Weekend Torah Teaching | Growing Up In Pharaoh's House
Dennis Prager teaches Exodus 2, Moses' birth and early life, exploring Hebrew language details and moral themes. He argues the Torah presents Moses as non-miraculous to prevent his deification, emphasizes that security enables goodness while insecurity breeds evil, and distinguishes between psychological health and moral virtue.
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Dennis.
Dennis Prager.
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Welcome to Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager. Hear thousands of hours of Dennis's lectures, courses, and classic radio programs. And to purchase Dennis Prager's Rational Bibles, go to dennisprager.com.
It's one of those moments where I'm filled with awe for the Torah text, that everything is done to make the birth of Moses simple, non-miraculous. There is no, just in case anybody wants to read into what I'm saying, please know I never hint. I'm very direct. I am not here saying, and therefore the story of Moses is superior to the story of Jesus. Okay? In case that's what you are reading into it, that is not my intent. My intent is to, however, Show you what is in fact desired by the text. The text does want to tell you there is nothing divine about the, the man Moses. Nothing. Remember, those of you who were with me from Genesis 1, Judaism's and the Torah's primary battle is with false gods.
And, and I am convinced, as we will see much, much later, that that is the reason ultimately that Moses is not allowed into Israel.
Lest he become worshiped. So from the very origins of the man, of the boy, of the baby Moses, there is every desire to make sure none of you, no reader can ever mistake the man Moses for a deity. A woman, a man took a woman for a wife and she bore a child. They don't even give the names.
It's not important.
The only thing that's really important is God. God is the central character of the Exodus, of Sinai, of going into the Promised Land.
Clearly, Moses is the central human being involved in this, of course.
And we're going to get to know this man Moses. Why is Moses important? Why? Or better, we know why he's important. Why is he selected by God? is what we're gonna begin to find out in this chapter.
But that is a powerful beginning.
Sarna notes that nothing more is ever mentioned about throwing the children, the Jewish boys into the Nile.
And he says that the reason for that is the only reason it was really mentioned was to tell you to set the stage for the story of Moses.
After all, why is Moses raised Egyptian if not for the fact that his mother puts him in the In the Nile, in the little, you know, well, you'll see little what in a moment. I don't wanna give you the ending of a little profound word that's used there. There is another reason, by the way, and this just hearkens back for a moment to chapter 1. Another reason for telling you about something it never mentions again, the throwing of the children, the boy children into the Nile, is to tell you about how horrible the slavery was for the Jews in Egypt. But there is one other reason that I came across in preparing for chapter 2 that I want to share with you. Remember last week how many parallels to the Holocaust I noted? Here is another one. Did any of you ever wonder why did the Nazis murder the Jews? Why didn't they merely enslave them? Isn't it more practical to use millions of people as slave labor than to kill them? Even if they were all worked to death, it would've been more practical than gas chambers, than shooting at open pits with machine guns and rifles. And that, it's eerie, the foreshadowing. I mean, this is written well before the Holocaust. The hatred of the Jew by the antisemite, not by the bigot, Bigots all over the place. The Irish don't like the English. The English don't like the French. The French don't like the Germans. The Germans don't like the Poles. The Poles don't like the Russians. Nobody likes their neighbor. Mexicans don't like the United States, but they love Canadians. Guatemalans hate Mexicans, but they love Americans. I learned this in graduate school in international affairs. Zbigniew Brzezinski was my professor, and I only mentioned him because you may know him as President Carter's national security advisor, and he had a brilliant theory. That everybody hates their neighbor and loves the country after the neighbor. And it turns out right. My wife and I were just in New Zealand, and it was incredible to us how much they said they loved Americans and couldn't stand Australians. I mean, what's so terrible about Australians? The answer, they're their neighbor. That's all. That's probably why it says, love your neighbor as yourself, because that's the most difficult person in the world to love. So you probably like that about the people you live next to, 2 doors over. They're very nice. This is me. Anyway, the— so I'm not talking about regular bigotry. I am talking about Jew hatred and the hatred of the Jew, of which I've written an entire book. So I certainly won't review the thesis for you, merely to state one aspect of it. The book is Why the Jews, incidentally, and it's still in print if you'd like to pick it up. But the reason I mention it is for one idea primarily. Hatred of the Jew involves disproportionately— are we okay? Are we all right? Judicial against— this is what is remarkable. And so that was a point that one of the commentators had made, and again, follow the Holocaust parallel. All right, so just another man and another woman meet. They, they get married and they have this child then who is not, as I said, of divine origin. The father, by the way, is mentioned no more in the Bible. The, the mother and other women are the people mentioned. So much so that I read one scholar who actually believed that parts of the Torah were written by a woman. It is so pro-female. The first chapters of Exodus, All the villains are male and all the good people are female. I mean, you know, if it were the other way around, you would've thought it was written by a misogynist. But, you know, it's funny though, we don't think that way when, when women are depicted as, as decent and men as indecent. We don't think of a man-hater as much as if it were vice versa, we would've thought of a woman-hater. And I don't believe a man-hater is involved here. I'm just saying it's fascinating, the, the absolute inequality of decency that is described here with women. I mean, constantly being the heroes or precisely the heroines of the story. At any rate, the mother we will encounter more, the father we will not encounter more. Very touching now is the language. The woman conceived, verse 2, and bore a son. And when she saw how How tov? I'm using the word Hebrew, the Hebrew word specifically. What translations do you have? This one says beautiful. Do any of you have good? Goodly. I love these words that are just used every day. How was your kid? Goodly. We have to resurrect that word somehow. We have goodly children. Goodly. I don't know where they come up with these terms. The, I don't know what the problem was in translating it literally. I'm a, one of the things you get by studying the Torah with me is because I know the Hebrew and because I believe in telling you what it, the original says, you can develop your own thought on it. The Hebrew word here is the word for good. It is a very simple word. It is one of the first words anyone learning Hebrew knows. I'm sure any of you who know any Hebrew know boker tov, good morning, right? Morning good, because they put the adjective in Hebrew after the noun. So that, that is what it says. It says he was good. Now, it doesn't mean necessarily morally good. What does it mean is a good question. It probably means good all around. I mean, you've seen that. This is a good baby. Do you mean morally good? Of course not. You know, you can't speak of the moral qualities of an infant. You know what? He doesn't murder anybody. This is a giant. You know what? What do you say? You know, they don't cry a lot. They're, they're decent. The issue here is the using of the words the way God used the words when God created each day and God saw that it was good. The Torah You know, this, this hearkens back to the question of who wrote the Torah. And I gave you in a sentence or two last week my theory. I have a whole talk on it of an hour if you're more interested. But whether you buy the divine origin, the one writer, one editor, or many people and a bunch of editors, those of you who believe in the bunch of people have to acknowledge that whoever did the editing It's not seamless, but God, it is impressive. The use of terminology in one section of the Torah and then using it in another to make the same, to make a much deeper point. If it would've said beautiful in Hebrew is yafeh. So if it would've said, and the mother saw that the child was yafeh, There would be nothing in it other than she thought it was a beautiful child. Big deal. It's irrelevant. But if the term is exactly the term of God saw it was good, she saw it was good, he was good, then, you know, we're talking about a cosmic event. You get it? That's the beauty of the understanding of the language here.
