Shemos
by Rabbi Yaakov Menken
This week's LifeLine is dedicated in memory of Rabbi Pinchus Mordechai
Teitz zt"l, leader of the Elizabeth, NJ, Jewish community for over 60 years.
Our condolences to his grandson, Rabbi Eliyahu Teitz.
"And a man from the house of Levi went out, and took for his wife a daughter
of Levi." [Shemos 2:1]
Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi) explains the extra word "vayelech [went out]"
in this verse, which refers to Amram and Yocheved. Amram had previously
married Yocheved, he explains, but separated from her in response to
Pharoah's decree that all Jewish boys be killed. Amram "went out" in the
path of his daughter's advice.
According to our Sages, his daughter Miriam told him, "Your decree is still
worse than Pharoah's! Pharoah decreed only against Jewish boys, but yours is
against girls as well!" Because of Miriam's counsel, Amram remarried
Yocheved, and Our Rabbi Moshe was born.
We should wonder, though, when Miriam made her argument, and when it was
accepted. Obviously the separation went on for some time, especially because
Pharoah made two decrees. The first decree was that the midwives should kill
any male Jewish child [1:16]. After that failed, Pharoah then told his
entire nation to throw any Jewish boy into the Nile river [1:22]. Amram,
apparently, remarried only after the second decree, which ordered all
Egyptians to take part! Does this make sense?
In order to answer this, let us look first at another puzzling story. In
Parshas Vayeshev, which we read several weeks ago, Yosef's brothers decide
to kill him. But "Reuven heard, and he saved him from their hands..." [Br.
37:21]. What did they do instead? They threw him in a pit, "and the pit was
empty, it had no water" [37:24]. Our Sages asked, "if it says the pit is
empty, don't I know that it has no water? Rather, it had no water, but it
did have snakes and scorpions" [Talmud Shabbos 22a]. So what kind of
"rescue" did Reuven carry out? How can the Torah credit Reuven with "saving"
Yosef, when he dumped Yosef into a pit filled with snakes and scorpions?
The answer goes to the very nature of a human being. A human being has one
trait which, above all others, distinguishes us from animals: the trait of
free will, of choice. Humans can choose to kill or not to kill; for animals,
the decision is made by a host of external factors - animals don't go on a
rampage because they "feel like doing it," nor are they generous by choice.
Only we humans have the ability to make our own decisions.
Because the natural order of things is for humans to have free will, it
would have been miraculous beyond nature for Divine Intervention to save
Yosef from his stronger brothers who had surrounded him. Because scorpions,
on the other hand, do not have free choice, it is not entirely unnatural
(though certainly unusual) for them to fail to sting and kill someone who
lands in their pit. Therefore Reuven did indeed save Yosef. He saved Yosef
from his brothers, given that Divine Intervention could then save him from
the snakes and scorpions in the pit - a miracle, but not beyond nature.
We can then understand why Amram might more willingly remarry Yocheved after
the second decree. Under the first, the midwives were commanded to kill the
boys, and had they not displayed amazing self-sacrifice, an open miracle
would have been needed to save each child. The second decree, however, put
death in the hands of the river - and thus only a "natural" miracle would be
needed to save them.
[from Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech Hertzberg zt"l, Rabbi in Baltimore for 42 years,
and my wife's grandfather, as printed in Tzaddik B'Emunaso.]
Text Copyright © 1996 Rabbi Yaakov Menken and Project Genesis, Inc.
The author is the Director of Project Genesis.
