Reflections

Reflections for living, grieving, celebrating, and becoming

— with Rabbi Jerid

Welcome.

This space is a place for reflection—on living and grieving, on celebration and change, on becoming who we are over time.

Some reflections here will draw from Jewish tradition: Torah portions, holidays, and cultural wisdom. Others will arise from pastoral moments, chaplaincy work, or the quiet questions that surface when life slows us down. All of them are offered not as answers, but as companions—words to walk with rather than conclusions to arrive at.

This is not a space for belief statements or certainty. It is a space for meaning-making, honesty, and presence. Wherever you come from—religiously, culturally, or personally—you are welcome here.

New reflections will appear over time, sometimes in writing, sometimes in video. This one will remain here as an open doorway. The newest reflections will unfold just below this welcome—moments along the path.

I am glad you are here.
Rabbi Jerid

She Saw the Child

Monday, 24 August 2026 | 11 Elul 5786

Last evening, I had the privilege of planning and leading Sunday Vespers at Bayview Retirement Community while Rev. Lindsey Eklund was away. I was grateful to be joined in leading the service by Rev. Ann Morgan, a Bayview resident and retired clergy member.

For the service, I drew from the lectionary readings for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, focusing especially on the reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, Exodus 1:8–2:10. In recent weeks, Rev. Lindsey has been guiding the Bayview community through Faces of Our Faith: Bold and Untold Stories, inviting us to notice some of the people in scripture whose stories are often overshadowed by more familiar names. I chose to continue that theme.

Our reflection centered on Pharaoh’s daughter, the unnamed woman in Exodus who discovers a Hebrew child hidden among the reeds, recognizes his vulnerability, and chooses compassion.

What follows is adapted from the reflection I shared during Sunday Vespers on August 23, 2026.

Most of us know Moses. Or at least we know the highlights.

We know Moses standing before Pharaoh. Moses at the burning bush. Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses at the sea. Moses receiving the commandments.

Moses becomes one of the towering figures of the biblical story.

But before Moses was Moses, he was simply a child.

A vulnerable child.

A child whose life depended upon other people being willing to see him, protect him, and act on his behalf.

And some of the most important people in that story are not the people whose names we remember.

As a Jew, I come to this story as one of the foundational stories of my people. It is part of the great narrative of our liberation from slavery in Egypt. But I also come to it simply as a human being, because long before the burning bush, the plagues, the sea, or the commandments, Moses's story depends upon people willing to see another human being and act with compassion.

This evening I want us to notice one of those people.

We don't even know her name.

The text simply calls her Pharaoh's daughter.

And yet, standing beside the Nile, she makes a choice that will change everything.

The story begins in a world shaped by fear. Sound familiar?

Pharaoh becomes afraid of the growing Hebrew population. Today we could use many other groups to replace “Hebrew.” And notice what happens next: fear becomes policy. Policy becomes oppression. Eventually, Pharaoh gives a horrifying command: every Hebrew boy who is born is to be thrown into the Nile.

The labels change across generations—Hebrew, immigrant, refugee, transgender, outsider—but we should recognize the pattern: fear of a group can make it easier to stop seeing the people within it.

It is into that world that Moses is born.

His mother hides him as long as she can. And when she can hide him no longer, she places him in a basket among the reeds along the river. His sister watches from a distance.

Then Pharaoh's daughter comes down to the Nile.

She sees the basket.

She has it brought to her.

She opens it.

And there is a baby crying.

The text tells us that she had compassion for him.

But then comes the detail that I find so remarkable.

She says, “This must be one of the Hebrews' children.”

She knows.

She does not rescue this child because she mistakes him for someone from her own household.

She does not rescue him because his identity is somehow hidden from her.

She knows exactly who he is.

He is Hebrew.

He belongs to the people her father fears.

He belongs to the people Pharaoh has declared a threat.

According to the divisions of her world, this child is one of them.

And still—

she saw the child.

Not merely a Hebrew child.

Not a political problem.

Not a threat.

Not an outsider.

A crying child.

And she had compassion.

I think there is something very important here.

We sometimes speak about compassion by saying things like, “Deep down, we're really all the same.”

There is something beautiful in that sentiment. But I'm not sure this story lets us take the easy way out.

Pharaoh's daughter and this Hebrew child were not the same.

She was Egyptian. He was Hebrew.

She belonged to the household of power. He belonged to an enslaved people.

She was protected by the system. His very life was threatened by it.

Those differences were real.

And she saw them.

The miracle of this story is not that Pharaoh's daughter failed to see the difference.

The miracle is that she saw the difference—and compassion remained.

Perhaps that is one of the questions this ancient story asks of us today:

What happens when we refuse to let the identities and divisions handed to us determine whom we are willing to see as human?

Compassion does not require us to pretend that differences don't exist.

It does not ask us to erase our histories, our identities, our convictions, or even our disagreements.

But it does ask something of us.

