Parashat Shemot
December 25, 2021, 21 Tevet 5782
Torah: Exodus 1:1-6:1; Triennial 4:18-6:1
Haftarah: Isaiah 27:6-28:13, 29:22-23 (Ashkenazim);
Jeremiah 1:1-2:3 (Sepharadim)
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In this week's Torah Sparks, you'll find a D'var Torah on the Parashah by Ilana Kurshan called "Bridegroom of Blood", Vered Hollander-Goldfarb poses questions titled "Hebrew Midwives or Midwives of the Hebrews?" and Bex Stern Rosenblatt writes about "The Sound of Prayer" in the Haftarah.
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Bridegroom of Blood
Ilana Kurshan
Our parashah describes the early years of Moshe’s life leading up to the pivotal moment when he is informed by God of his mission to deliver the Israelites from bondage. God tells Moshe to return to Egypt from Midian, where he had fled as a fugitive after killing an Egyptian, and to perform miracles before Pharaoh. Moshe, whose attempts to resist God’s charge prove futile, takes his wife and sons and sets out to return to Egypt. But on his way back he has a mysterious and dangerous encounter at a night encampment that has puzzled many generations of sages and commentators. A close reading of this strange incident, and of an earlier biblical story it may echo, sheds light on Moshe’s emotional state on the eve of his return to Egypt.
The Torah relates that when Moshe comes to the night encampment, “the Lord encountered him and sought to kill him” (4:24). At that point Moshe’s wife Tziporah takes a flint and circumcises their firstborn son, holding the foreskin to his leg and declaring, “You are a bridegroom of blood to me.” On account of the many ambiguous pronouns used in this story, the entire incident does not just take place under cover of darkness, but is also shrouded in mystery. Whom did God seek to kill, Moshe or his firstborn son? To whose leg did Tziporah hold the foreskin, and why is he called a bridegroom of blood? Why is it so important that Moshe circumcise his son now, on his way back to Egypt?
The rabbis of the Talmud discuss this incident in the context of the importance of the mitzvah of circumcision (Nedarim 32a). They explain that this mitzvah is so important that even Moshe was punished for putting it off. According to the rabbis, Moshe reasoned that if he circumcised his son before they set off, his son might be in pain during the journey, so he waited. Instead Moshe preoccupied himself with securing lodging for his wife and son. But God was angry at him for neglecting the mitzvah, and threatened to kill him, or perhaps his son; the Talmud raises both possibilities. Two angels named Af (anger) and Heima (wrath), manifestations of God’s dissatisfaction with Moshe, came and swallowed his son, leaving only his legs exposed. Tziporah took matters into her own hands, and saved the boy’s life—and perhaps her husband’s as well.
This story makes more sense when we consider God’s final words to Moshe before this nighttime encounter. In the previous verse, God appeared to Moshe once more in Midian and told him to say to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord: Israel is my first-born son. I have said to you: Let My son go, that he may worship Me, yet you refuse to let him go. Now I will slay your firstborn son” (4:22-23). God’s words are presumably still echoing in Moshe’s ears when he comes to the night encampment in the very next verse and settles down to sleep alongside his wife and son. He has been charged to tell Pharaoh that his firstborn son is threatened, and so Moshe worries about the fate of his own firstborn son. God has not explicitly mentioned Moshe’s firstborn, but fears are never entirely rational, especially in an unfamiliar place in the darkness of night. Indeed, the encounter with God in the night encampment seems to combine all of Moshe’s anxieties into a bizarre dreamscape in which he can work out his feelings on the eve of his return to Egypt.
Moshe is nervous about standing before Pharaoh, and does not feel suited for the task: “I am slow of speech and slow of tongue” (4:10), he protested to God at the burning bush, and later he will describe himself as having “uncircumcised lips” (6:12). No wonder he is haunted by anxieties about circumcision, which is also a sign of the covenant on account of which Moshe has to redeem the Israelites in the first place. He worries that perhaps he will feel paralyzed when he stands before Pharaoh— “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh” (3:11) he told God at the burning bush—and that someone else will have to take the flint, as it were, and do the work for him. And indeed, Moshe will need help, and the task will not be an easy one. When he was at the burning bush, Moshe did not believe that he would be successful in his mission. At the nighttime encampment, perhaps, God frightens Moshe into having faith that the covenant between God and Israel remains paramount and thus deliverance will come.
This strange nighttime incident recalls another mysterious nighttime encounter that took place in the book of Genesis, when Jacob wrestled with an angel until the break of dawn. That story, too, took place at a time of tremendous fear and anxiety for the protagonist; Jacob had just set off from his father-in-law’s home in Padan-Aram with his wife and children, like Moshe setting off from his father-in-law’s home in Midian with his wife and son. Jacob prepares with great trepidation for the encounter with his brother Esau, whom he regards as an intimidating and threatening figure, much like Moshe’s attitude toward Pharaoh. Both encounters leave a physical wound – Jacob’s hip is wrenched out of its socket, and Moshe’s son has his foreskin removed. Both encounters, too, involve a new epithet—Jacob is called Israel on account of wrestling with the angel, and Moshe is told he is a “bridegroom of blood.” And each incident is followed immediately by the reunion with a brother – Jacob looks up and sees Esau coming, and Moshe meets Aaron in the next verse, and then Pharaoh a few verses later.
