By the Virtue of the Righteous Women
I
The obligation of women to drink the four cups of wine at the Pesach seder is explained by R. Yehoshua
“For they too were included in that miracle” – As we say (Sota 11b): As the reward for the righteous women who lived in that generation, the Israelites were delivered.
The Talmudic passage in Sota (to which Rashi and Rashbam refer) teaches that the redemption of Pesach was actualized by virtue of the righteous women living in that generation. The gemara there brings the view of R. Avira that although the men were downtrodden by servitude and had given up on the future, the women ensured the continuity of the Jewish people:
R. Avira expounded: As the reward for the righteous women who lived in that generation, the Israelites were delivered from
According to R. Avira, the women’s righteousness found primary expression in the efforts they made to ensure reproduction. It seems to me that R. Avira’s derasha can be anchored in the plain sense of the biblical verses.
In the exodus from
A rudimentary examination of the biography of Moshe already provides a clear answer to our question. The person who hides Moshe from the death sentence proclaimed by the Egyptians is his mother, and not his father; it is his sister who builds an ark for him and sends him out in it on the Nile, even though the common practice is for men to build such things; it is his sister who stands among the reeds in order to watch over the ark, and it is she who displays cunning and resourcefulness when she calls for a nursemaid “from the Hebrews” at just the right moment. Without a doubt, then, the characters who play the most important role in saving Moshe’s life are his sister and his mother, Miriam and Yocheved.
The third character who plays a role in the saving of Moshe from Pharaoh’s decree is Pharaoh’s daughter, who raises Moshe in Pharaoh’s house. Later, when Moshe returns to
Clearly, then, although it was indeed Moshe who redeemed
II
Let us now shift our focus from Moshe the individual to
The Torah seems to emphasize the fact that the people of
Three important lessons may be learned from the conduct of the midwives. First, we witness the simple humanity and natural morality that are expressed in the midwives’ refusal to participate in the killing of the newborns. Second, we learn that murder is one of the prohibitions for which one must give up one’s life rather than commit the transgression, for were it not for the midwives’ cunning answer, Pharaoh would have had them executed. Third, Shifra and Pu’ah established the first underground in history of a slave-nation rising up against its subjugators. I wish to expand upon this third point.
According to the Ibn Ezra, Shifra and Pu’ah’s actions guided many other midwives in their proud struggle against the enemy’s decree. This underground did not engage in espionage or the blowing up of bridges, but rather in incomparable acts of bravery akin to the rescue of comrades trapped under enemy fire. It was here that the real battle for freedom began, with the deliverance of the will of the people of
III
Moshe’s character reveals itself already in his first two public appearances. In his first appearance, Moshe sees that “there is no man” and strikes the Egyptian oppressor and rescues the Hebrew slave. In his second appearance, Moshe preaches his essential teaching to the Hebrew whom he encounters: “Why do you smite your fellow?” Many generations will pass until Moshe’s great successor – R. Akiva – would establish Moshe’s actions as his essential teaching: “‘And you shall love your neighbor as yourself’ – this is a great principle in the Torah.” This is the man whom God chose to deliver the Torah to
As we have seen, however, Moshe’s actions were undoubtedly influenced by those righteous women who surrounded him from the moment of his conception and birth – righteous women by whose virtue the people of
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