Each year during Passover, we recount the story of the Israelites’ escape from captivity in Egypt. We recall how they fled into the desert and celebrate the rise of their brave leader, Moses. Wandering in the desert, Moses received teachings from the Divine, shaped the stunned and scattered Israelites into a single people, and ultimately helped our ancestors find their voice.

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Moses was a prophet and a leader, but he was also just a man. His story goes like ours — ups and down, tribulations, instants of Divine light, moments of missing the mark. Moses became an extraordinary leader because he recognized the Divine when it burned before him.

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Moses’s birth might have been considered a miracle, since he was born during a decree to kill all newborn Israelite boys. Yet each year when we tell the story, we remember that it was not the hand of the Divine that spared him, but the hands of five courageous women: his mother, Yocheved; his sister, Miriam; the midwives Shifrah and Puah; and the Pharaoh’s own daughter, Batya. Each woman, mentioned by name in the first chapter of Exodus, played a vital role in Moses’s life. They each helped Moses become strong enough to share his light. Without these women, Moses may never have led the Israelites out of Egypt.

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The Women Who Drew out Moses

There came a time when the Pharaoh forgot the lessons of his grandfathers. Ignorant of everything the Israelites had contributed to Egypt in generations past, he enslaved them. Even then, he feared them, that one day they would join their numbers to his enemies and overthrow him, and so he commanded that all Hebrew newborn boys be drowned in the Nile. This would be the midwives’ task.

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Two midwives, Shifrah and Puah, defied Pharaoh. They lied, claiming that the Hebrew women gave birth before the midwives could reach their houses. Why did they take such a risk? Shifrah and Puah, Exodus explains, felt such awe for the Divine that they could not bring themselves to kill the newborns.

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Spared by the midwives, Moses was born. His mother, Yocheved, managed to hide him and care for him for three precious months. When he grew too large and too loud, Yocheved made a basket, placed Moses carefully inside, and pushed him down the Nile toward an unknown destiny. 

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Moses’s sister, Miriam, took it upon herself to follow the basket and witness his fate. She watched as her baby brother floated down the river and reached a handmaiden of Batya, the Pharaoh’s daughter. Batya recognized Moses as a Hebrew boy, but rather than drown him, her heart filled with pity. Emboldened, Miriam jumped out from the riverbank to ask if Batya would like a wet nurse for the boy. Batya agreed, offering wages for the nurse, and asking only that her son be brought back to her when he was grown. Miriam took Moses home, and so he grew up with his own mother, among his people.

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Shifrah and Puah risked their lives to protect Hebrew children. Yocheved risked her life to save her son, and then raised him knowing she would have to give him up. Miriam stood by Moses as a source of strength his entire life. And without Batya’s compassion, Moses’s life would have likely ended. Pharaoh’s daughter recognized the humanity in the stranger’s child, took him into her house, and treated him as her son. She named him Moses (“drawn out”), explaining, “I drew him out of the water.” 

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Each of these five women played a role in drawing Moses out into the world, midwifing him from the waters that broke from his mother’s womb and flowed down the narrow land. Through their story, we understand that our liberation from Egypt stems not from the special qualities of any one charismatic leader, but from the bravery and kindness of the ordinary women who would risk everything to bring a child into a difficult world.

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At The Well uplifts many approaches to Jewish practice. Our community draws on ancient Jewish wisdom, sometimes adapting longstanding practices to more deeply support the well-being of women and nonbinary people. See this article’s sources below. We believe Torah (sacred teachings) are always unfolding to help answer the needs of the present moment.

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Sources

How Two Midwives Tricked Pharaoh, My Jewish Learning

Midwife: Midrash and Aggadah, Jewish Women’s Archive

Let’s Celebrate Moses’ Adoptive Mother Batya This Passover, Kveller

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