It asks us to refuse to let difference become a reason for indifference.

Pharaoh's daughter could have closed the basket.

She could have looked away.

She could have told herself that this child was someone else's problem.

Instead, she allowed what she saw to matter.

She saw the child.

And because she saw him, she could no longer simply look away.

That ancient temptation to turn human beings into categories has never really left us.

We still have words that can become walls.

Immigrant. Refugee. Undocumented. Citizen. Foreigner. Insider. Outsider.

Those words may describe something real. Nations have legitimate questions to wrestle with about borders, laws, resources, security, and responsibility. People of goodwill may disagree about how those questions should be answered.

But disagreement about policy must never become permission to stop seeing people as people. When we allow fear of a group to determine how we see the individuals within it, terrible things can become imaginable—and then permissible.

But Pharaoh's daughter reminds us that there is another question—one that comes before policy and politics:

Can we still see the human being?

Can we look beyond the category long enough to see the person standing before us?

A frightened child is still a frightened child.

A mother trying to protect her family is still a mother.

A person longing for safety, dignity, opportunity, or belonging is still a person.

We may disagree about what should happen next. Compassion does not require agreement.

But compassion does require that we refuse to make another person's humanity conditional upon our agreement with them.

Pharaoh's daughter knew that the child in the basket was Hebrew.

She knew the boundary she was crossing.

And still, she allowed his vulnerability to make a claim upon her.

She saw the child.

Perhaps one of the spiritual challenges of our own time is learning to do the same.

And, of course, this is not only about immigration.

It is much easier to recognize the problem when the categories are large and public. But we create smaller categories every day.

Republican. Democrat.

Christian. Jewish. 

Muslim. Hindu.

Humanist. None of the above.

Gay. Straight.

Young. Old.

Independent Living. Assisted Living. Memory Care. [Note: The three categories at Bayview.]

And sometimes our categories are even more personal:

The neighbor who gets on our nerves.

The relative whose choices we do not understand.

The person whose politics make conversation difficult.

The caregiver who seems rushed.

The person at dinner who tells us a story we have already heard—perhaps more than once. You know this person. 

And, if we're honest, sometimes we may be this person.

Every one of us knows how quickly a person can become, in our minds, a label.

And perhaps every one of us also knows what it feels like to be reduced to nothing more than a label.

But there is always more to a human being than the category we have placed around them.

Every day gives us small opportunities to practice what Pharaoh's daughter practiced beside the Nile:

To stop.

To notice.

To become curious rather than certain.

To listen.

To allow another person's experience to matter.

We may not change our minds.

We may not erase the differences between us.

We may still disagree.

But perhaps we can refuse to let disagreement become indifference.

Perhaps we can look across whatever river separates us and say:

There is a person there.

Someone with a story.

Someone who has known joy and grief.

Someone who has been afraid.

Someone who wants to be seen …. like we all do.

And sometimes, simply seeing another person - fully - is where compassion begins.

There is one more thing about Pharaoh’s daughter that I find deeply hopeful.

She did not save everyone.

She did not end Pharaoh’s oppression.

She did not liberate the Hebrew people.

She did not dismantle the system that had placed this child in danger.

She saved one child … Just one child.

And of course, one child was not enough.

There were other children.

Other families.

Other suffering.

But for this child, what she did was everything.

Sometimes the problems around us feel so large that we begin to believe our small acts cannot possibly matter.

What difference can one conversation make?

One meal?

One phone call?

One welcome?

One act of kindness?

One moment of courage?

One person choosing to care?

The story of Pharaoh’s daughter reminds us that we are not always asked to solve everything.

Sometimes we are simply asked to respond to what is in front of us.

She could not know who this child would become.

She did not know about the burning bush.

She did not know that he would one day stand before Pharaoh and demand freedom for his people.

She did not know about the sea or the commandments or the long story that would follow.

She simply knew that … a child was crying.

And she chose not to turn away.

That simple choice opened a future she could not yet imagine.

Perhaps some of our choices do the same.

Most of us will never know the full effect of the compassion we offer.

We may never know what became possible because we listened.

Because we welcomed.

Because we protected.

Because we encouraged.

Because we treated someone with dignity when the world around them did not.

Because, for one moment, we refused to reduce a person to a category.

Behind one of the most famous figures in the biblical story stands an unnamed woman beside a river.

She heard crying.

She opened a basket.

She recognized difference.

And she chose compassion.

So perhaps the question this ancient story leaves with us is not whether we can save the world.

Perhaps it is something simpler.

And perhaps something harder.

When the basket appears before us, will we open it?

When we encounter someone who has been labeled “other,” will we stop long enough to see the person?

When compassion asks something of us, will we allow what we see to matter?

Will we see the child?

May we have the courage to see.

And having seen,

may we have the compassion to care, 

the wisdom to discern, 

and the strength to act.

Amen.

With you through life’s moments,

Rabbi Jerid

Previous reflections can be found here.