Saturday, December 30, 2023

Moses was born circumcised (Shemot)

Moses was born already circumcised. Since he was Jewish already from birth, he refused the milk of Egyptian women. When the daughter of Pharaoh found him, she had to find a wet nurse for a three-month-old baby, and this is when she tried the Egyptian wet nurses without success.

Where is that in the Torah? The sister of Moses, Miriam, said to Pharaoh's daughter, "Shall I go and find one of the Hebrew women to nurse him?" The first letters of her words spell "He is circumcised."

מִן הָעִבְרִיֹּת; וְתֵינִק לָךְ - "from the Hebrew women, to nurse him for you."

First letters:

מהול - circumcised

When Moses's mother first looked at him, "she saw that he was good." That is because the foreskin is called "bad," and Moses was "good," that is, circumcised. 


Art: Moses in the Bullrushes by Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau

Saturday, December 2, 2023

The child of yibum with brother's widow is his reincarnation (Vayeshev)

Tamar succeeded in making Judah sleep with her. This way, Judah performed a "yibum," also known as "marrying brother's widow." Previously, Judah's son Onan did a "yibum" with Tamar, his brother's Er widow. Judah's act with Tamar could qualify, by stretch, as a "yibum."

The secret of yibum is that the child born of such a union is a reincarnation of the brother who passed away. This worked. Tamar had twins, and they were reincarnations of her two previous husbands. In their new lives, they corrected their previous mistakes.

The midwife marked the firstborn by tying a red thread on his hand - because their previous mistake involved hands. Zerah, who is the reincarnation of Onan, gave his hand first. He felt that he was not as bad as Er because he at least had a reason, not wanting to have a child in this brother's name. Still, he got a thread whose color was red - because he was not wholly blameless.

Art: Judah and Tamar by Arent de Gelder