Parashat Shemot: The Magnificent Seven

She is a force of nature that we dare not challenge.  Smart, wise, opinionated and unflappable.  I am generalising a little but I doubt that many of you will disagree.  With her, we usually lose the argument but without her, we would certainly be lost.  I am of course referring to the Jewish mother / wife / sister / daughter / friend (delete as appropriate).

The jokes abound.

Like the one where little Yossi comes home from school to proudly announce that he’s been given a major role in the school play.  When asked by his parents what it is, he replies, “The husband.” at which point, he is told to go back to the teacher and demand that he be given a speaking part!

Years ago, my mother bought me a t-shirt bearing the legend ‘I don’t need Google, my wife knows everything’ which Stephnie has never forbidden me from wearing (did you see how I phrased that?!).  In fact, she beams whenever I put it on.

I have met very few Jewish men who admit that they ‘wear the trousers’ in their homes.  At least, not in front of their wives.  We males readily acknowledge that we are subservient to them but in truth this is not a new situation.  If we want to know when we realised that our survival as a nation rested on the shoulders of the fairer sex, look no further than this week’s Parashah.

Rabbi Sacks’ Dvar Torah in his ‘Lessons in Leadership’ book (Maggid, 2015, ‘Shemot: Women as Leaders’ pages 61-54) identified ‘six courageous women without whom, there would not have been a Moses’.

The first is Yocheved, wife of Amram, father of Moshe, Aharon and Miriam.

She protected her infant son by hiding him amongst the reeds of the Nile, whilst her daughter (the second heroine) kept an eye on his basket as it floated down the river.  The Midrash also tells us how she reconciled her parents after her father, a leader of the Israelite community, instructed the males to divorce their wives to avoid the birth of any boys that would be drowned in the Nile because of Pharaoh’s cruel decree.  Miriam’s reasoning was that it would not be wrong for women to bring children into the world if there was a 50% chance that their offspring would be murdered.  She reasoned with him, saying that Pharaoh’s decree had affected only the males, whilst Amram’s ‘decree’ was impacting both males and females, which meant that this was worse.  Her father relented, remarried Yocheved and as a result, Moshe was born.

The third and fourth women cited were Shifra and Puah, the Hebrew midwives, who refused to carry out Pharaoh’s instructions and saved the boys as they were being born.  One could argue that, according to tradition (and Sotah 11b), these were in fact different names for Yocheved and Miriam.  However, this is disputed by the Abarbanel and the Ramchal (Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzato) who provide different interpretations of their identities, so I’m happy to include them.

Jewish heroine number five is Tzippora who saved Moshe’s life whilst accompanying him back to Egypt following his encounter with Gd at the Burning Bush on Sinai.  The Torah tells us in a deeply unsettling and enigmatic (as Rabbi Sacks’ writes) episode, that Gd punished Moshe for not having circumcised their son, leading to his being brought close to death.  Tzipporah carried this out and, as a result, quite literally saved her husband’s life.

The final ‘woman of distinction’ is Bitya, otherwise known as Batya who is mentioned in Chronicles I (4.18) and understood by Chazal to be Pharaoh’s daughter, responsible for saving the infant Moshe by ‘drawing him’ from the waters, which is of course, the origin of his name.

Six women who together, and apart, saved Moshe’s life from the time before he was conceived until he reached his old age.

They set the example for future leaders who Gd sent to save us when we were at our most vulnerable, two examples being the Judge Deborah and Queen Esther.

I have recently read a biography of another iconic Jewish lady who, in modern times stood her ground and even earned the moniker of being the ‘only man’ in Ben Gurion’s cabinet.  Golda Meir’s battle against the male-dominated and chauvinistic Zionist movement as described in Deborah Lipstadt’s excellent recent book, ‘Golda Meir: Israel’s Matriarch’ (2023, Yale University’s ‘Jewish Lives’ Project), demonstrated that the tenacity and fortitude of Jewish women exhibited in the Parashah has fortunately not been curtailed.  As the world’s fourth female prime minister (Indira Gandhi’s tenure predates her by three years and Golda was elected a decade before Margaret Thatcher), she demonstrated that our people respect and value the position of women in our culture.  It is deeply regretful that her legacy will always be tarnished by the Yom Kippur War which took place under her premiership and for whose outbreak she was blamed.  She never forgave herself and as Lipstadt writes (page 225) acknowledged that since that war, “I am not that same person.”

She was a human, like the rest of us, and made mistakes (let’s not forget that Miriam also sinned for speaking Lashon Hara (Slander) about Moshe to Aharon) but this does not detract from the formidable person who spent most of her life trying to achieve the very best for her brothers and sisters.  She was the same Golda who managed to raise $50 million from American Jews for the desperately impoverished Yishuv (pre-State community) a few months before Israel’s Independence on 14^th May 1948.

If ever there was a modern Jewish heroine who fits my initial description of a lady being a force of nature, smart, wise, opinionated and unflappable, Golda certainly fits the bill.  She spoke for our nation, as few could, to a world that listened and mostly respected her opinions.  They are still making films about Golda almost half a century after her passing which speaks volumes for the impact she made. Golda Meir is one of the many formidable Jewish women who have left their mark on the world throughout history.  Others include Licoricia of Winchester, Doña Gracia Nasi, Glückel of Hameln (whose diary is a must-read), Judith, Lady Montefiore, Henrietta Szold, the founder of Hadassah, Hannah Szenes (who also happens to be one of my own heroines) and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Jewish mother / wife / sister / daughter / friend is the spiritual fuel that powers our homes, rears our children and following the Orthodox tradition, determines the Jewish identity of the next Jewish generation.  Love her, or dare I say it, loath her, she is our ‘not-so secret’ weapon.  She keeps us on the straight and narrow, makes sure that we are clothed, fed, challenged and confident.  This is not to say that we, the menfolk, don’t play our part, but we need to remember who is really in charge!  Though we may unfairly mock and satirise her, we should never underestimate how powerful she is.  She is simply, the Jewish superhero par excellence. 

Yocheved and Miriam, Shifra and Puah, Tzipporah and Batya were instrumental in protecting our greatest leader. Golda, who lived thousands of years later, in her total dedication to the Jewish people, shared many of their worthy attributes.  I consider them to be ‘The Magnificent Seven’ who represent, along with many, many others, the unique and indestructible entity that is the Jewish Woman. 

I am sure you agree!

Shavuah Tov.