From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 2:52 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Shemos, 5767


                           

                                                   Cry Me a River

                      By Rabbi Joshua (fraternally known as The Hoffer) Hoffman


  Pharaoh decrees that all the Hebrew males that are born are to be killed. When Moshe is born, his parents hide him for several months, until they feel it is no longer safe for him, so they put him in a waterproof  basket and send him down the Nile, hoping that someone would find him and take care of him. As his older sister Miriam watches from a distance, the daughter of Pharaoh discovers the box and opens it. As the Torah describes it, "She opened it and saw him, the boy (‘yeled’), and behold a youth (‘na’ar) was crying" (Shemos 2:6). She then says that he is a Hebrew child, and takes him into the royal palace to raise him. A number of questions suggest themselves here. First, why does the Torah  first say that a boy, a ‘yeled,’ was in the basket, and then say that a ‘na’ar,’ or youth, was crying? What is the reason for this change of terminology? Secondly, how did Pharaoh's daughter know that he was a Hebrew? Many answers are given to these questions in the midrashim and the commentators, but I would like to focus on one answer, to the first question, given in the Midrash Avkir, as brought in the midrashic compilation Yalkut Shimoni, which can also answer the second question, as well as clear up many other issues in this week's parsha.


  The Midrash Avkir, cited by Rabbi Jacob Rabinowitz, of Yeshiva University, in his Yemin Ya'akov, says that the lad who was crying was actually Moshe's older brother, Aharon, who was concerned over his brother's fate and, therefore, was crying so loudly that Pharaoh's daughter was able to hear him while she was attending to the infant in the basket.This midrash is also mentioned by a number of medieval commentators, including Chizkuni and Pa’aneach Raza. Some versions of the midrash, as cited by Rav Menachem Kasher in his Torah Shleimah, note that this is actually how Pharaoh’s daughter knew that the baby was a Hebrew, since she saw Aharon, who looked like a Hebrew, crying over his fate. Perhaps we can add that the very concern that Aharon showed over the baby led her to conclude that it had to be a Hebrew, rather than an Egyptian, child. In parshas Vayera, when Hagar the Egyptian is wandering in the desert with her sick child Yishmael, she despairs of helping him and places him beside a bush so that she won't have to witness his death. Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, in his Torah commentary, remarks that a Jewish mother would never act this way toward her child. Pharaoh's daughter, then, knew how Egyptians dealt with their children in times of crisis, and, therefore, when she heard an older boy crying over the infant, she knew that this couldn't be an Egyptian infant, but must be a Hebrew. Rabbi Rabinowitz himself remarks that when one Jew cries over the fate of his brother, it marks the beginning of the redemption. I would like to carry this thought further, and show how it plays itself out in the continuation of the parsha.


  The Torah tells us that after Moshe grew up, in Pharaoh's palace, that he went out to observe his brothers (Shemos 2:11). How did he know that the Hebrew slaves were his brothers? Ramban says that someone must have told him that he was really a child of the Hebrews. Actually, Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Luzzatto, known as Shadal, discusses, in his commentary,  whether, when Moshe was given to a Hebrew nursemaid, she nursed him in Pharaoh's palace, or took him home. Ramban apparently assumes that he was nursed in the palace. Given this assumption, I would like to suggest that Moshe knew he was a Hebrew because he remembered his brother Aharon's crying over him when he was floating in his basket in the Nile. Some remnant of that experience remained in the recesses of his mind, and, when the time came, he sensed that the slaves working for his supposed father where, in fact, his brothers. The Torah then tells us that Moshe watched them engaged in their burdens, and Rashi comments that he focused his eyes and his heart, to be pained over their suffering. Interestingly, the Torah Shleimah, in an appendix, mentions a Yemenite midrashic manuscript according to which Moshe actually cried when he saw how the slaves were being treated. Later, when Pharaoh died and the slaves cried over their situation, we are told that God heard, and "God knew"  (Shemos 2:25). Rashi there comments that God focused His heart upon them, and did not hide His eyes from them. Rav Zechariah Gelley noted the similarity in expression found in these two comments of Rashi, and explained that it was an instance of                      God exhibiting His trait of 'measure for measure.' Since Moshe focused his attention on the suffering of his brothers, God focused His attention on their suffering, as well. Following our suggestion that Moshe went out to observe the slaves and paid attention to their suffering as a result of the attention paid to him by his brother Aharon many years before, we can see how Aharon's concern really was the beginning of the process of redemption, as Rabbi Rabinowitz suggests. Moreover, following the Yemenite manuscript we mentioned, Moshe’s crying when he saw his brothers suffering was a result of Aharon’s crying over him when he was in danger, and this response, in turn, generated a divine response to the crying of the slaves after Pharaoh died. Rabbi Rabinowitz further suggests that Aharon's initial concern was in the background of God's remark to Moshe when he told Moshe to go to Egypt on his mission to free his brothers, saying that, when he arrives, he will be met by Aharon, who will see him and be joyous in his heart. Aharon's original concern for his brother continued throughout the years, and this brotherly concern is what generated the ultimate redemption from the Egyptian exile, which began as a result of the fratricidal tension between Yosef and his brothers. Thus, the brotherly love between Moshe and Aharon constituted a repair of the breach made by Yosef's brothers, and, ultimately, led to the redemption from Egypt.



  Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

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