Sunday, June 03, 2007

Talking Torah with the Baby Bears

Heard around the family dinner table this weekend:

Kid: ... so Moshe married a really beautiful woman.

DB: Wait. Is that what the posuk (verse) says?

Kid: I dunno

DB: Let's check (Gets book. Flips pages.) Okay, it doesn't say "beautiful woman." It says he married a Cushite.

Kid: Right, Cushite means black. People from Cush are black. It means Moshe married someone who was so beautiful it was like she was black.

DB: So why didn't the Torah just say she was beautiful? Wouldn't that have been simpler? If she was pretty why doesn't it just say that she was beautiful? When I want to tell Ima that she's pretty, do I say that she's pretty, or do I say that she's black?

Kid: Hmmmm. Maybe Moshe's wife was from Cush?

DB: No, it says elswehere that Moshe married a woman from Midian.

Kid: I know! Maybe Moshe married a SECOND wife, and she was from Cush, and black...

DB: Okay

Kid: ...and the sin that Miriam did was that she was being racist?

DB: (bursting with pride) Could be. Could be.

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