Puah and Shifra Leave Egypt Without Packing

The Underground Railroad was the most wide spread act of civil of disobedience in the 19th century. For 60 years before the Civil War a diverse group of people in every state in the union helped thousands of fugitive slaves escape from slave states in the south to freedom in the north. In most cases those moving fugitives from one station (safe house) to another knew only a few other underground agents in their immediate area. Individuals acted independently and developed their own strategies to care for and then move on each fugitive. It was an organization that had no established mode of communication or hierarchy, it held no meetings, and paid no dues except in beatings or sometimes death if they were caught. In the words of Fergus M. Bodewich in his study of the Underground Railroad, “Bound for Canann”, the men and women of the Underground “defied society’s standards on a daily basis, inspired by a sense of spiritual imperative, moral conviction, and especially on the part of African American activists, a fierce visceral passion for freedom.”

The above quote could easily be used also to describe the actions of the woman Puah and Shifra, the midwives to the Hebrews, at the beginning of the Book of Exodus. They are just as key to the development of the freedom that becomes the Exodus as the Underground was to the freedom of the fugitive slave. But, although the Exodus is hinged upon their actions, the experience of the midwives is markedly different from other characters in Exodus story. By closely examining these differences we find a startling alternative telling of the experience G-d and realization of the Exodus.

Pharaoh orders the midwives to “look at the birth stool” of Hebrew women and if the child is a boy, kill him. “But” the text says simply “the midwives feared G-d” and so let the boys live. This information, that they “feared G-d”, is repeated twice. This is all the information we receive regarding Puah and Shifra’s spiritual understanding and yet it is enough for us to begin examining their story. What is important is what the text does not say. In contrast to Moses, Puah and Shifra never see a burning bush, they hear no voice, receive no instructions, and are provided no miracles. In the Moses portion of the story G-d is a clear voice, commanding, authoritative, unavoidable. G-d’s will is demonstrative, calculated, and devastating in acts of physical confrontation. One does not have to guess at His will. His orders are given again and again (“let my people go”) and cannot be misconstrued.

The midwives’ story, however, speaks of an experience and understanding of G-d framed by relationship to others, specifically, in caring for and protecting of newborns. Their “fear of God” is placed only within this context. It is from this spiritual connection intuited by the midwives that they find a moral clarity so profound that they defy Pharaoh’s orders. We see this defiance in the specificity of the text (Exodus 1:17), when it says that the midwives feared G-d and “caused the boys to live” as opposed to simply “let the boys live.” “Causing” or nourishing these newborn lives is a well thought out and deliberate resistance. Puah and Shifra are following a model of spirituality that requires a conscious act of interpreting G-d’s moral law and acting in accordance with that conviction without G-d’s direct instruction or intervention.

This Puah and Shifra spiritual model is not unique to the midwives. Although the phrase “feared G-d” is not used in the case of Pharaoh’s daughter, in her actions we clearly see a repeat of the pattern – a type of civil disobedience based on an independent act of conscience. It has been noted as well,[i] that given the quoted size of the Israelite population (600, 000 men) that it would be impossible for two midwives to care for all the women who might be pregnant at any given time. Puah and Shifra are perhaps only the head of a guild of midwives, most or all of which are defying Pharaoh’s orders. In this light Puah and Shifra cannot be dismissed as an anomaly but instead are the only names we know of a vast underground movement of women protecting baby boys.

More than different ways of experiencing G-d, the Moses model and the Puah and Shifra model are essentially different opinions of how G-d’s will is fulfilled in the history. For Moses model, G-d directly intervenes in the lives of people. He speaks to Moses, He hardens Pharaoh’s heart, He brings plagues, and He ultimately liberates the people, “bringing them out of Egypt with a mighty hand.” For the Puah and Shifra model, however, G-d’s will is brought to fruition through human agency. These women are not being ordered by G-d to save baby boys, but instead they create independently within themselves a freedom from Pharaoh and choose voluntarily to commitment to a moral obligation that they believe comes from G-d. In Moses’ confrontations with Pharaoh, most of the action is concerned with getting free from Pharaoh but Puah and Shifra have already sought and found that freedom and progressed beyond it to a freedom, not of avoidance, but of embracing internal moral commitment. [ii]

This last feature is the most striking aspect of the Puah and Shifra model because this type of freedom – to take on obligation as opposed to fleeing from outside forces– takes the Israelites 40 years in the wilderness to achieve. The Israelites in their rebellion and their complaining are still thinking in terms of “freedom from.” They are still trapped within an Egyptian dynamic about who is really responsible for their lives. They blame Moses instead of taking ownership of their needs and actions. Puah and Shifra show us the end of Exodus before it has even begun.

One fugitive slave, Jim Pennington that escaped via the Underground Railroad in the 1820s once said being a slave created a mind lost in “moral midnight.” With all deference to Mr. Pennington, it is only from the mind that we can first be freed. This freedom may happen years before or years after physical freedom. As we contemplate Puah and Shifra and their ability to act in accordance to what God demands, we might ask ourselves “how free am I?” because if we cannot find it within ourselves to be free from the demands of others, we are still very much in Egypt.










[i] Women’s Torah Commentary
[ii] Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm draws a distinction between freedom from (negative freedom) exterior forces (the will of parent, the punishment of law) and freedom to (positive freedom) commit yourself to the obligations of your choice.

Singing

As I become more confident and secure in myself as a Jew in a way I miss how hard I was pushing myself during conversion. Everyday felt purposefully and I felt like I learned a library of knowledge every week.
So I guess I have to ask myself – how do I become the Jew I want to be as the landscape of who I am changes? I will not always be that conversion student – that person is drifting away. Part of me is ready to stand more on my own, take up a different role in this identity. But part of me wishes for it never to become mundane – that I never answer automatically to any Jewish question, that I always feel, as I did before, overcome by awe that I am in a conversation about Judaism. This makes me think of what I read last night from Heschel – that the words revealed in the Torah are not descriptive but indicative. A descriptive term evokes a known idea from our mind but an indicative word is an invitation to conversation. In other words, it requires a response. Heschel writes “The word is but a clue; the real burden of understanding is upon the mind and soul of the reader.”
I don’t want to ever be silent in Judaism. I want to be like my name, Shira, “songs”. I want to always be singing in response to it.