Page 2 - Announcements Jan. 18

26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck, NY 11023 (516) 487-6100 Shabbat Announcements Shemot 5780
Pharaoh’s daughter’s instant agreement. She knows; she Instead of “Pharaoh’s daughter” read “Hitler’s daughter” or
understands; she gives her consent. “Stalin’s daughter” and we see what is at stake. Tyranny
cannot destroy humanity. Moral courage can sometimes be
Then comes the final surprise: When the child matured, [his found in the heart of darkness. That the Torah itself tells
mother] brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter. She adopted the story the way it does has enormous implications. It
him as her own son and named him Moses. “I bore him means that when it comes to people, we must never
from the water,” she said. (Ex. 2:10) Pharaoh’s daughter generalize, never stereotype. The Egyptians were not all
did not simply have a moment’s compassion. She has not evil: even from Pharaoh himself a heroine was born.
forgotten the child. Nor has the passage of time diminished Nothing could signal more powerfully that the Torah is not
her sense of responsibility. Not only does she remain an ethnocentric text; that we must recognize virtue
committed to his welfare; she adopts the riskiest of wherever we find it, even among our enemies; and that
strategies. She will adopt him and bring him up as her own the basic core of human values – humanity, compassion,
son. This is courage of a high order. Yet the single most courage – is truly universal. Holiness may not be;
surprising detail comes in the last sentence. In the Torah, it goodness is.
is parents who give a child its name, and in the case of a
special individual, God Himself. It is God who gives the Outside Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem,
name Isaac to the first Jewish child; God’s angel who gives is an avenue dedicated to righteous gentiles. Pharaoh’s
Jacob the name Israel; God who changes the names of daughter is a supreme symbol of what they did and what
Abram and Sarai to Abraham and Sarah. We have already they were. I, for one, am profoundly moved by that
encountered one adoptive name – Tzafenat Pa’neah – the encounter on the banks of the Nile between an Egyptian
name by which Joseph was known in Egypt; yet Joseph princess and a young Israelite child, Moses’ sister Miriam.
remains Joseph. How surpassingly strange that the hero of The contrast between them – in terms of age, culture,
the exodus, greatest of all the prophets, should bear not status and power – could not be greater. Yet their deep
the name Amram and Yocheved have undoubtedly used humanity bridges all the differences, all the distance. Two
thus far, but the one given to him by his adoptive mother, heroines. May they inspire us.
an Egyptian princess. A Midrash draws our attention to the
fact: This is the reward for those who do kindness. Although
Moses had many names, the only one by which he is known
in the whole Torah is the one given to him by the daughter
of Pharaoh. Even the Holy One, blessed be He, did not call
him by any other name.

Indeed Moshe – Meses – is an Egyptian name, meaning
“child,” as in Ramses (which means child of Ra; Ra was the
greatest of the Egyptian gods). Who then was Pharaoh’s
daughter? Nowhere is she explicitly named. However, the
First Book of Chronicles (4:18) mentions a daughter of
Pharaoh, named Bitya, and it was she the sages identified
as the woman who saved Moses. The name Bitya
(sometimes rendered as Batya) means “the daughter of
God.” From this, the sages drew one of their most striking
lessons: “The Holy One, blessed be He, said to her: ‘Moses
was not your son, yet you called him your son. You are not
My daughter, but I shall call you My daughter.’” They
added that she was one of the few people (tradition
enumerates nine) who were so righteous that they entered
paradise in their lifetime.

Great Neck Synagogue
26 Old Mill Road, Great Neck , NY 11023
516-487-6100

Rabbi Dale Polakoff, Rabbi
Rabbi Ian Lichter, Assistant Rabbi
Rabbi Aron White, Intern Rabbi
Dr. Ephraim Wolf, z”l, Rabbi Emeritus
Yitzy Spinner, Cantor
Eleazer Schulman, z”l, Cantor Emeritus
Rabbi Sholom Jensen, Youth Director
Zehava & Dr. Michael Atlas, Youth Directors
Mark Twersky, Executive Director
Dr. James Frisch, Assistant Director
Erran Kagan, President
Harold Domnitch, Chairman of the Board