And so she saw him that he is good.
Very, the actual terminology of God seeing his creation is good. And she hid him for 3 months. Torah numbers are not to be confused with modern precision. If somebody wrote the Torah today, it would be as follows. And she saw that the child was healthy, that being the operative word today, healthy. And she hid the child for 4 months, 11 days, and 4 hours. Some say 5 hours, you know, and they would be, you know, today we are very into factual precision. The Torah is into wisdom, not factual precision. And I dare say, since I haven't taken a swipe at academia in 2 weeks and it's starting to gnaw at me. Even I like that one. That that there really does seem to be among many, certainly not all people in academia, a preoccupation with detail rather than with wisdom. The Torah is wisdom literature. It is not a history book. 3 months is what some of the people who have worked on this, some of the scholars call a magic term, a special term like 40 days. Is it coincidental? That it rained for 40 days in Noah and that the Jews were in the desert 40 years and that Moses was on Mount Sinai for 40 days. It's radical. Boy, is that amazing? Not amazing. It's a term meaning a long time. So is 3. It's a period of time. So we don't know if it's 90 days, but it's just wanted you to understand that, that term. 3 moons, literally, by the way, is the terminology in Hebrew. All right. Verse 3. And here again is how critical it is to be told by someone about a term that the Hebrew uses, because if you don't know it, it loses half its meaning. And here it goes. So she was no longer able to hide him. He got too big to hide, or like our kid slept the first 4 months. And, you know, just one day woke up and started making a lot of noise. And who knows how, how it is, but she could no longer hide him. And here is a very beautiful thing. It says here she got a wicker basket. What do you have there? Forget wicker. What is the noun that you have? You have ark. Which one says ark? Hertz. That's very good. That's what they should have used. It is. Sorry, King James says ark. Well, you see that in that regard, the older translations are more accurate. The only other time the Hebrew word tevah is used is for Noah's ark, not Noah's basket. And so the whole point is to say to you, look, here is a total parallel. As I save the one person I wish to save. You know, at this moment, Moses is going to be saved. If you never read the Hebrew, the story in your life, the minute you know he's put in an ark, you know he's saved. You know the end of the story. That's what it wants to tell you. It doesn't care if it's a wicker basket. Doesn't tell you anything. And that's these, by the way, these are the reasons that I am so in love with the text.
'Cause of this richness.
So she puts him in a little ark. Don't you get the chills when you think of that? And it hearkens back to Noah and his family and the animals. And now here is a deeper message yet, even than that. The parallel is on a very deep level.
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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.
I mentioned this, I think. No, I don't know, actually. It's what happens when you talk a lot. You don't remember which group you said something to. Did I talk to you about I, I think I did. Why there are Jews. I did. The 3 attempts God has made to make the world better. I did or I didn't? This is a tough crowd. This is definitely a tough crowd. No. Yes. No. Jews are the 3rd attempt. I mentioned that. Okay, fine. Okay. 'Cause I, I know I mentioned it in North Carolina this weekend and I'm— yes.
Conscience.
Oh, really? I didn't tell you the first, the first. Yes. Conscience was the first attempt. Universal. Second attempt. Now, now it's very relevant. God wants, wants us to be good. That's God's— the Jewish view is that God's primary concern is that we be good to each other, just like your primary concern as a parent is that your children be good to each other, right? Okay. Whether they're good to you or not is secondary. They should be good to each other. All right. Certainly that is true for God. God's first attempt to have us be good is God figures like this. All I have to do is put in people a conscience. A basic primal understanding that there is good and there is bad, and it's so much more attractive, the good. Of course people will choose it. I'm, I'm putting my brain, so to speak, in God's mind. And this is the way we infer from the text God, so to speak, of course, thinks. It fails dismally. Okay? The children of the first couple, one of them kills the other. God does not like what is happening. And then Sodom and Gomorrah. And then finally God, this is, this can't go on like this. And God says, I'm gonna start all over. This time I'm not gonna only give human beings a conscience, I'm going to give them a divine revelation. I will reveal explicitly, not implicitly through conscience, explicitly through revelation, how I think how I want mankind to live. And so we have basic moral principles given what Judaism holds, the 7 laws of the children of Noah. And who are the children of Noah? Every one of us. In other words, therefore, the 7 laws of all humanity. That's the explicit revelation. But that doesn't work. The world again goes into evil. So God's 3rd attempt to have people live by Moral law is to give an explicit revelation to one specific group of people. It, and that because after all, people learn from people who are visible and like them better than they learn from God. In order for God to be effective, he has to reveal himself every day. This may sound incredible to you because modern people think, oh, if God would merely sneeze, I would be so happy. I would know God exists and I would change my life. Baloney. If God came to you tonight and there was no question in your mind this was God, within one week you would be back to violating all the laws you violated this week, whatever they may be. God is like the highway patrol. You drive— I mean, I'm serious. If you think of God, I mean it totally sincerely. If you think of God like the highway patrol, you will understand why God, why, why man has to be, human beings have to be the carrier of the divine message. Because when the highway patrol is right near you, you drive very carefully. The moment the highway patrol leaves, you are back to your miserable habits, as I am. I know that for a fact. That is why they sell radar detectors.
