Forgotten Heroines of the Exodus

038039

The beginning of the Book of Exodus introduces us to a world of men’s affairs. Jacob and his descendants, numbering 70 men and their families, come down to Egypt. The men are named and counted; their wives and daughters remain anonymous. The tale then unfolds: A new king arises who, unaware of Joseph, is frightened by the ever-multiplying alien group in his land. He enslaves the Israelites and then orders their male children killed at birth—a strange injunction, for to eliminate a population surely its future birth-givers should be killed. But Pharaoh is only worried about the men, who, he fears, might join with his enemies and fight against him. The women are insignificant. Without Israelite men around, their wombs would remain unclaimed and unbranded. They would be forced to marry Egyptian men and bear Egyptian children.

Although the story focuses primarily on men, the women, nevertheless, begin to act. The midwives Shifrah and Puah, whom Pharaoh instructs to kill the male infants, quickly arrive on the scene (Exodus 1:15). But are they Israelite women? The consonantal Hebrew text is ambiguous. It refers to them as hameyaldot haivriot, the Hebrew midwives, or meyaldot haivriot, the midwives who serve the Hebrews. Perhaps they are Israelite, for midwives usually came from the communities they served. In any event, they cast their lot with Israel, defying Pharaoh’s orders: “‘If it is a boy, kill 040him; if it is a girl, let her live.’ But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt had told them; they let the boys live” (Exodus 1:16, 17).

Called on the carpet for ignoring Pharaoh’s orders, they manage to trick him, explaining that Israelite women, whom they describe as “animals” (too often softened in translation as “lively”), are unlike their Egyptian counterparts, for they give birth too quickly, before a midwife can even arrive. Falling for the midwives’ excuse, and oblivious of their pious defiance of him, Pharaoh this time commands his subjects to throw the Israelites’ sons into the Nile, while letting their daughters live.

Immediately we meet a daughter, a daughter of Levi, who gives birth to a boy. She too defies Pharaoh’s orders by refusing to drown her son. Instead she hides the child for three months and then, after placing her baby in an ark, sets it adrift upon the river. Another daughter (her daughter, the baby’s sister) observes from a distance, and yet another daughter (Pharaoh’s daughter) saves the baby, knowing that it is a Hebrew child. And so Moses is rescued; and so the redemption of Israel begins.

The women remain unnamed in this story. Elsewhere in Exodus we learn that Moses’ mother is named Yocheved and his sister, Miriam. Only from a much later midrash^a (and from Cecil B. de Mille’s cinematic version) do we learn that Pharaoh’s daughter is Bithya. In the story itself the anonymity of Miriam and Bithya becomes archetypal: They are daughters, women, the very ones overlooked by both Pharaoh and the tradition that counted and remembered the men who came to Egypt. Three daughters—Israelite and Egyptian—foiled the plans of men and shaped the destiny of the world.

But the story of heroic women has not ended: Moses must still grow up to become the savior of his people, and in his journey into manhood, women will play a crucial role. Pharaoh’s daughter adopts him, but not before he is nursed, under a ruse, by his birth-mother, Yocheved. After Pharaoh’s daughter finds Moses floating upon the river, Miriam, still nameless, asks her, “Shall I go and get you a Hebrew nurse to suckle the child for you?” When Pharaoh’s daughter agrees, Miriam “went and called the child’s mother. And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, ‘Take this child and nurse it for me, and I will pay you wages’” (Exodus 2:7–9). The child Moses grows to manhood, but he must leave Egypt in order to come back ready to save.

His rebirth as savior is accompanied by a traumatic and perplexing crisis. Suddenly and inexplicably, at a night encampment on his way to fulfill God’s mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, “the Lord encountered [Moses] and sought to kill him” (Exodus 4:24). Once again, Moses is saved by a woman, this time his wife, Zipporah. She acts quickly to avert doom by circumcising their son Gershom with a flint. She then touches Moses’ feet with the foreskin and declares mysteriously, “You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!” When God desists from his attack on Moses, Zipporah adds, “A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision” (Exodus 4:24–26).

