Parashat Shemot 5785

The first important woman in Moses’ life – predictably – is his mother, Yokheved, the wife of Amram and the mother of his siblings Miriam and Aaron. It was Yokheved who, at the height of the Egyptian persecution, had the courage to have a child – that is, once young Miriam convinced her father to rescind his decree telling the Israelites to divorce their wives and therefore not bring children into the world. Pharaoh’s edict meant death to the boys but Miriam argued that her father’s decree was worse than Pharaoh’s. Her pure faith and her courageous argument won out and Amram relented. (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai [ed. Epstein-Melamed], p. 6).

Enter Moses, as yet unnamed, who was saved from death by the brave Hebrew midwives whom we’ll get to in a moment. Yokheved hid baby Moses for three months, after which she devised a plan in the hope that he would be rescued. We don’t know a lot about Yokheved, but in reading the text, her bravery and resourcefulness truly shine through. If such traits originate in a person’s gene pool, then it’s no accident that her children all became leaders!

The second strong female, whom I mentioned a moment ago, was Miriam, Moses’ older sister. It was she who watched over her baby brother who was nestled in a little basket which Yokheved tucked into the reeds alongside the river. It was also Miriam who approached Pharaoh’s daughter, a little bit later in the narrative, with the suggestion that the baby be nursed among his own people. The biblical text paints a portrait of young Miriam as someone who is fearless and forthright, “a ‘woman’ of action”. There’s more on Miriam!

Next were the two midwives, Shifra and Puah, who thwarted Pharaoh’s attempt at genocide. Rav in the Talmud says that Shifra and Puah were actually Yokheved and Miriam so the midwives may be synonymous with the first two influential women (Talmud Sotah 11b). The midwives were told to kill the male Israelite children at birth but Shifra and Puah “feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do. Instead, they let the baby boys live” (Ex. 1:17).

When they were summoned and accused of disobedience, they outwitted Pharaoh by making up an ingenious excuse, saying that the Hebrew women were vigorous and gave birth before the arrival of the midwives. The midwives therefore escaped punishment and they saved lives. They were true “game-changers”!

The influential woman who comes next is Tzipporah, Moses’ wife. A daughter of the Midianite priest, Jethro, she was very loyal to Moses and was determined to accompany him on his mission to Egypt, despite the fact that she probably hadn’t known what was in store for her when she said, “I do”! In a very puzzling passage in parashat Shemot, the Bible relates that it was Tzipporah who saved Moses’ life by circumcising their son (Ex. 4:24-26). This makes us think of her as a figure of impressive determination and great insight who, at a crucial moment, had a better sense than Moses himself, of what God was requiring.

We’re now about to meet a very intriguing woman: Pharaoh’s daughter. It was she who had the courage to rescue a Hebrew baby and bring him up as her own in the very palace where her father was plotting the destruction of the Israelite people. There is something both incredibly heroic and compassionate about this woman – who actually gave Moses his name.

Who was she? The Torah doesn’t give her a name. However, the first Book of Chronicles (4:18) mentions a daughter of Pharaoh, named Bitya, and it was she whom our Sages identified as the woman who saved Moses’ life, and unknowingly helped to realize the Divine plan by keeping alive the redeemer of Israel. The name Bitya (sometimes rendered as Batya) means “the daughter of God”. From this, our Sages teach the following:

The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to her: “Moses was not your son, yet you called him your son. You are not My daughter, but I shall call you My daughter” (Leviticus Rabbah 1:3). Bitya is one of the most unexpected heroines of the Hebrew Bible. Without her, Moses might not have lived. The entire account of the Exodus would have been different. She was not an Israelite, at least not then – there is a midrash that she converted later on. (Kallah Rabbati 3:23).

Bitya had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by her courage. Yet she seems to have had no doubts or hesitation. Just as it was Pharaoh who afflicted the children of Israel, it was another member of his own family, Pharaoh’s daughter – who saved the very same people. Clearly, she was another “game-changer”!

Yes, Bitya had the courage of her compassion. She maintained her resolve and then something extraordinary happened: Miriam, about whom we gave a preview earlier, said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call a Hebrew woman to nurse the child for you?” “Go,” replied Pharaoh’s daughter. This young girl of course went and got the child’s own mother, Yokheved. “Take this child and nurse him,” said Pharaoh’s daughter. “I will pay you a fee.” The woman took the child and nursed him (Ex. 2:7–9).

Then came the following turn of events:

When the child matured, his mother brought him back to Pharaoh’s daughter. She adopted him as her own son, and named him Moses.

וַיְהִי לָהּ לְבֵן וַתִּקְרָא שְׁמוֹ מֹשֶׁה וַתֹּאמֶר כִּי מִן הַמַּיִם מְשִׁיתִהוּ.

“I drew him from the water,” she said. (Ex. 2:10) It was obvious that Pharaoh’s daughter did not simply have momentary compassion. She had not forgotten this child. Not only did she remain committed to his welfare; she exercised the riskiest of strategies by adopting him and bringing him up as her own son. This showed huge courage and devotion. Bitya loved Moses as if he were her own son.