Correct.
Okay. God, therefore divine law isn't enough to keep people good. What God concludes is that mankind needs people. Humanity needs humans to keep teaching the right way. And so God takes a bunch of slaves, and we'll talk about this much later on when we get to Sinai, but it's relevant here. Because to understand why ark is used and that it corresponds to the attempt God made with Noah to do it all over again. I am saving Noah and teaching him and his children specific laws for humanity. I am saving Moses, who will save this people, who will be given specific laws to make humanity better. All right. Now, by the way, in that regard, one could almost see— I'm obviously a committed Jew. I'm not a Christian. But even from a Jewish perspective, one can understand the ongoing attempts from another religious perspective. To me, of course, Jesus is not divine, but I respect the idea of the divinity of Jesus to a Christian who is now saying, we're gonna go further. A 4th attempt. The attempt with the Jews didn't work, or it worked, but it didn't work fully either. Now something more is necessary, which is exactly how classic Christianity looks at Jesus. We now have another attempt, and if you will, not only will the message be carried by humans, God himself will appear as human.
You see?
So it, so I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm deliberately saying this. To Jews in this audience to try to understand, because a lot of Jews do not understand the Christian idea. Now understand it in this context, it makes more sense. And then Muslims come and say, we need a 5th attempt. That is exactly what Muslims argue Muhammad is, that Muhammad has a message because it was corrupted by Jews and Christians. That is classic Muslim theology. The, this new, the 5th attempt is to clarify it forever. Now, of course, all of us think that our attempt is the last one and that the ones who come after us are just wrong and unnecessary. So that, that of course, classic Jewish view of Christianity, classic Christian view of Islam. Then with this, within Islam, you have other attempt, another attempt later too. For example, A modern offshoot of Islam is the Baha'i faith. So you have another prophet saying, no, no, no, we don't. This is the more inclusive, the more recent. And you have the Mormon revelation, which will clear it up for everybody. And that's why I respect all groups. I don't obviously adhere to the theology, but I respect it in a very deep sense. All of this claims that, well, God saw it didn't work. And by golly, every one of you has to acknowledge none of our attempts have fully worked. Let's be honest. The Jews had, let's see, 1,200 years before Jesus to, to make their impact. And they made some. In fact, they really did. A 10th of the Roman Empire had already converted to monotheistic Judaism. That's an, that's an amazing number. And who knows what would've happened? But I could understand people in Rome seeing the pathology, the moral pathology of Rome with gladiators where people were just cheering men kill each other for sport, saying, you know what, I think we need a newer revelation to get this thing speeded up a little. And the speeding up process, people are impatient. That's why Lenin took Marx and made Marxism-Leninism. If we wait for Marx's prophecies, he said, we'll all be dead. We gotta speed it up with a Communist Party. And so everybody wants to speed up the process, and it's very understandable. This is the hint at God's next attempt. My last attempt with an ark was Noah. My next attempt with an ark is Moses. And the purpose of Moses is not to get the Jews out of Egypt. The Torah's belief, and certainly classical Jewish belief, Is that the purpose is, is not the Exodus. The purpose is to get to Sinai. Sinai is the aim. And you will see later, every time Moses says to Pharaoh, let my people go, he doesn't say, let my people go. That's a secularization of what Moses said. He said, let my people go so that they may worship God. There is a purpose to the Exodus, and it is not merely freedom. We'll talk about that later. But, but I, but unfortunately, all of these ideas have, are, are, are, need to be hinted at now with, with regard to what Moses symbolizes and what the saving of Moses means to the Torah. He's in the ark in the Nile River, like, like Noah was in the ark in the flood of the, of humanity. So she got a wicker ark for him and caulked it with bitumen, bitumen and pitch. She put the child into it and placed it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile. Of course, the word for reeds is suf, and it is exactly the Sea of Reeds that the Jews will cross. When they leave Egypt, so it's another touching little hint about what's coming on up later where the Hebrew tells it to you and the English cannot. So this is what the mother does again. I am not Holocaust preoccupied. You will note in the course of our weeks together, but the again the parallels are just too amazing because the number of Jewish parents who had to give their children away. or tried to, you know, because they were being shipped away, was very large. Indeed, one of them is one of the leading Catholics in the world. The Archbishop of Paris was such a hidden child, raised Catholic and converted, but has a very profoundly warm sense of his Jewish origins. And indeed, it would if he became pope, which is not at all an out you know a remote possibility. You know, in one sense, he would himself say, "You now have a Jewish pope." He would actually himself say that. It would be a remarkable moment. His name is Lustiger. So she she puts the child in the ark in the in the in the by the reeds of the Nile. And his sister stationed herself, another female heroine. The sister stationed herself at a distance to learn what would happen to him. The Torah narrative is so sparse and yet so vivid. I mean, you get so into the story and it's funny, I have to tell you of changes You know, in my, in my own life, stories never moved me as a kid, maybe because I wasn't read any. You know, it was a home which, you know, was very clear and, you know, talked about moral issues and ethical concerns. We weren't story-oriented. But it's funny, as I get older, the stories not only mean more to me, they actually mean more than anything to me. We have a dear friend, John Alston, who goes around the country telling stories. And that's his belief that the story is everything. And what you learn from a story, laws are important and philosophy is important, but somehow stories tell you more than anything. And as I read this and I think about it, it's, there is a truth to that. The story, it also gives you, if you have these stories from your childhood, a very warm sense in a cold world. The power of the story. And so, you know, others would say the power of the myth, whatever terminology you wish to use. And in that regard, you know, did the story happen exactly like this? To which my question to you is, what difference does it make? While I deeply believe in objective truth, deeply, the fact remains that you and I know that 10 people observing the identical incident give you varying stories who, who, and they're all telling the truth. And that's why stories can sometimes tell you more truths than, than mere recitation of, of detail. So I'm, I think of this and I just have this picture of the sister and, you know, and she'll watch what happens to him. It's so simple, the Hebrew, and so simple, the English. What's gonna happen to my brother? And if you're reading it the first time, is this the first time for anybody here? I envy you. I really do. It's a great— there must be— you probably wonder too, you know, what's gonna happen to him, the reader as well as the sister. Verse 5. The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the Nile. While her maidens walked along the Nile. Maidens in, uh, here is, yes, here it is actually maidens or lattices, 'cause it's the plural of lad, if you will, uh, walked along the Nile. She spied the, uh, the ark among the reeds and sent her slave girl to fetch it. So we now have, uh, 2 more women Heroes saving this, the savior, small s. And that is, and I'm gonna comment on in a moment, we have the daughter of Pharaoh and we have the slave girl going out to get the ark. And she opened the ark and she saw the boy. And here was a child. Crying, and she felt sorry for it. And she said, ah, this must be one of the children of the Hebrews. You can really cry. It's such, it's so beautiful. The, the, I, I hate to be a, a broken record on an issue, but this is why I love the Torah because of its honesty. Of its depiction of humans, and that what matters is the humanity of the human, not the ethnicity of the human. This is a this is one of the most powerful verses in the Bible. Now now remember, this is Pharaoh's daughter. Her dad. Although I suspect she didn't call him dad. But her dad had ordered— her dad is A, her father, B, Egyptian. She's Egyptian. C, half god as the Pharaoh. He had ordered that the Hebrew boys be drowned. And yet she looks in the ark and what is the first thing she does? She feels sorry for a child. She's a woman before an Egyptian. She's a human before the daughter of the Pharaoh. Right? That's a very powerful statement that humanity at its best is involved here.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
Life can be messy, but you don't have to figure it out alone.