As both these stories reflect, it is often at night when we play out our worries about the difficult challenges that lie ahead of us in the day. If we are fortunate, we emerge from these encounters like Moshe and Jacob – inspired with renewed confidence in our ability to perform the hard tasks that await us at break of dawn, our nighttime fears and anxieties notwithstanding.
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Hebrew Midwives or Midwives of the Hebrews?
Vered Hollander-Goldfarb
Text: Shemot 1:15-18
15And the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; 16and he said, “When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see on the birthstools: if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” 17But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. 18So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive?”
· Why do you think that the names of the midwives are mentioned?
· Why do you think that Pharaoh wants the midwives to kill the children, rather than send his soldiers to do the task?
· This command contradicts the very nature of a midwife’s work. What choice do they make? On whose side do they place themselves? Why? What is the likely punishment?
Commentary: Rashi Shemot 1:15
SHIPHRAH – This was Jochebed; [this name refers to that] she would improve the newborn’s condition.
PUAH – This was Miriam, [this name refers to that] she used to croon to the newborn just as women do who soothe a crying baby.
· Rashi suggests that these are names identifying their role at work. What term might we use instead of “names”?
· Rashi’s identification suggests that they are Hebrews themselves. What question should that raise regarding Pharaoh’s decision to enlist them for this task?
Commentary: Shadal Shemot 1:15
According to our rabbis, and Onkelos (Aramaic), and Rashbam and Mendelssohn…these midwives were of Israelite decent. But the Septuagint (Greek) and Jerome (Latin) and Josephus and Abarbanel thought that they were Egyptian midwives for the Hebrews, for how would [Pharaoh] command Israelite women to kill off their own nation and believe that they would not reveal this?! And those who argue [that they are Hebrews] from the words “the midwives feared God” – it is not an argument. For it does not say “fear the LORD” only “God”. Anyone who believes in a god, true or false, will fear killing innocent babies that have not sinned, regardless of their nation…. And if they were Hebrews there is no need to mention that they feared God, for every person loves his own nation [and that would be the motivation.]
· What are the arguments that Shadal offers for identifying the midwives as Egyptian?
· How does Shadal understand the term “God fearing”? How does that differ from “LORD fearing”?
· Which identification of the midwives speaks to you? Why?
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The Sound of Prayer
Bex Stern Rosenblatt
When a group of seven musically talented but woeful untrained motherless children are first taught musical notes by an erstwhile nun in The Sound of Music, the oldest of them points out that the sounds of the notes themselves do not “mean anything.” The nun explains that for this reason, “we put in words, one for every note.” And together, the words and the music add up to more than the sum of their parts. A movie titled “The Sound of Music” finds meaning in the combination of music and lyrics.
There is a huge question about where meaning is located in words. How we find it. How we make it. Do syllables have meaning by themselves? Is there something intrinsic about a certain combination of sounds that necessarily signifies a certain meaning? We find this in the idea of onomatopoeia, the idea that a word sounds like what it means, that of course a brook would “babble.” There is perhaps an idea that when language echoes the natural world, that is when the syllables have obvious or intrinsic meaning.
Some of the most powerful phrases of the Tanakh play with this idea of onomatopoeia. We find it especially in expressions of measure-for-measure punishment. The classic example is when God warns us, at the conclusion of the flood story at Genesis 9:6, that “one who spills the blood of man, by man will his blood be spilled. In Hebrew it reads, “שֹׁפֵךְ דַּם הָאָדָם, בָּאָדָם דָּמוֹ יִשָּׁפֵךְ” “shopek dam ha-a-dam ba-a-dam dam-o yi-shapek.” We hear the blood, the spilling, the earthiness of the man. It is beautiful and it is chilling. There is perhaps an idea that the syllables themselves, when placed in this order with each other, necessarily spell out a just retribution. They are meant to sound like this and therefore meant to mean like this.
We play with this idea in this week’s haftarah, Isaiah 27-29. Within the reading, two verses stand out. They catch our ears and our attention with their rhythm and what sounds like onomatopoeia. They gesture toward the idea of retributive justice. The first, Isaiah 27:7, reads in Robert Alter’s translation, “Has he been struck like the blow of his striker? Like the slaying of his slain was he slain?” Or, in Hebrew, “הַכְּמַכַּת מַכֵּהוּ, הִכָּהוּ: אִם-כְּהֶרֶג הֲרֻגָיו, הֹרָג” “hak-ke-makkat makkehu hikkahu? Im-ke-hereg harugayv horag?” Once again, using beautiful and terrible language, the inevitability of terrible punishment for terrible crimes is expressed in the repetition of onomatopoeic words.
But as the haftarah continues, this idea is made more complicated. We reach Isaiah 28:10. It sounds beautiful but it doesn’t “mean anything.” The words are just sounds, much like in Lewis Carrol’s Jabberwocky, gesturing toward meaning without actually containing any. Robert Alter interprets it, translating: “For it is filth-pilth, filth-pilth, vomit-momit, vomit-momit, a little here, a little there.” Have we left the realm of sense? Is God mocking us? Or by now, have we so thoroughly received the words that it is possible to talk to us just through the music?
For the many Jews who pray without always knowing the meaning of the words we are saying, it is a vitally important question. Where does the meaning of your words come from? Does the sound of their music have power in itself even if to you it doesn’t “mean anything?”
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