Maureena’s Torah Reflections
Parashat Shemot. Exodus 1:1-6:1
Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the river, while her young women walked beside the river. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her servant woman [amatah, her arm] and took it (Ex. 2:5).
Pharaoh’s daughter, Bithiah, saw the basket, and sent her servant woman to take it. Who is the servant woman, because her young women were not with her but were walking along the river? The servant woman is her arm.
My conclusion: Our limbs are our servants. We need to treat them graciously.
Note. Bithiah literally means Bat Yah, daughter of God, which, according to the midrash is a new name given to her because of her good deeds.
Prepared by Prof. Sr. Maureena Fritz nds
The Hebrew word, ama [אָמָה], means a female servant or hand maid (the addition of a hey ה, makes it, her female servant). A similar sounding word, with the same Hebrew letters, amah [אַמָּה], means, cubit, a measurement based upon the length of the forearm, from elbow to fingertip. Aggadah draws upon this wordplay. The sages suggest the interpretation of ama as “her arm” rather than “her female servant” (Talmud, Sotah 12b), creating the midrash that Bithiah stretched out her arm to a miraculous length to take the child from the reeds.
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“Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies.”
Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions: Nostra Aetate, No. 4