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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.
It, it's to Pharaoh's daughter's credit that she saves a simple child. She doesn't know that this child is special in any way. This is, in Egyptian theory, a useless hunk of humanity, a slave baby. You can't get lower than that. A non-Egyptian slave baby. It's worthless. And she is, she is everything. She's the daughter of the Pharaoh, and all she does is feel sorry for it. And here is where it is very important that the Torah cites what she says, that it is one of the Hebrews' children. It means she knows what she's saving. That's an enormous statement. If Hitler had a daughter and a Jew knocked— a Jewish baby were placed on her front step during, uh, doorstep during the Holocaust, that would be an analogy. Oh, I, oh, it must be a Jewish kid, a German Jewish baby. I have to feel sorry for it. You would think, wow, Hitler's daughter. That's pretty remarkable. And it is pretty remarkable. She knows, she announces, she doesn't even hide it and make it back to her father. She announces, מילדי העברים זה from the children of the Hebrews. This is, this is a Jewish child. This is an impressive woman, an impressive act, and it touches you to, to become aware of that. By the way, uh, Sarna notes, and I have no idea of its significance, but I found it fascinating that it is the only time in the Bible that the word baka, which means to cry, is used with a child. It's always used with an adult. Isn't that interesting? I mean, I don't know what it means except maybe an implication of the importance of Moses, but just an interesting etymological fact of the Torah. So she feels sorry for it. And then verse 7, then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and get you a Hebrew nurse to suckle the child for you? So the sister sees this and, you know, this is a gutsy sister. You know, first of all, I mean, we're talking about the women are so strong here. I mean, you know, folks, I am not a member of the National Organization for Women. You know, one must appreciate I am not patronizing women here or I'm, you know, being a gender fan. I'm merely telling you what is a fact. Not only are they heroines, they're gutsy. Pharaoh's daughter is gutsy. The 2 midwives are gutsy. The mother is the— look at the sister, the daughter of Pharaoh. Hi, excuse me. Just happened to be whistling a happy tune along the Nile when I saw this happening. I mean, think about it. You know, this would be such a great video to make, you know, to, to, to, you know, to put this to life. You know, she's probably shivering. How does she know that, you know, that she was a— what are you, a Hebrew? Drop dead. Or God knows what could happen, obviously. And yet she comes forward and she said, shall I get you a Hebrew nurse? Meaning, of course, the mother, Moses's mother. That's her attempt here to immediately do this, which is what in fact was done. I was reading up on this. There were a lot of foundlings. That's, you know, the word finding babies. There were a lot of foundlings in the world. And, you know, what do you do? They didn't have formula. You know, what if you found a foundling? How did, how did you give it milk? You found a wet nurse. And so that's what she's offering to do. Hey, I happen, you know, I think I could find you a wet nurse for this child. Now it's interesting. You wonder what How does Miriam, the sister, come across? Does she clearly come across as Hebrew to the daughter of Pharaoh? Could a Hebrew be that aggressive in speaking directly to the daughter of Pharaoh? These are questions I have no answer to, and maybe she didn't appear fully. I'm sure she spoke Egyptian, obviously, and who knows? Certainly Moses was regarded as Egyptian later, but that's somewhat separate. At any rate, shall I get a Hebrew nurse to suckle the child for you? So the point being, she probably hears the daughter of Pharaoh say, ah, this is a Hebrew child. So that gives Miriam the right to say, let me get a Hebrew nurse. Probably though, I have no, you know, factual basis for this. They might have considered it not possible for an Egyptian to nurse a Hebrew. I, you know, it would've been beneath him. So, oh, you found a Hebrew? Can I find you a Hebrew nurse? Since, you know, you've taken pity, let me find you a Hebrew nurse for him. And Pharaoh's daughter answered, verse 8, yes. Actually, it's even more direct in the Hebrew. And she said, the daughter of Pharaoh said to her, go. Not yes. It, you know, Which is again, a better translation. I don't know why they add these things that aren't in the text, because it makes more sense that someone of such elevated status speaking to a slave group member is not going to answer yes or no, but rather with an order. Right? And that's how the Hebrew is more real. It doesn't say came. And so as soon as I saw yes, I thought, wait, let me look at the Hebrew. It wouldn't make sense. And sure enough, it just says, go. That is all she said. And that's important. That makes sense. That's the way royalty would act. Go. That is it. And she went, the young woman went and she called for the mother Of the child. Oh yes, I noted in my notes that she probably knew that Miriam is a Hebrew, and again, to her credit, it doesn't matter to her. So she's not only taking pity on a Hebrew child; she's actually having a one-word conversation with with a Hebrew young Hebrew woman. Verse nine, and Pharaoh's daughter said to her, "Now she speaks more. Take this child and nurse it for me." This is to this is now this is not talking to Miriam. This is Pharaoh's daughter talking to the mother. Of Moses. You with me? So she says to her, take this child and nurse it for me. It's important for me, and I will pay your wages. In effect, she adopts him for her as her child. She believed in interethnic, interracial adoption. God bless her. The daughter of Pharaoh was ahead. of most social workers in America today. It's amazing. For those of you who believe that moral progress is inevitable, this should come as a sobering— it really, it's really— Do you think the surrogate mother knew that it was the real mother of the child? No. Oh, do I? That's, it's a question. The question was, do I think that she knew that this was the real mother? That's unanswerable from the text. That's a good, it's a good