Parashat Shmot: How One Mother Redeemed Israel

The whole Israelite redemption began with a simple motherly act – Moshe’s mother saw that he was “good,” tov. The Torah doesn’t say it as a fact: “He was good,” but as the subjective judgment of his mother—she thought he was good; she saw goodness in him. And so he became good. He grew up to be good, to do good, to save his people and bring the Torah down to earth. And it all began with his mother’s ability to see that goodness in him, to draw it out and let it grow.

Was he intrinsically good? The midrash says when Moshe was born the house filled with light. Every child is a light to our world, has the ability to fill our houses with light. The question is whether we see that light, whether we, like Yocheved, Moshe’s mother, are attuned to its goodness, take the time to cherish it and preserve it.

Seeing the goodness in the world is a divine quality; in the story of creation, the same words are used for God as are here used for Yocheved: “And God saw that it was good,” ki tov hu. Yocheved started the redemption going, began the process of getting people out of the centuries-old despair of enslavement by noticing the goodness around her. She could have weepd at the birth of her child – to what end am I brining another Israelite child into the world – to suffer more like the rest of us? But no –amidst the worst of conditions, she was still able to see the good, to see this child as a gift, and to cherish it.

The Hebrew term for gratitude is hakarat hatov, literally “recognition of the good.” It doesn’t just mean saying thank you when someone passes you the potatoes. It means recognizing that there is already abundant goodness around you in the world – seeing that the light God created is indeed tov, as is the food you eat and the way you breathe, and yes, seeing that your children are also divine gifts of light and tov.

Out of such a worldview comes redemption, daily redemption. There is no force of evil that can vanquish those who recognize the good in the world. Think of the myriads of Egyptian powers that Yocheved’s act of noticing Moshe’s goodness eventually conquered. She brought God back down to earth, insisting that, as He had originally proclaimed, tov hu, there is goodness in the things and people around her.