Midrashic literature adds to these tales of the bravery and loyalty of Israelite women in Egypt. Moses’ father, Amram, wanting to do his part to prevent the slaughter of sons, decides to divorce his wife: Where there are no boys, there can be no murders. But his daughter Miriam (then six years old) shows him that his decree is worse than Pharaoh’s, for he will deny life to everyone, girls as well as boys.¹

The Talmud tells us how the nameless Israelite women kept Israel alive in Egypt. When their husbands were beaten down, becoming despondent and exhausted, the women took pains with their appearance, packed reviving lunches, reassured their husbands that slavery would not last forever and seduced them under the apple trees of an orchard, thus keeping the people alive. When it came time for the women to give birth, they again went out to the orchard, so that no one would hear their cries and kill their newborn sons.²

Finally, these stories continue, when Israel almost destroys itself by making the golden calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai, the women of Israel refuse to 041participate, and their earrings have to be ripped from their ears. It is because of such stories that midrashic tradition praises the steadfast women of the Exodus, stating that, “As a reward for the righteous women of that generation, Israel was redeemed from Egypt.”³

Moreover, the Torah relates that when God speaks through Moses, telling the people to build a Tabernacle to house the tablets of the Law, the women come forth with “brooches, earrings, rings and pendants,” and “all the skilled women spun with their own hands…in blue, purple and crimson yarns” (Exodus 35:22, 25).

Perhaps the strength of these women during the time of enslavement is due to the fact that they had always experienced some degree of oppression in their lives. They never enjoyed much autonomy or authority at home, and so external oppression didn’t affect them that much. Because oppression is not a shock to women, they don’t fall into the slough of despondency into which men may descend. It is only natural that women developed survival skills for a life of subordination to harsh foreign rule. They were accustomed to ignoring outside events and regulations, used to maneuvering through the system in order to help their husbands, protect their children and remain loyal to their God. When people accustomed to having authority are suddenly denied it, they may become stymied; they may even collapse. But those with wit and skill at deception can always find ways to reach their goals.

The actions of the “righteous women” of Exodus are memorable and praiseworthy, but they should not surprise us. Often, women seem to draw from their well of strength when faced with the greatest adversity. They fight to keep their families together in times of war, disease and poverty. Reticent, dependent women “who have never balanced a checkbook” turn into superwomen when forced to nurse ailing husbands or raise their families alone because of widowhood or divorce. These strengths and talents, which may have been previously 042invisible, come to the fore. It is as if trouble turns women inside out: When the going gets tough, it seems, women get going.

The Talmud and midrash, as well as medieval rabbinic commentaries, all repeatedly tell of the heroic women of the Exodus. In this century, these stories were forgotten. Most Americans know their extrabiblical tales from Louis Ginzberg’s monumental Legends of the Jews. In this seven-volume compendium of midrash, published between 1909 and 1938, the women who revived their husbands in the orchard are gone. The apple tree is still there, but it plays a role in only one legend: The women of Israel give birth under the tree and leave their children there so that God can preserve them by planting them in the earth. In remembering the women of the Exodus, we restore a venerable part of the tradition that sustained Israel through its dark days and was then jettisoned in this century.

As the Exodus drama unfolds in the Bible, Moses is ready to become “the savior” of his people. Women promptly disappear from the scene. The foreground is occupied by Moses, Aaron and Pharaoh; the increasingly visible background is taken up by God. The heroines of the first stage—the midwives, Moses’ mother and sister, and Pharaoh’s daughter—are nowhere to be seen. In the grand drama of redemption, women appear only once, when Miriam—here called the “prophetess”—“took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went after her in dance with timbrels” (Exodus 15:20) to celebrate the Israelites’ victory over Pharaoh’s army at the Red Sea.

Zipporah, Moses’ wife, is not even present at the celebration. When her father, Jethro, visits Moses after the redemption, he brings along Zipporah and their children. This is the first time we learn that Moses had sent her away at some point. Was it because she had not been a slave and the 043redemption from Egypt was not her fight? Or was it to keep her safe? Did Moses, out of some benevolent, chivalrous instinct, want to shield Zipporah—the very woman who had saved him from God’s attack—from potential danger? Perhaps their children were the reason: Concerned for the safety of his sons, Moses might have sent them away in the charge of their mother. And perhaps the same concern for children that made the women of Israel defy the deeds of Pharaoh also caused them to stand back and protect their children as the men concentrated on danger and battle. Whatever the reasons, women do not figure in the action.