example of where a good novel on this would be. would explore fascinating issues. I generally try not to take questions in the middle so as not to disturb the narrative, but please note it, please, because I believe the odds are 8 to 2 that you'll forget it. And I don't want you to, so please note it down. And the odds are also about 50/50 that I'll answer it as we move on. But they're 8 to— please note all your questions only because I know it's so rich, this stuff, we'll never— we would never complete. Okay, so take this child and nurse it for me, and I will pay your wages. This is a very, very civilized person, this daughter of Pharaoh. I'll pay you. I accept it. I know you're Hebrew. I know he is. So the woman took the child and nursed it. When the child grew up, she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter. Who made him her son. It's very touching, isn't it? And you wonder, by the way, here is where you really have the capacity for a powerful work of, of, of cinematic or better novelistic art. How does Moses feel later? He knows how his life is saved. He knew who he grew up with. How does he feel every time he goes into Pharaoh's house? To demand that he let the Jews go. And does he see this woman? He has to have a bonded experience with her. This is very fascinating. Although the very earliest time until weaning was with the wet nurse, with his mother. Okay. Now it's interesting. She named him Moses. Now, why didn't she name him Moses originally? All of a sudden now she gives him a name. We today name our children. This is fascinating, and this is all new to me. It was new to me in my research. We name children today when they're born for the simple reason that we assume they'll live. In those days, infant mortality was so high you didn't even get a name till you stopped, uh, uh, you, you ended weaning. You were weaned. Isn't that something? Because so many children died. And, and it, you know, and as I think of it, it's a very touching and, and sad thing. I think it's funny, I had, I had once read about this. I, 'cause every one of us knows, I hope none of you from personal experience, though given the, the number here, probably the odds are somebody does or more than somebody. But we all know or can imagine of the pain of the loss of a child. Right? It's the, it's the most difficult loss in, in many ways. And I, I'm sure some of you thinking about it might have wondered, how did people in the past, how did they survive emotionally with infant mortality as high as it was? Right? Most people lost children. How did they go on? And the, the answer that I came across, and now I'm tying this together a while ago, and I only saw it once, but it now makes sense. Is parents one moment? Probably wondering, aren't you? Parents, according to this theory, did not bond with their children until they passed the time of of greatest mortality risk. And ladies and gentlemen, what makes you bond? Like giving a name. We learned it, if my wife doesn't mind my mentioning this. We have saltwater fish and I've— and she's holding her head now. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm into animals. I really like 'em, but I've never bonded with a fish. Perhaps because I have tuna almost every day. And don't think that I'm eating Arthur. We, when we first got our tank, foolishly gave all the fish names. And the emotional transition, the moment they had names, especially for my wife, was when they died, it bothered her. You know, what was one of the names? Do you remember any of them? I don't know. You know, whatever. Anyway, you know, one of them died. And so instead of saying the Puffer died or the, I don't know, you know, some other name of, instead it was Henry, you know, or Jerry or, you know, Felicia. And that disturbs you. And so this is fascinating because you would've thought she waited all that time to name him. Yes. Now that she could risk bonding. Isn't that fascinating? And so we, we live today with very different expectations with regard to pain than our ancestors did. We expect our children to outlive us, all our children, I should say, to outlive us. This is very new in human history. And certainly in parts of the world, many parts of the world today, that is, that is not the expectation. So there you have an insight into something that, and that even the 50th reading, you know, you wouldn't have thought to ask, well, why does he get the name now? And he gets the name of Moses. And I always, this is always to me a gist for a comedy routine. And she named the boy Moses, for she drew him out of the water. To which most people would say, huh? Right? I mean, that's what, that's where obviously one needs to know the Hebrew, but it is a very interesting question. Is she naming him in Hebrew or in Egyptian? Because the Hebrew, mishitihu, I drew him out, is Hebrew, but she didn't speak Hebrew. So The, the fact is that the Torah is giving a Hebrew reason. She had an Egyptian reason for naming him Moses, but that's not given, even though Moshe means something in Egyptian, and I simply forgot what it was, and I might be able to find it. The Hebrew name is of Egyptian origin. Its basic verbal stem, mashi, means to be born. Okay. Which has nothing to do with being drawn out of the water. So in Egyptian, his name is to be born or son to me, whereas in Hebrew it's, I drew him out of the water. So the narrator here, the Torah text, is trying to give you a Hebrew reason for the name Moshe, which is legitimate. But please know that it is an Egyptian name, or at least a name with Egyptian origin.
Here is where you want to take the Torah and shake it and give it a punch. You're dying to know what happens in his upbringing. You know what? This kid is brought up in the Pharaoh's palace by the Pharaoh's daughter. What happens?
Nothing. Not a word.
And it's only 'cause that's not what interested— you know why you and I are interested in that? You and I are interested in that 'cause we live in the age of psychology. We want to know what happens in the interior of a person. That is not— the Torah is not written in the age of psychology, in the age of the interior of people. It tells you what happened 'cause it wants to give you wisdom. It not, not so much, even though it has it, psychological insight.
But I'm, I'm dying to know what happened. And we don't know a thing.
