Praise Her Works: Conversations with Biblical Women

6 Batya

41 o Chapter 6 Batya SUSAN BERRIN :¥vhÇÝ,_rÜg(bàk e_Äj& ý u V÷¥,hÞcàk ;¢rº¢y iº°<¤<(u v¡k&háÄk sIõgàC | o¥eµ¥<(u “She rises while it is still night, and supplies provisions for her household, the daily fare of her maids” (Prov. 31:15). sh,ga asev jurc v,tra vgrp ,c vh,c uz 'vkhk sugc oe,u thv ,crgnu ,nfan v,hvu vhsh kg ksd,vk ktrahka ighaun vn v"cev vk i,b vshk van tca iuhfu ruthv kg khhyvk vh,urgbu /skhv ,t uvtr,u j,p,u ch,fs 'vcrv vjnau vaehca She rises while it is still night, this is Batya, daughter of Pharaoh, who foresaw by the Holy Spirit that in the future the savior of Israel would be raised by her. In the evenings and mornings she and her handmaids used to stroll by the Nile. When Moses came her way, God had given her what she had requested. She rejoiced a great deal, as it is written, “When she opened [the basket], she saw that it was a child, a boy crying” (Exod. 2:6). —Midrash ha-Gadol When the Children of Israel are living in slavery—growing in numbers and seeming to become a thunderous power—Pharaoh proclaims an edict to kill all of the Hebrew baby boys. The daughter of Pharaoh goes to the river. Some midrashim say she is seeking relief from the pain of leprosy. Other midrashim say she is seeking absolution from the impurity of idol worship in her father’s palace. The young woman sees the floating ark amidst the reeds of the river and asks one of her maidens to fetch the basket. When the princess opens it, she finds a weeping baby boy. She realizes that it must be one of the Hebrew babies, and although she initially thinks to leave the baby to its fate, she has a change of heart as the baby wails and cries. 42 Praise Her Works The princess takes the baby home to the palace, where they live among the Egyptian royalty. Her father rules the land with a ferocious will and temper. Commentary Upon hearing Pharaoh’s edict to have all baby Israelite boys killed, two Hebrew slaves, Yocheved and Amram, choose not to risk a pregnancy that might result in the birth of a death-warranted son. But after some time, their daughter, Miriam, prophesies that her parents will give birth to a prophet, and she urges them to resume conjugal relations. A son is soon born, and after three months of hiding, Yocheved takes the baby to the Nile River and deposits him in a small floating ark she has made. She leaves, but Miriam remains to watch from the bulrushes as Pharaoh’s daughter, Batya, also known as Thermutis, retrieves the floating basket. So Miriam appears and offers to bring a Hebrew woman as a wet nurse. The princess approves of this plan. Miriam and her mother take the baby back home. Sometime later Miriam brings the baby to the palace. Throughouttheuncertainmomentsintheriver,watersurrounds and protects Moses as he is reborn as Batya’s son. Mayim chayim (living waters) become his second womb and the Nile River his second birth canal. Batya goes to the Nile to heal. According to midrash, she is leprous , a condition later shared by Moses’ sister Miriam (Exodus Rabbah 1:23). Batya’s handmaidens bring her the baby’s basket. With an outstretched arm,1 she touches the basket and is healed. The basket not only holds baby Moses; beside him is the feminine spirit of God, the Shekhinah (literally, the indwelling presence of God, the spirit of God that resides in all of Creation). It is this divine light that bathes the baby’s body with extraordinary beauty and shields his soul as he is placed in the Nile. The light, however, withdraws from him during his years in the palace, only to return when he ascends Mount Sinai. 43 Chapter 6 Batya The light then stays with him, and it is this light that allows him “to survey the whole of Palestine in the twinkling of an eye” (Zohar 2:11b). The river, serving as a second birthplace to Moses, is also Batya’s healing place and her place of renewed birth. She is birthed as a mother through the Nile’s living waters. Living waters are her mikveh (place of ritual immersion). With his rebirth, the baby boy is renamed “Moshe” by the princess —“ki meshitihu,” she said, meaning “for I drew him out of the water ” (Exod. 2:10). Batya mothers Moshe as her own child, nurturing him with all of her unassuming love, wrapping him in comfort with the long, sinewy arms that reached toward his basket in the water. Even though Moshe is not a Hebrew name, it is the name that remains with him throughout his life. Some say it is because of Batya’s deep and abiding love for Moses—the love of a mother for a child— that God, too, calls Moses by this name. We refer to him as Mosheh Rabbenu, Moses our teacher. With her immersion, the princess is also renamed. She sheds the old Egyptian name Thermutis and becomes Batya, literally, “daughter of God.” Moses brings Batya close to God, and it is said that her change of name reflects that closeness. “When he [Moshe] came into the world he brought nearer to God those who were far away from Him, namely Batya, the daughter of Pharaoh” (Deuteronomy Rabbah 7:5). Because she treated Moses as a son, God treats her as a daughter. There is deep reciprocity in the relationship of Moses and Batya. She saves him from the edict of death, giving him life in a palace. Later, he saves her (Exodus Rabbah 8:3) from God’s decree that all Egyptian firstborn shall die (she is a firstborn of Pharaoh). In the Torah text, we find three women, barely mentioned, who play pivotal, redemptive roles in the opening chapters of Exodus: Shiphrah, Puah, and Batya.2 Batya is not even named, and the midwives Shiphrah and Puah receive only cursory attention. Through midrash, we learn about these women and how they significantly alter the history 44 Praise Her Works of the Jewish people. They defy the injustices around them, imaginatively and resourcefully giving, in effect, rebirth to the