A Tale of Two Daughters of Pharaoh

Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai says: Hagar was the daughter of Pharaoh. When Pharaoh saw the deeds done on behalf of Sarah in his palace, he gave his daughter to Sarah, saying: “Better that my daughter be a handmaiden in her home and not a matron in any other home.                     Breishit Rabba 45

            Rabbi Shimon’s comment suggests a comparison with another daughter of Pharaoh, who saved the infant Moses and raised him as her son. [Exodus 2:5ff]

            Interestingly, in each of the chapters, Hagar and her son Ishmael in the desert [Genesis 21:14ff] and Pharaoh’s daughter saving Moses, the boy is referred to both as a “child” (yeled) and as a “lad” (na’ar). Further, the words “yeled” and “na’ar” appear seven times in each chapter. It is not by chance, rather it is as if the Torah wants us to compare and contrast the two chapters.

            Hagar and her son were sent away from the home of Abraham and wandered in the wilderness of Beer Sheba, and when they had drunk all their water, and death by thirst seemed imminent, Hagar’s reaction was:

When the water in the skin was used up, she cast the boy under one of the bushes. She walked away, and sat down facing him, about a bowshot away. She said, “Let me not see the boy die.” She sat a good way off, and she wept in a loud voice.          Genesis 21:15-16 

            Other than crying, Hagar did nothing. (Rashi [21:16] comments that as Ishmael’s apparent death came closer, Hagar moved further away from her son.) Beyond this, Hagar’s reaction was egocentric. Rather than doing whatever she could to encourage and help her son, rather than hugging him in what seemingly were his last minutes of life, Hagar declared “Let me not see the boy die.” Hagar placed herself, rather than her son, in the center.

            Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch notes the vast difference between Hagar’s approach and that of a Jewish mother:

A Jewish mother would not have forsaken her child, even if all she could would be to try to pacify him, even if it were only to soothe him for the millionth part of a second.

            Rabbi Menashe Klein stresses Hagar’s inaction, commenting that she should have searched for water for her son. Hagar perhaps even had the right to expect that miraculously someone would show up with water, since she had already seen an angel when she ran away the first time [Genesis 16:7ff] and had herself experienced a miracle. In any event, she should have sought some way of keeping her son alive, especially knowing that the angel had promised, in God’s name: “I will grant you many descendants. They will be so many that they will be uncountable.”

            In contrast to Hagar, Bitya, daughter of Pharaoh (our Sages [Shemot Rabba 1:26] taught that this was her name) saw an infant, son of the people against whom her father had decreed “'Every boy who is born must be cast into the Nile” [Exodus 1:22] and reacted with compassion [ibid. 2:6].

            Our Sages relate the words of Bitya’s servants who accompanied her to the banks of the Nile:

When (the servants) saw that she wished to rescue Moses, they said to her, “'Mistress, it is the custom of the world that when a human king makes a decree, though everybody else does not obey it, at least his children and the members of his household obey it; but you  transgress your father's decree!” Gabriel came and beat them to the ground.                                                                           Babylonian Talmud, Sota 12b

            Bitya, an Egyptian princess, did not think of herself nor of her personal status, rather acted out of compassion to save an infant who not only was not of her own nation, but from the nation against whom her father had issued his dastardly decree. Bitya chose to defy her father’s decree and do what she considered to be morally correct. (We may note that some of our Sages understand that Bitya herself fetched Moses’ ark. In contrast to Hagar, who cast her son under the bushes in order to distance herself from him, Bitya extended her arm to bring the infant close to her.)

            Our Sages have great praise for Bitya, teaching that she converted to Judaism and was among the few mortals who entered the Garden of Eden alive. [Midrash Mishlei] Pirkei d’Rebbi Eliezer [chapter 48] teaches that Bitya merited clinging to the wings of the Shechina and that she is called “the daughter of God.” (the translation of her name)

            Considering her lofty soul, it would have been surprising had Bitya not converted to Judaism. Indeed, Rabbi Shimon bar Yoḥai, who taught that Hagar was pharaoh’s daughter, taught as well that Bitya went down to the river [Exodus 2:5] to purify herself from the idols of her father’s palace, that is to immerse herself for the sake of conversion.

            The bottom line is that despite the fact that Hagar was privileged to live in the home of our father Abraham, she maintained her Egyptian mentality, while Bitya, who grew up in Pharaoh’s palace was able to overcome her “Egyptianness.”