All we know is what happens when he grew up. Verse 11. Sometime after that. There you go.
See, sometime after that. There's another video, Alan, though, that could be made. Moses in the palace.
When Moses had grown up. He went out to his kinsfolk and again, kinsfolk.
So let me see, the Hebrew is a little simpler. His brothers. That's what it says in Hebrew. He went out to his brothers and witnessed their labors.
Does anybody have a word other than labor? Does anyone have suffering?
That's what I heard. Burdens. Yeah.
Burdens is much closer actually. It's In modern Hebrew, Sevel is actually just suffering. I think that that's more accurate. He went out to see their suffering. Now, this is a very important verse here because it establishes immediately, almost fully establishes. There could be a dissenting case made, but I—
it tends to imply that he knew They were his brothers. Remember, he is raised until after weaning, and you were nursed in those days a long time.
Does anybody know the average in ancient world, or?
No, I think more than that. Oh no, I think at least 3, I think. Yeah. That's a long time, ladies and gentlemen. I mean, to, you have a, you know, for better and for worse, we are formed A lot by the time we're 3.
And so his mother had a very long opportunity to develop in him an awareness of who he was.
It's important to remember here.
However, he could have easily, naturally, instinctively almost said, wait a minute, it's my good fortune.
To have ended up in Pharaoh's palace, you know, I am not gonna blow this incredible opportunity, right?
I mean, we are all aware of people who would say that, you know, I'm sorry you guys are slaves, but hey, what are you gonna do? Right? I mean, is that not a real possibility? I didn't enslave you. I don't want you to be slaves, but it's not gonna help.
If I leave.
You must understand that that could have absolutely been the man's reaction. You know, I didn't ask for this.
It's my good luck. What am I gonna do?
Does anybody win the lottery and give it all away to the poor?
No. They're not happy they're poor, but they keep it. The guy won a lottery ticket. He ended up in the Pharaoh's house.
He's gonna throw away his lottery ticket? I mean, that's what you must understand is involved here. Now also, this is, this is, you know, I don't know how many times I've read this chapter.
It's got to be 100.
And that's why, again, I have such reverence for the Torah, because on the 101st, I have 10 times more insight than the 100th, which is also depressing because it means that I missed something for the 102nd. You know, it's like I want to believe I finally exhausted the possibilities. But just in preparing here, it hit me that it says he went out to his brothers.
He deliberately went out to them.
He sought them.
The event you are about to read did not merely happen. He went out to his brothers.
You get what I'm saying? This is an extraordinary man immediately that he will go out there. He sought trouble. Trouble didn't find him. He sought it clearly in what is happening. He goes out to them and it says in the verse twice, twice that it's his brothers. Remember, he's, it's, he saw, I didn't tell you the second time. He went out to his brothers and witnessed their suffering. And Moses hates suffering. This is what you will see. He hates injustice and he hates suffering. This is the key to the personality. Remember, this chapter is gonna tell you why God picks him. And this differs, this differs entirely from almost all other ancient scenarios of, of the gods picking a human savior.
Where you don't know why.
For example, Utnapishtim is picked to, in the famous Mesopotamian story of the flood and the ark, because he's good looking. That's why the gods save him.
But you're gonna learn why Moses is picked to take the Jews out of Egypt. You with me?
This is not a simple matter of a capricious God. Picking somebody for no reason.
We're going to learn about the character of the man. He goes out to his brethren.
He saw an Egyptian beating a Jew.
Now, it's very, very important that you remember the verb here. The Hebrew word is makeh, which is hitting or beating But we have a different problem. In Hebrew, make means both hit or beat and kill.
And this presents a very important dilemma, which you will see in a moment. He goes out and he saw an Egyptian makeing a Hebrew, again, one of his brothers.
You with me?
Twice in the verse it says his brothers. So it's to, it, it, it could either be that this is what the, the Torah is simply describing, or that that's the way Moses perceived it.
You with me?
I think it's the way Moses perceived that these are his brothers.
But I can, I can, one can legitimately argue the other. Yeah.
He turned this way and that. The Hebrew in this is, is very famous.
Uh, he went this way and that, uh, he looked this way and that, or turned actually.
And I'm gonna give you from the Hebrew, and he saw that there is no man. Much more powerful than the translation that we have here. And seeing no one about. Again, I don't know why they don't translate it literally except where it becomes, you know, impossible in English, because that's a very, very powerful statement. He saw there was no man.
And now here is again a problem with translation. This will help you. And he maqed, in this case bayach, it's just a different form of the verb.
The Egyptian and buried him in the sand, or hid him in the sand, literally.
Okay.
Now, this has always been the great dilemma about Moses.
Why did he kill the Egyptian? And I'm I don't know if I'm proud or embarrassed to tell you.
I came up with an answer.
2 hours ago.
I was working on this and working on this.
I have really, I've thought about this.
I have given lectures on this. And then the simplest, which I saw in no commentator, somebody had, you know, I don't know why it wasn't the answer to the dilemma was not obvious from the Hebrew.
But anyway, here's the dilemma.
Did Moses intend to kill the Egyptian? There are 2 dilemmas, but let's start with dilemma one. Did Moses intend to kill the Egyptian? That's— it's a very— it's, it's, it's not fully answerable because the Hebrew is he, he beat him or he hit him. Okay.
Or he killed him.
Remember, the same verb is used in Hebrew.
Look, let me— and then I'm gonna go back to the—
he saw there was no man. But first of all, he might have meant to kill the Egyptian. Because otherwise it would've said he hit the Egyptian and the Egyptian died. That would be clear. He didn't mean to kill him.
You with me?
Then it would be absolutely clear because it would've emphasized that he hit rather than killed him. On the other hand, if he meant to kill the man, it would've said he killed the Egyptian. There is a Hebrew for that. There is a, there is a word that is not in any way Ambiguous for killing. There is killing, vayaharog, or kill or murder, vayirtzach, and it doesn't use either of those.
Okay?
Or he wanted to kill him. It's clearly ambiguous what he intended to do to the Egyptian. And it finally hit me on what the answer is. The answer is totally dependent. Upon how you, you translate the verb with what the Egyptian was doing to the Jew, since it's the same verb. But you don't get that in the English, which was a big mistake. Does anybody have the same verb for what the Egyptian did to the Jew to what Moses did to the Egyptian?