Israelite babies. Each of them, in their relative textual anonymity, is “Other.” Batya is “Other” in three ways: she is a woman, a non-Israelite, and a leper. Her transformation as Moses’ adoptive mother suggests a movement from inwardness, that is, hiddenness, to an unfolding of her redemptive self— her outstretched arm to redeem the baby and her own renaming as God’s daughter. When we read this story as a parable of human nature and the human condition, we find Batya to be a woman of significant insight with stunning imaginative power. Midrash recounts that she leaves Egypt with the Children of Israel and, along with them, is liberated. Water remains her agent of transformation , her mikveh. From the Nile, where she is given a new name, to the Sea of Reeds, where she removes her royal garments, water purifies her spirit and bathes her soul. Batya Speaks Welcome to my chamber in Paradise.3 Here I sit in the first of Paradise’s six chambers. For my virtue as the one who saved Moshe, I was allowed to enter Paradise alive. In the chamber next to me sits Serach bat Asher. In the third chamber is Yocheved. Deborah the Prophet sits in the fourth; and our Matriarchs Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah sit in chambers next to her. In my life I lived in a palace where evil and goodness sat side by side. As a young princess the palace was my home, its gardens and surroundings the place where my soul grew. I traveled to the river to bathe and to cleanse myself of my father’s temper. Into the water I immerged as Thermutis; out I came as Batya—daughter of God, adoptive mother of Moses. God changed my name when I redeemed the baby prophet from death’s door. In silence I cared for and nurtured the boy, raising him as a prince. The Shekhinah, hovering beside Moses as his miniature ark floated in the Nile, was the spirit that tickled the sleeping boy into 45 Chapter 6 Batya wails and bellowing tears that caught my attention at the river’s edge. The Shekhinah watched over him as he grew to manhood. Although this divine light was withdrawn during the palace years— that is, he knew not that the spirit hovered near him—I knew the Shekhinah’s gaze was following the boy when he spoke of miracles, when he challenged my father’s curses, when he stood face-to-face with God. But I did not know that the Shekhinah also watched me as I watered Moses’ soul with love. She watched my love for the boy grow; she spoke with the angels. The Shekhinah stood at the gate to the Garden of Eden to welcome me. Wings grew from the tips of my painted fingers. Arms outstretched, fingertips pointing upward. Not even death drew life’s breath from my lungs, although they filled with water. And from deep in the river of life I soared toward the heavens. Now, with the Shekhinah, I welcome you to Paradise. A Message from Batya Outstretch your arms and gather within your reach the abundance that lies beyond your dreams. Goodness is found in such unlikely places. And each of us bestows common blessings, unaware of our actions. Outstretch your arms and gather new friends. Bring into your ample bosom friends from near and far. Draw them close so that your breath and their breath mingle. Open your home. Let the aromas of your kitchen waft into the desert, beckoning friends and strangers to feast at your table. Outstretch your arms and gather new adventures. Experiment with the rivers. Wade into the waters up to your ankles. Fear not; and wade just a bit more deeply. Soon your calves and knees and thighs and waist are submerged. Continue until you float. Soon, you are moving with a new current and heading to a fork in the stream. 46 Praise Her Works Outstretch your arms and gather new moments of time. Sometimes an hour is but 60 minutes. But other times an hour is gloriously slow—filled with passion and delicately nuanced in rhythms of dance. Make each of your hours full and riveting. Each 60 minutes might be a treasure of time. Your outstretched arms fold memories into daily life. Behind your eyes are pictures of the generations that bear your name. Tucked into the pictures are stories and threads of song, laughter, and tears that flow as a river—the one whose waters you wade into for adventure. They might be the waters of the River Nile, where I, Batya, the daughter of God, redeemed Baby Moses. My baby who grew into a man who became a prophet, a teacher, and a leader of our people. He brought us from slavery into freedom. These are the waters of my life. These are the tears that burn behind sad eyes. These are the tears that flow with joy at a wedding. For Further Thought What is the interplay between divinity, belief, and love in the story of Batya? Consider how these shifted proportionately for each of the people in her story. What does Batya’s story teach us about compassion and outreach toward an individual or an entire people? Consider what causes transformation to take place. How did Miriam, Batya, and Moses influence each other? What are the reasons to wish for transformation —of yourself, your close relationships, the place where you live, or another nation? For more commentary on Batya, see Louis Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1938 and 2003), page 271. For an intriguing view of life in Pharaoh’s palace, read Julius Lester’s Pharaoh’s Daughter, A Novel of Ancient Egypt (New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2000). Although this book is for younger readers, 47 Chapter 6 Batya it gives a firsthand account of the life of Batya as imagined by an accomplished author who likes to challenge traditional ways of looking at the Bible. An appealing new look at biblical women takes place in a collection of tales and commentary by Vanessa Ochs: Sarah Laughed: Modern Lessons from the Wisdom and Stories of Biblical Women (New York: McGraw–Hill Ryerson, 2004). ...