But even after the events of the Exodus and the victory at the Red Sea, when Zipporah finally returns to him, Moses hardly rushes to reintegrate her into his life. Instead he takes Jethro into his tent for a long meeting (Exodus 18:6–8). Moses is a “man of vision,” and like many such men through the ages, he follows his vision and ignores his wife and children. Moses fixes his eyes on the world of men and on God.

In chapter 19, Moses’ exclusion of women resurfaces in a devastating way. No longer a private family matter, it now becomes national in its scope and historic in its effect. As the people are encamped at Sinai, Moses goes up the mountain and brings back word of the divine intent to make the Israelites God’s own treasured possessions. After the people agree, Moses ascends a second time. He is told that God will come in a cloud that will be visible to all. God then instructs Moses to go to the people and tell them to purify themselves for two days, wash their clothes and prepare for the third day, when God will come down to the mountain. After Moses brings back the divine word, the people purify themselves and wash their clothes. But then Moses says: “Be prepared these three days: Go not near a woman” (Exodus 19:15). Moses, the leader of men, looks out at the people and sees only other men. It is to them that he says, “Go not near a woman.”

This is a pivotal moment. When Moses looks at the people and sees only the men, he excludes women from the congregation of Israel. Women become objects of men’s actions rather than subjects in their own right. At this moment, the women reenter bondage and lose their status as full members of the community. They are no longer the redeemed, but the ones that the redeemed should not approach.

This pronouncement by Moses is the exact mirror of Pharaoh’s command to kill newborn Israelite boys at the beginning of the Book of Exodus. Yet the women of Israel who defied Pharaoh say nothing here. When their husbands were weak and the oppressive authority external, the women were strong and defiant. Now, when a man of Israel becomes the oppressive authority, nobody speaks.

Zipporah, who spoke sharply to God and Moses when she cried, “You are a bloody bridegroom to me” (Exodus 4:25), is now silent: Perhaps she doesn’t want to risk being sent away again.

The midwives who defied Pharaoh are also silent. Earlier, they feared God more than they did Pharaoh—and acted accordingly. Now, however, the choice is not so clear. Perhaps they believe that in order to fear God they must show allegiance to God’s designated leader, Moses.

The women of Israel who, in midrashic literature, spoke up and encouraged their dispirited husbands to have faith—they too are silent. Perhaps they do not perceive in Moses’ words a threat to their children or to their survival, and do not see that their exclusion at this moment threatens the female children of Israel.

Miriam, who told her father, Amram, “Pharaoh was better for Israel than you,”⁴ is silent. The moment, after all, is one of great danger and piety: God is coming. Is it not a time for solidarity rather than confrontation? Love of God and Israel may dictate swallowing one’s anger and keeping silent, to be as invisible in one’s own eyes as in the eyes of Moses. In this pious moment of anticipation, the women may have had their eyes on God and the leader God has sent to redeem them all. Moses, after all, speaks for God!

But the narrator makes it clear that Moses does not, after all, speak for God in this critical moment. On the contrary, Moses’ actions are dictated by his own ego. The same male-centered blindness toward women that caused him to pay more attention to Jethro than to his wife or children moves him to say, “Go not near a woman.”

The narrator teaches us an important lesson here: The voice of God is mediated by the words of human beings. Even divine revelation is filtered through the eyes, experiences and idiosyncrasies of human religious leaders. Moses, despite twice being rescued from death by women—or perhaps because of his denial of these events—sees only men in his vision of Israel. And so to God’s command to prepare, Moses adds his own interpretative words, “Go not near a woman,” words that turn the women of Israel into objects of the (male) congregation’s actions.

