CANTOR’S CORNER

Cantor Eyal Bitton shares a few thoughts on prayer and the parasha of the week.

2023-12-16 Parashat Miketz

My grandfather, Nissim Bitton, would recount a well-known tragedy that had occurred in Marrakesh many years ago. One of my grandfather’s neighbors, the Zabots, had a son who had gone missing when he was two or three years-old, in the 1930s.

One day, perhaps in 1943, my grandfather was riding his bike through an unusual route to his shop. Along the way, he encountered a shaven-headed child, dressed in Arab garb, standing at the entrance of a small store. Nissim, upon a closer look, recognized a strong resemblance between the child and his neighbor’s missing child who had disappeared around the age of two or three. My grandfather promptly cycled to the commissariat (French police station) to report his discovery. Subsequently, he informed the Zabot family, the parents of the missing child, and the police conducted an investigation at the small shop.

Court proceedings began a few days later, with Nissim actively participating as a witness due to his knowledge of the child’s disappearance and the circumstances of his discovery. In the absence of DNA tests at that time, pictures were taken to determine the child’s physical resemblance to his biological parents. It was established that the child shared features with his birth mother.

Because the case involved Muslims as well as Jews, the decision-making was not left exclusively to the judge; a political department in Rabat was included in the process and was involved in the final ruling. 

Through the course of the proceedings, it was revealed that the child had been kidnapped by an Arab woman while the boy was playing near his house. The Arab woman sold him to a childless woman, who turned out to be the sister-in-law of the tanner in whose shop the child was working. Despite being of school-going age, the child worked full-time.

Among the Arabs, the child was known as “the son of the Jew.”

It was clear, then, that this child belonged to Jewish parents. The case, however, was not determined by who the biological parents were. Instead, the child, who was now between 9 and 11 yers of age, was asked to choose which mother he would like to live with. Unsurprisingly, the child chose the adoptive mother, with whom he had lived for most of his life. Unfortunately, the biological parents had no choice but to respect the judge’s decision.

It was a tragedy at multiple levels. The Zabot family had lost their two or three-year-old son. Then they discovered that their son had been kidnapped. Then they were denied justice in a court of law. 

(Years later, I was told, the boy left Morocco for Israel and lived his life thereafter as a Jew. It is likely that the boy learned more about who he was thanks to the trial, and that, in Israel, he was reunited with his family.)

The injustice of that initial act of kidnapping and of robbing this child of the life he should have led, is a calamity. The wrongs are irreparable. 

King Solomon and the Two Mothers

This week, the Haftarah we read for Parashat Miketz is the famous story of two women claiming the same baby while King Solomon has to judge who is the rightful mother. Two prostitutes, living in the same house, gave birth within one day of each other. Within a couple of days, a tragedy occurs. One woman rolls over while sleeping and accidentally kills her own baby. She switches babies with the other woman while she sleeps. The woman whose baby was stolen from her takes the case to the royal court. She tells King Solomon that the other woman, “arose in the night and took my son from my side while your maidservant was asleep.” (I Kings 3:20.) 

There is no doubt that the woman who stole the living baby was distraught the night she made the switch. There is no doubt that she was panicked and desperate. She may not have been thinking rationally, but out of sheer emotion – grief, guilt, and anguish. Nevertheless, taking someone else’s child is an inexcusable act. It is an inconceivable injury to the other parent, and it is a horrific crime against the child. 

The Hostages

Of course, I can’t help but think of the tragic and monstrous acts of Hamas on October 7. In addition to the horrific massacres and atrocities they committed, this Palestinian terrorist group kidnapped over 200 innocent Israelis, including children and infants. These people were stolen from their families. The lives they are living are not the lives they should be living; they are certainly not the lives they would have chosen for themselves. The significant difference is that the Israelis kidnapped on October 7, 2023, are being held as pawns, as hostages, not because someone else wanted to be their parents (as obviously wrong as that is).

In the words of our siddur just before the Shacharit Amidah, we pray for God to “motzi asirim… v’oneh l’amo”, to “free the captives… and to answer God’s people, Israel.”