Parshas Shemos: Remember Who Your Family Is! (And the Role of Women in Judaism)

This week, I stumbled across a YouTube video from the National Jewish Outreach Program (NJOP) called “Jew Walking.”  It’s a take on a popular television concept, where the host takes to the streets to see just how much the people walking around out there really know.  This particular video targeted Jews on New York’s Upper West Side and wanted to find out just how much they know.

Sadly, the results weren’t all that great.  All the people asked could name Jesus’s mother without hesitation but only one could name Moshe’s (Moses’s) mother!  That’s pretty pathetic, especially since she is such an important female figure in the Torah.

Which leads me to some other ideas that came up this week, like the role of women in the Torah.  We learn in Judaism that women are actually created closer in the image of G-d than men.  Spiritually, we don’t need to wear yarmulkes and tzitzit in order to be reminded of Hashem’s presence. We don’t need to pray with a minyan (a quorum of 10 Jewish men).  We don’t need it because we’re aware of it at all times.  (But don’t feel bad, guys – remember, you thank G-d every morning for being a man and not a woman in the morning blessings because you get the added merit of doing all those extra commandments you’re obligated to do!)

Both of these concepts – family and the role of women – feature prominently in this week’s parsha and are strongly interlinked.  This should come as no surprise as the traditional role of a woman in Jewish society is to raise and protect her family. (Just look at the lyrics of the famous song “Aishet Chayil,” “Woman of Valor” – the woman in this song is providing for her family – husband and children alike – and providing them with everything from warm clothing to food to love and support.)  This parsha allows us to trace this tradition back even further and to see how women, physically and spiritually alike, are the protectors of the entire Jewish people.

First the importance of family comes up, as the parsha opens with the listing of the Jewish families who went down to Egypt.  As the Jews were swiftly sucked into the Egyptian culture, they needed to have strong reminders of where they came from and who their families were in order to avoid being assimilated completely.  I am sure this is an idea we can all identify with in today’s modern society.  We assimilate more and more into the culture that surrounds us, yet, for some reason, when we are reminded that we are related to Avraham (Abraham), Yitzchak (Isaac), and Yaakov (Jacob), our hearts swell with pride.  In those moments, we are reminded that we are Jewish princes and princesses and we suddenly want to cast off our assimilation, at least as much as we are able.  So too in Egypt.  The Jews, in order to avoid being lost completely within their host society, had to begin with a reminder of who their families were.

But the very existence of the Jewish families was at stake, on a couple of different levels, and it was up to the women to save them.  On a physical level, Hashem made a miracle and the Jewish women began giving birth to many babies at a time.  Yet even that was not enough – the Jewish people had to be saved by the women on a spiritual level, too.  Amram was the leader of his people (and the father of Moshe) and when Pharoah commanded the Jewish boys to be thrown into the river and killed, Amram divorced his wife, Yocheved, which encouraged all the Jewish people to do the same.  It was his daughter Miriam who helped save the Jewish people that time.  “Daddy,” she pleaded with her father, “so Pharaoh will kill the boys, but will you prevent the girls from living, too?”  Amram re-married Yocheved and as a result, she gave birth to a son – Moshe Rabbeinu.

Yocheved and Miriam featured more in this week’s parsha, too, as midwives, going under the names Shifra and Puah.  When Pharaoh commanded them to kill all baby boys born immediately, they agreed to do so – and then disobeyed.  On the contrary, the actually helped the births along because they wanted the Jewish nation to increase. When Pharaoh asked why so many boys were still being born alive, Shifra and Puah simply told him that the Jewish women gave birth too quickly and they could not reach them in time to carry out his order.

They were helped, of course, by all the women.  The women had to be able to conceive and so they needed to have intimate times with their husbands.  They did their best to accomplish this by using copper mirrors to do their makeup and their hair, to make themselves as attractive as possible.  As a result, they bore many children.  G-d smiled upon this and those same mirrors were later used to make basins for the mishkan (the tabernacle).

Each and every person needs to remember that he or she has a vital and important role in the Jewish community.  Nobody is more or less important than anybody else.  We are all part of the same family and we must all work together.  We have to remember who we are and where we came from, so we don’t lose ourselves.  If we’re men, we have to value and respect the women in our lives – and if we’re women, we have to live up to the standards set by the women who came before us and earn that respect.  There is an important role for every person in Jewish life.

Shabbat Shalom!