“When she opened it, she saw that it was a child, a boy crying. She took pity on it and said, ‘This must be a Hebrew child’” Exodus 2:6
The daughter of Pharoah was about to take a dip in the Nile when she spotted the basket. On opening it, she noticed only that it contained a child and felt immediate compassion. This didn’t diminish when she realised his background. A Hebrew child is still a child.
Her father, Pharaoh, had ordered Hebrew boys to be thrown into the river (Exodus 1:22). She not only saved the boy, she also “made him into a son”, and later called him Moses because she had “drawn him from the waters” (Exodus 2:10), an image reminiscent of birth.
An African proverb holds that “it takes a village to raise child”. It acknowledges that those who have the greatest influence over us are often not our biological parents but others who have taken us under their wings.
We should be open to such influence because, even when we respect our parents, we are called upon to forge our own unique path through life and there is no limit on who may inspire us along the way.
Pharaoh’s daughter encapsulates these ideas. The rabbis identify her as Batya, literally “daughter of God”: “Rabbi Joshua taught in the name of Rabbi Levi that The Holy one said to Batyah the daughter of Pharoah: ‘Moses was not your son, yet you called him your son; you, too, though you are not My daughter, yet I will call you My daughter’” (Leviticus Rabbah 1:3).
Neither Moses nor Batya are limited by their family backgrounds. The rabbis expand on her independence. Her bathing in the Nile was a new beginning, a form of purification, a renunciation of the idolatry into which she was born (Talmud Megillah 13a).
A cryptic verse in the Book of Chronicles mentions Batya and can be read as suggesting that Moses had two mothers; his biological mother (Yocheved) and Pharaoh’s daughter (1 Chronicles 4:8). Yocheved and Batya were not, though, the only important female influences in Moses’ s life.
Crucial also to Moses’s survival was Shifra and Pua, the maidservants who also defied Pharoah’s decree (Exodus 1:17), his sister Miriam, who watched over him ( 2:4), and Tzipporah, his Midianite wife, who saved him from God’s wrath (4:24-25).
We are born into a tribe but belong to the world. We should not be overly constrained by our families. Opening ourselves to the world expands others. The daughter of Pharoah became the daughter of God. Moses, the Hebrew lad, became the “man of God” (Deuteronomy 33:1). Ultimately, we are answerable to none but the Infinite.
Rabbi Dr Harris Bor
