Gentiles Unclean In Eyes of Jews!? You Decide People- These Are Their Words! V2.1b U_0102
Doc Tavish
http://web.archive.org/web/19970220061718re_/www.sphds.org/SPHDS/Parashot/shemot.html
(Link active February 8, 2004. Archived locally as: sphds_shemot)
PARSHAT HASHAVOUAH Shemot
[...]
Our rabbis explain that when the Torah states that Miryam asked the daughter of
Pharaoh, Batyah, "should I go and call a Hebrew woman to nurse the baby for
you," (Shemot 2:7) the reason that Miryam made the offer is because Moshe had
refused to be nursed by Egyptian women. Batyah had immediately seen that the
baby was crying and obviously hungry and thirsty from the heat of the sixth of
Sivan (in Egypt the heat can be very intense); so immediately she brought an
Egyptian woman to nurse the baby. But this three month old baby would not nurse
from the Egyptian woman and continued to cry; Batyah brought more Egyptian women
to nurse the baby because she thought that there was a problem with the milk of
the first woman.
Our Rabbis explain that "they brought him [Moshe] in front of many Egyptian to
nurse and he would not nurse." (See Rashi on Shemot 2:7). Then this six year old
girl (Miryam) approached the much older daughter of Pharaoh and told her that
this baby is a Jew and therefore he will not nurse from the milk of a non-Jew.
This was the case even though drinking this milk was halakhically permissible
because he was a young baby whose life was considered to be in danger. Miryam
explained to Pharaoh's daughter that a Jewish soul will prefer to not even touch
food that is not Kosher for it "stops" up the soul. After all this child will,
in the future, write in the Torah "do not defile yourselves with them, because
it will make you impure." (Vayikra 11:43). The root for impure in Hebrew is
tet-mem-aleph, but in this verse the aleph is omitted and the word is written
vav-nun-tet-mem-taf-mem. The rabbis explain that this word might alternatively
be understood to be vav-nun-tet-mem-tet-mem and then this would be teaching us
that non-kosher food stops up (t-m-t-m) the soul; in other words, the act
of violating the rules of kashrut makes one spiritually insensitive. (Yoma 39a).
Moshe, the baby, was trying to avoid being made spiritually insensitive...
With many thanks to the Hamaoui's
for sponsoring this parasha in loving memory of their mother, Miriam bat David.
Blessed be her memory.
This site is operated By Rabbi Yossi Ohana.Translation by Menachem Lazroff.
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Their words and teachings folks!
The Pharisees to this very day still continue in such bigotry and I have
cataloged many examples of hatred by the Pharisees against the rest of
humanity below.
Tavish