Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Jonathan Sacks on Moses and Batya

Jonathan Sacks points out that in Chronicles we are told that Pharoah's daughter was called Batya (The daughter of G-d). Just as she took Moses as a son, so too, in reward for her courage in adopting Moses, G-d takes her as his daughter.

He also answers my earlier question about Moses' name. In contrast to Joseph, who had an Egyptian name but was called Yosef in the Torah, Moses is only called by his Egyptian name. This is because theTorah wanted to give credit to Pharoah's daughter for having saved Moses.

1 comment:

Avram said...

Moses had many names, even some given by Hashem ... and yet, as you rightly put, only Batya's name for him stood (Mesirat Nefesh).

It also should lead most of us to understand the importance of our names and how we must carry them 'proudly' (in a humble way of course!)