You do.
And what translation is it? Sorry?
Hurts.
Hurts. And what is the verb he uses?
Smoke.
Okay, which is kill. Okay, so it was therefore wait. It says he was that the the Egyptian was killing a Jew. All right, smiting fine. It says fine.
Good. Okay. Huh? No, no, no.
Flogging is totally different.
My book. Mine says drop down. My book. Yeah. He clarifies what my book means.
Okay, that's irrelevant what he clarifies, but the translation is both cases smite.
Good.
I know.
What is your— it's both. Is it both the same verb?
It is. I know that. I—
that, that's a terrible error on the translator's part to give you a different verb when the Hebrew uses the same verb.
That's why people get confused. And even I, who had read it in Hebrew, had never thought to do that.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, whatever you imply to Moses's intent The answer is in the text. We don't know, but it doesn't matter. What we do know is he did to the Egyptian what the Egyptian was doing to the Hebrew slave. If he was killing him, then he killed him.
If he was beating him, then he beat him.
The verb is the same, and it doesn't matter which way you go, which totally exonerates Moses. Because the problem for, in, in, in assessing Moses's character here is Is it right for you to kill a beater?
You with me?
And not in Judaism, it isn't. The death penalty, as it were, is for someone— or forgetting death penalty, because this is not a court. You kill in defense against one who would kill.
But if you are only beating, not that that is a beautiful act, you don't deserve to be killed.
Now, now, there's a lot more going on here though, because after all, even if it's just beating and Moses obviously ended up killing him, that's defensible as well, in my opinion.
And let me tell you, I am always surprised at the number of criticisms of Moses I read in commentators, including old Jewish commentators. I have never found a problem.
Even I think I've solved it. He did to the Egyptian what the Egyptian was doing to him, because the verb is the same. But even if in fact he beat and he killed, I have a defense. How is he going to go out and then beat the Egyptian and go back to the palace? That's not possible. He either— he's in a position, Moses, of either doing nothing, Why does he say, you know what, sir? Excuse me, sir. It's not right to beat slaves. Even if he did that, he's in big trouble. Hey, did you see what Pharaoh's daughter's boy did? Son did? Did you see that?
I can't believe it.
It would've been in the Cairo Gazette the next day.
Yeah.
No. So he has, he has really 2 choices in such an instant. I mean, let me give you an example. Back to our Holocaust examples. You are a German. A Nazi in Berlin is beating a Jew. What are you going to do? You're going to beat the Nazi? You're dead. You either can do nothing or kill him and hope that nobody saw what happened. Therefore, I must take exception to all of the commentators who seem to be the majority Who argue that this was an impetuous act by a young Moses who had to mature later.
I don't buy that.
I don't know what his alternative was. And the fact that we see that he does other things when involved with disputes shows he knew what to do, as you'll see in 2 other cases in the same chapter. So I 100% defend Moses.
On his killing of the Egyptian. All right.
Even if that was his intent from the beginning and it was only a beating, even in the worst case scenario, I believe that he is utterly defensible.
Now, let me go back to the beginning of this, of the verse 2:12. He looked around. What?
All of this stuff looks so simple in first read.
So let me, let me make it complex for you.
He sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave, one of his brothers.
Okay. Right.
And he looks around here and there and he saw that there was no man.
I'm giving you the literal translation.
What was he looking around for?
A witness. Well, there are 2 utterly and totally plausible possibilities, and there is no way to know which is correct.
One is a witness.
What is the other one?
Well, apparently it helps somebody else to do something about it. Exactly.
And we have no idea.
And I love, I love deliberate Torah ambiguity. This is a classic example. And the truth is, you know why? Because probably He was looking for both. That's probably why. First he was looking to see, will anybody else stop this? And then he was all, then no.
Well, then I can do it and get away with it. You're just telling me that he, that he felt guilty about doing it? No, not for guilt reasons, because he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to get killed by Pharaoh. Oh, the, Doesn't matter. You can't, you can't go out and— well, I don't know how Pharaoh's relations with Moses were. We have— we don't have any, any, any data on that. And we don't know, you know, was he a grandfatherly type? Maybe he was a blood type, you know, like the judges in Illinois, and he didn't, didn't relate to Moses at all.
This episode of Timeless Wisdom will continue right after this.
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Now back to more of Dennis Prager's timeless wisdom.
But that is what is fascinating about—
he looked around and he saw there was no man. Now here is another beautiful thing about this. The word man, ish, in, in Hebrew is more like the word mensch. For those of you who know either German or especially Yiddish, to be a mensch is more than to be a man. It is to be a decent man.
It's too bad we don't have a, a word in, in, in English corresponding to mensch.
I, I was not raised, my parents spoke Yiddish, but they used it for secrets.
So, so I didn't learn almost any Yiddish at all.
But, but the word mensch was always used.
For example, if, you know, if the food was dribbling from my mouth, which is typical for boys, any of you who have a boy know that evolution is true.
The, you know, the Dennis, will you eat like a mensch?
Right? Act like a mensch. Act like a mensch. Act like a mensch. He was looking for a mensch.
He was looking for an ish, for a man.
And my proof of it is that in very old Hebrew, though not biblical Hebrew, we have a statement in Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Fathers.
It's a Talmudic chapter. Chapters to Talmudic tractate or series of chapters of tremendous wisdom and insight.
And one of the lines is, in a place where there is no ish, you must try to be an ish.
In a place where there's no mensch, you gotta try to be a mensch. And so he didn't find an ish. There was no man. Well, if there is no man, I am going to be a man. That is the way I—
one of the two ways to read it. The other is there is no man, so then I can do it and get away with it. Okay?
And both are true, but I am convinced that the other one, the less obvious one, he found nobody to stop this. There was no man around to be at least as plausible, especially cuz we're seeing the character of Moses come out here.
All right, I'm gonna have to take it myself.
