Hearing the Cry: Miriam, Pharaoh鈥檚 Daughter, and Moral Courage
At times of difficulty, uncertainty, and strife, I often find comfort and courage in stories, especially stories about people who connect and transform or resolve conflict. This week鈥檚 parsha, Shemot (Exodus 1:1-6:1), gives me such a story of hope in its portrayal of the relationship between two people from groups in conflict.
After the triumphant conclusion of the book of Genesis, the rise of a new pharaoh ushers in an era characterized by fear, distrust along ethnic lines, and the imposition of harsh labor. Exodus 1 ends with Pharoah鈥檚 ominous decree: 鈥淓very [Hebrew] boy that is born you shall throw into the Nile but let every girl live.鈥� (Ex. 1:22)
The story hinges on a pivotal encounter between two women, who forge a partnership that bridges across a dangerous social divide: Pharaoh’s daughter (unnamed in the text but named Bitya in rabbinic literature), and an endangered baby’s older sister (unnamed here but named Miriam later in Exodus). Centering on their process of relationship-building provides us with a model for and transforming a bleak situation into a livable one.
While the midrash imagines that Bitya converted and became part of the Hebrew people, thus providing a rationale for why an Egyptian woman would defy the pharaoh’s degree (BT Megillah 13a), for this reading I prefer to think of her as an Egyptian princess who maintained her sense of peoplehood, belonging, and spirituality within the Egyptian context. Thus, when she hears baby Moses cry, she hears not the cry of a fellow Jew but the cry of a fellow human being. When she defies her father鈥檚 decree, she does so as a person solidly located within Egyptian society. And, when Bitya and Miriam encounter and engage one another, they do not do so as sisters in the Hebrew community, but as two people connecting around common values and purpose, while maintaining their differences, including differences in power.
Like Pharaoh鈥檚 daughter, the midrash recognizes Miriam as a child of a communal leader, who displayed a courageous inclination to defy community norms. The midrash expands her heroism of accompanying her baby brother to ensure his safety to include a backstory of her challenging her father when he decreed for the Hebrew slave community that not even baby girls should be born (Sotah 12a). However, we cannot assume that Bitya and Miriam engaged each other the same way they did with their families, especially given the fraught circumstances.
A close reading of the text of their story, told in five verses in Exodus 2, reveals distinctive features in each of their voices and postures as they approach each other and their relationship emerges. When reading texts, whether they are contemporary interview transcripts or ancient literary texts, to gain an understanding about a person or character’s inner experience, psychologist Carol Gilligan recommends listening for the verbs used by the narrator to describe each character. She advises creating a poem of just those verbs in the order they appear to gain a sense of movement of the person鈥檚 self, psyche, or spirit over time, as well as listening to the actual words attributed to each character. Through these methods, we hear how Bitya and Miriam鈥檚 voices sounded and how they postured themselves to make a connection at this precarious time.
Gleaning just the verbs from the text that the Biblical storyteller used for Miriam, we have the following poem:
| And she stood | 讜址转值旨转址爪址旨芝讘 |
| And she said | 讜址转止旨郑讗诪侄专 |
| And she went | 讜址转值旨谩诇侄讱职谩 |
| And she called | 讜址转执旨拽职专指謻讗 |
Miriam鈥檚 poem consists of four verbs or actions, that are all different. Half are physical – standing still and moving; and half are spoken with two different kinds of speaking.
The Biblical text quotes Miriam鈥檚 own words to Bitya:
讛址讗值诇值謼讱职 讜职拽指专指证讗转执讬 诇指讱职謾 讗执砖指旨讈郑讛 诪值讬谞侄謹拽侄转 诪执謻谉 讛指注执讘职专执讬止旨謶转 讜职转值讬谞执芝拽 诇指謻讱职 讗侄转志讛址讬指旨纸诇侄讚變
鈥淪hall I go and get you a Hebrew nurse to nurse the child for you?鈥�
With the Egyptian princess Miriam is deferential. However, her question is not submissive but rather suggestive. Astoundingly, the enslaved girl uses no honorifics in speaking to the princess, showing none of the linguistic deference we might have expected in such an encounter. Miriam鈥檚 voice is smart, savvy, and strategic. From a disenfranchised and vulnerable position, she is navigating this distressing situation with nuance and subtle leadership. Just as Bitya does not denigrate baby Moses or Miriam, Miriam does not diminish Bitya鈥檚 humanity by vilifying her.
Listening to the poem of verbs used to describe Bitya also provides us with a window into her inner experience:
| And she came down | 讜址转值旨证专侄讚 |
| And she saw | 讜址转值旨证专侄讗 |
| And she sent | 讜址转执旨砖职讈诇址芝讞 |
| And she took | 讜址转执旨拽指旨讞侄纸讛指 |
| And she opened | 讜址转执旨驻职转址旨讞谩 |
| And she saw | 讜址转执旨专职讗值郑讛讜旨 |
| And she felt compassion | 讜址转址旨讞职诪止郑诇 |
| And she said | 讜址转止旨謺讗诪侄专 |
| And she said | 讜址转止旨纸讗诪侄专 |
| And she said | 讜址转止旨支讗诪侄专 |
| And she called | 讜址转执旨拽职专指证讗 |
| And she said | 讜址转止旨謺讗诪侄专 |
Bitya has more narrative, more verbs, and more quotations than Miriam. This poem has a major turning point: Bitya starts off actively engaged and then fully shifts to speaking. When we look back in the narrative, we see in the plot what was happening when this shift took place: it is immediately after she sees – encounters – a crying baby and one that has no one to console it. Crying is the paradigmatic communication that cuts across humanity. Bitya is not only moved by the suffering of another human being, but her compassion is resistance toward the social forces of dehumanization that surrounds her.
Bitya鈥檚 encounter with the humanity of the baby prompts her shift from acting to speaking and into relationships with multiple other people, as evident by the five times she is quoted in the text. She recognizes the baby for who he is and speaks for the first time saying, 鈥淭his must be a Hebrew child.鈥� Bitya is presumably speaking with her maidservants, with whom we had not previously heard any verbal exchange. Miriam likely hears Bitya鈥檚 acknowledgement of the baby and perhaps feels her compassion, and she then ventures to speak directly to her. When Bitya and Miriam each say something, the text notes that they say it to the other. After Miriam offers to find someone to nurse the baby, Bitya instructs her 诇值謶讻执讬 / 鈥淕o.鈥� Bitya also instructs Yocheved, Moses鈥檚 mother, to care for the baby and offers her compensation. When Yocheved brings the baby back, the narrator tells us that Bitya uses her speech to give him a name. While Miriam uses her intelligence and gall to diplomatically engage Bitya and promote a recommendation, Bitya conveys a sense of command to bring the plan to action. Each woman finds agency to form their partnership.
This story illustrates two people breaking social norms, resisting the pressures of polarization. They were different in many ways – religion, ethnicity, social status, power – but they connected on a human level. Instead of operating according to a system with Egyptians against Hebrews, they were they rewrote the social structure to be a system that arrayed those who wanted to save the baby against those who did not.
As we navigate our contentious, polarized, vilifying and dehumanizing times, we can be inspired by Miriam鈥檚 boldness and Bitya鈥檚 compassion, and their courage in engaging with each other despite their differences.
The publication and distribution of the 91快播 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (锄鈥漧) and Harold Hassenfeld (锄鈥漧).