Remarkably then, Moses, the greatest of all prophets doesn’t bear a name chosen by his parents, but rather by his adoptive mother. Even the Holy One, blessed be He, didn’t call him by any other name.

So, on the surface, this parashah is about the initiation into leadership of one remarkable man, Moses, but just beneath the surface – and not far beneath – is the incredible presence of extraordinary women without whom there would not have been a Moses. It’s almost as if Moses had multiple lives, as each of these incredible women saved his life in a very real sense, beginning from the time of his birth.

The seventh and final woman whom I would like to tell you about was another “game-changer” in the life of the Jewish people – she was Serah, a daughter of Asher and a granddaughter of Jacob. She is cited in the Bible in the account of the Israelites who went down to Egypt (Gen. 46:17). The account of her abilities and her accomplishments is beyond impressive! Tons of midrashic traditions exist about this woman. Through them, we come to know a fascinating personality. Her history is intertwined with the migration to Egypt and with the enslavement, and then with yetziat mitzrayim, the exodus from Egypt, and finally with the return to Eretz Israel. She lived to an extremely old age and reportedly was blessed with much earthly wisdom and knowledge which she repeatedly used to help the Israelite people.

Serah’s influence began when Joseph was reunited with his brothers. When he sent them back to Canaan to bring his/their father Jacob to him in Egypt, Joseph told them not to alarm their elderly father. You’ll recall that Jacob thought that Joseph had been devoured by wild beasts 22 years earlier… So the brothers sought out Serah and asked her to sit with Jacob and to play for him on the lyre, in this manner gently revealing to him that Joseph was still alive (Midrash HaGadol on Gen. 45:26). Serah played and sang soothingly over and over again: “Joseph, my uncle, did not die – he lives and rules all the land of Egypt.”

There is a Midrash which tells how Serah helped Moses again – this time to fulfill the oath Moses swore, to carry up Joseph’s bones. At the time of the Exodus, Moses was tasked with locating Joseph’s remains. He searched for his coffin throughout the land of Egypt but could not find it. Serah was the only one of that generation still alive. Moses went to her and asked: “Do you know where Joseph is buried?” She answered, pointing to the Nile River: “They placed him here. The Egyptians made for him a metal coffin and sunk it in the Nile, so that its waters would be blessed.”

Moses then went to the Nile, stood on the bank and shouted: “Joseph, Joseph, the time has come for the oath that God swore to our father Abraham, that He will redeem His children. Give honor to the Lord, the God of Israel, and do not delay your redemption, lest we be delayed on your account. If you show yourself, it will be well; and if not, then we are free from your oath, that is, if you will not raise your coffin, we will go forth from Egypt and leave you here.” Personally, I get goose flesh when I read what happened next:

Joseph’s coffin immediately rose to the surface and Moses took it (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, Masekhta Vayehi Beshalah, Petihtah; BT Sotah 13a). This led the Rabbis to state that Serah delivered “the faithful one to the faithful one,” since she gave Joseph over to Moses when they departed from Egypt (Gen. Rabbah 94:9).

The persona of Serah, then, embodies the history of the people of Israel. Her character is linked with those of our great leaders, and the above examples demonstrate how she actually hastened the realization of the Divine plan.

The traditions of Serah’s extreme longevity apparently have their basis in the fact that she is mentioned both in the count of those who went to Egypt and in the list of those who entered Eretz Israel.

Serah’s lifespan is in the hundreds of years range, given the personalities she interacted with – from Joseph to Moses to King David. In fact, later traditions claimed that she never died at all but entered the Garden of Eden while still alive (Kallah Rabbati 3:23; Masekhet Derekh Eretz 1:18).

In a subsequent midrash, Jacob is the one who blessed Serah that she would live forever, telling her: “My daughter, because you revived my spirit, death shall never rule you” (Sefer ha-Yashar, Vayigash, chap. 14).

Yokheved, Miriam, Shifra, Puah, Tzipporah, Bitya and Serah, then, were all leaders not because of any official position they held (in the case of Bitya she proved to be a leader apart from her official title as a princess of Egypt). They were leaders because they had courage and a conscience and because they possessed great wisdom and insight. They refused to be intimidated by power, or to be defeated by their surroundings. They were truly heroines of the Exodus. Their courage is still an inspiration for us today. I submit to you that they were all “game-changers”!

Friends, we’re living in acutely challenging times. Each and every one of us knows that. May we all find that moral compass which our heroines possessed – when faced with challenges which demand difficult responses. May God imbue us with the ability to rise to the challenges which demand more of us than we sometimes think we are capable of. This is what our heroines from Parashat Shemot did, again and again.

May the light of Torah and the teachings of Judaism always illumine our paths and may God’s Guiding Presence always be our road map – in informing our actions, in guiding our words and in sanctifying our deeds.
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Rabbi Marge Wise (AJR ’21), is also known as the Journey Rabbi (journeyrabbi.com). Her passion is outreach, including teaching prospective Jews by choice and accompanying them on their journey to formal conversion. She teaches in person and on Zoom – currently her students span 5 continents and as many time zones!