The ramifications of this treatment of women can be seen in the ten commandments that follow in chapter 20. The fourth commandment, the Sabbath commandment, states, “The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you should not do any work, you, your son and your daughter, your manservant and your maidservant, and your beasts and the 044stranger within your gates” (Exodus 20:10). The “you” here includes both husband and wife, for it makes no sense that the daughter and maidservant would rest while the wife would work. The women are included as the subjects of the laws, but only implicitly; their presence in the text is invisible and must be teased out by logic. This is the best the law has to offer. The worst comes in the tenth commandment, which reads, “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his manservant or maidservant or ox or ass or any of his possessions” (Exodus 20:17). “You” and “your neighbor” are both men; they must respect each other’s property and prerogatives. The women? They are objects of the law, the ones who must not be coveted rather than the ones who must not covet.

In the laws that follow, women and men sometimes receive equal treatment. Fathers and mothers cannot be hit or cursed—generation takes precedent over gender. And human life is sacred: The same stoning awaits the ox that gores a man, a woman or a child to death.

But in other cases, the treatment is clearly not equal: A Hebrew man-servant is set free in the seventh year; a woman-servant is not. She has become the property of her owner (Exodus 21:1–11). A girl must stay chaste in her father’s house and is not entitled to choose her partner. If she takes a lover, her father collects the virgin’s bride-price from him and may still refuse to give consent to a marriage (Exodus 22:15–16). Needless to say, no such provision exists for a son. Israel is enjoined not to allow a witch—a woman with occult power—to live (Exodus 22:20–22); nothing is said about a man with such powers.⁵ And even the humanitarian rule that commands Israel to take care of the widow or orphan assumes that women are dependent and need caretaking—a reflection of the patriarchal system in which women did not have access to economic resources such as land.

Biblical Israel did not invent patriarchy; it characterized the social system of all ancient cultures. But it did not seize the opportunity to dismantle patriarchy (or slavery) and become a truly liberated people. Women in Israel after the Exodus from Egypt are not quite slaves, but they are far from liberated. They have not been fully redeemed.

Jewish tradition attempts to restore women to the revelation at Sinai. The medieval Jewish commentator Rashi and other later commentators note that in the critical scene in Exodus 19, when Israel camped before Mt. Sinai and “Moses went up to God,” God commanded Moses to “speak to the house of Jacob and tell the children of Israel.” The commentators explain that “house of Jacob” refers to the women (“house” is where the women are) and “children of Israel” refers to the men. But their very attempt to undo Moses’ exclusion of women becomes another kind of exclusion. That the term “house” should apply to women has a good philological basis: The word beth, “house,” also means “wife” in Aramaic, including the Aramaic of the Talmud. Tradition explains that this “house” is mentioned first because it—the wife—is often responsible for the behavior of the household; nevertheless, the “house” is considered separate from the “children of Israel.” Thus, traditional Jewish law preserves and intensifies the disparity between men and women.

Jewish tradition is not represented only by Moses, the laws and the commentators. It also includes the narrator of the Book of Exodus, who stands outside the action and alerts us to what is happening. This narrative voice is an independent one: not the voice of God, nor that of Moses. This narrative observer relates the heroism of the women of Exodus 1–4: the midwives Shifrah and Puah and Moses’ wife, Zipporah. It is this narrator who tells us of the disappearance of the women in Exodus 19 and their continued faithfulness and piety in Exodus 35 as they bring their jewelry and offer their labor to build the tabernacle. The narrator also carefully shows us that God’s instructions to Moses did not include the pronouncement “Go not near a woman.” This narrator is the voice of the Torah, and hearkening to it is as important as hearkening to Moses or the laws. The Torah’s voice tells us that the exclusion of women was not demanded by God, but was insisted upon by Moses, as he added to God’s instructions. This is the voice that can empower women to speak in the name of God’s will.

The beginning of the Book of Exodus introduces us to a world of men’s affairs. Jacob and his descendants, numbering 70 men and their families, come down to Egypt. The men are named and counted; their wives and daughters remain anonymous. The tale then unfolds: A new king arises who, unaware of Joseph, is frightened by the ever-multiplying alien group in his land. He enslaves the Israelites and then orders their male children killed at birth—a strange injunction, for to eliminate a population surely its future birth-givers should be killed. But Pharaoh is only worried about the men, who, […]