare her. When she weans
her child, she has to be recruited. That would be much more likely if
she is from among the employees of a household, i.e. a domestic slave,
for example. Otherwise, random populations do not have readily
available wet nurses, because of (a) no demand, and (b) likely not
enough food.

>> Then, the Pharao's daughter tells the woman to take that boy to nurse
>> him, and she will pay her wage, which is as much as asking the
>> presumed mother to relinquish her motherhood

> Again, huh?  How on earth are you seeing that there?  What is in the
> least unusual about offering to pay the wet-nurse the usual wage?
> Did you think they work for free?

You read the verses disconnected from each other. Once you see that
the odds that the girl and the wet nurse are related to the boy, the
rest is obvious. Don't read passuq befassuq, but read an entire
parshiya together, and you will see that the verses are connected.

[Email #2. -micha]

REG wrote:
>> Two years was the standard time for nursing.  The pasuk says his mother
>> had him until he was weaned; therefore that was two years.  There's no

I think that that is very reasonable. However, two years is way too
young to expect the child to recall any education he may have gotten at
home. Do YOU recall anything from when you were two?

So I stand by my claim that it is most reasonable to posit that Par'o's
daughter had a more well developed sense of right and wrong than her
father, and she imparted Moshe both a strong ethical education and a
sense of belonging to the People of Israel.

-- 
Arie Folger,
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