And ladies and gentlemen, I gotta tell you, this is the stuff that has to animate people because if you don't do good, who is going to do it? It's something that each of us has to wrestle with. Who is gonna, who is gonna go out there and fight if I don't? And it's something that, as I say, every one of us has to wrestle with.
That is why I, he is my favorite character in the Torah, in the Bible. He's a fighter.
Yeah.
He, and he fights for goodness. There are a lot of people who fight for bad, but he fights for good and he knows when to fight and how to fight, which this chapter makes clear. And that's, so I, this is my, my hero.
And so he found that there was none and he killed the Egyptian and he hid him. That's the point here. It doesn't say he buried him. I mistranslated the first time. It's more important he hid him in the sand.
He didn't want anybody to know what happened.
And when he went out the next day, he found 2 Hebrews fighting. And he said to the offender, why do you strike your neighbor? The word in Hebrew here is evil. A point that I need to make again is the Torah is calling a Jew evil. I will never stop repeating this point. The greatness—
Yeah.
There's much greatness to the Hebrew Bible. I think its single greatest greatness Is its critique, its moral critique of Jews.
You do not have that parallel.
It's not meant to put other Bibles down.
You do not have a parallel of this.
You do not have the, a description of Christians as evil in the New Testament as you have of Jews evil in the Old Testament or of Muslims in the Quran. Or of Hindus in the Bhagavad Gita, et cetera, et cetera. This powerful self-criticism has actually served Jews well, but also poorly in an ironic way, because it has led antisemites to say, look, look at how the Bible describes Jews, not realizing it was the Jews responsible for that self-description. It's like saying, look at how bad America is. Look at all the editorials that knock it. By that, by that terminology, the Soviet Union was the greatest country in the world because Pravda always praised it. It would seem to me that self-critical literature is a statement of excellence, not, not, not terribleness. At any rate, he's bad. This Jew is bad and they are arguing. They are not, but however, it is an argument of words. Which, as I have said, is the way Jews kill each other. Others will use fists. Jews will use words. And they are simply fighting, struggling, but it is not a matter apparently of beating. She said, why are you hitting your neighbor? So he's getting involved again. Moses in the first instance kills. In this instance, He speaks. And in the third instance, he will say all he does is stand up. When we come to that, I will illustrate. Those are the 3 ways you stop evil in this world.
I don't know of another one.
You use violence, you speak, you stand up.
That is why another proof that Torah, in my opinion, it's another proof why the Torah is pro what Moses did.
It uses him as a model. That he knows how to deal with evil. Sometimes you kill, sometimes you speak, and sometimes you just stand up. You have to know when to do it. Some people kill too quickly. Some people never kill. Some people speak too much, and some people don't even ever stand up. He knows what to do. We are setting the stage for why God chooses Moses. We have no idea why God chooses Abraham prior to his being chosen, but we're getting details about the man God would choose to take the Jews out of Egypt. So he says to the, uh, he says that to the, uh, to the bad guy, number 14. And what does the bad guy do? The bad guy responds, who made you a man? Who made— remember what was the word? If you recall, what was the word for whom Moses was looking to see? Would there be an ish, a mesh, a man? And what does the guy say to him? Who made you a man? And you don't have this in the English translation. It's— so again, that's why it's important to have somebody teaching who knows the Hebrew, because These are critical words to understanding. First it says, who made you a man, an ish, and then a minister and a judge or a chieftain or ruler over us? And you may recall my saying, this is the classic, one of the classic differentiating characteristics of good people and bad people. Every person does wrong.
Everyone.
The difference between the decent and the indecent is how you react when you're caught. That's the difference. The good person says, I'm sorry, you're right, uh, or, you know, and by the way, you know, here, the opening to this Hebrew bad guy was clear. When he said, why are you hitting your neighbor? He could have said, I'm in a terrible mood. It's been a bad day. I'm sick of being a slave. I mean, it was endless, the possibilities. But he says he attacks Moses instead of saying right. He attacks Moses. You recall the example of, you know, somebody does something wrong to you on the road, you catch them.
And then they give you the finger.
That is the classic example of the mad person. Instead of saying, oops, sorry, in which case you would've been fine, they curse you out for pointing out that they did wrong. That's why I do believe, while I don't believe that evil is purely psychological, I do believe that there is one psychological thing that almost guarantees bad meaning: insecurity.
Mm-hmm.
There is one thing necessary psychologically for goodness, I am convinced: security. You have to be secure in yourself to be able to say, I am good. I believe that there is a great difference between psychology and morality. I think it's possible to be unhealthy and good. It's possible to be psychologically okay and extremely selfish. Okay? The people after many, many years of therapy who are preoccupied with one person, and you know who that person is.
Uh, and I approve therapy.
It's not an anti-therapy statement. It's a statement that therapy makes you better, but not necessarily more moral. But there are connections between psychology and morality, even though they aren't predictive ones. Acceptance, so far, I believe, is security as a concern. It takes a secure person to be able to say, I was wrong. And I'm sorry to say, I don't know what percentage of humanity, but a large percentage is not secure. It takes more strength to be good than to be bad. One time, if you really want to get depressed, you should hear me describe the obstacles to being a good person. When you leave, after you cry for a while, you will realize how extraordinary it is that there are as many good people in the world as there are.
I'm never amazed at how many bad people there are.
I am always pleasantly surprised at the number of wonderful ones there are, because the obstacles are so profound psychologically, emotionally, morally. Just terms of ease, that's all. All right, so here's your classic bad guy. You are the bad guy for pointing out that I have done something wrong.
On tomorrow's Sunday Fireside Chat.
Hey Dennis, Michelle here, 31, from St. Charles, Iowa. I'm an ex-moderate leftist. Uh, I was a copycat. I really didn't understand what I stood Since becoming outspoken of my uncompromising faith and my pro-life stances and labeling myself conservative, I've lost many old friends who are clearly leftist, feminist, and even Marxist, or all 3. I say good riddance, but there is a sadness to parting and a shock and horror to see them fight for things that make no logical sense and are often violent and extreme. Have you seen Have you seen these people change? Is there hope?
Well, Michelle, whose name I guessed, you have asked a very important question and a very sad one in the times in which we live.
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