Tomorrow night at Shabbat services we will delve into MLK’s influences, including our Exodus story. One of the most poignant episodes, that have shaped not only Dr. King’s life, but the history of modern western civilization, concerns two Jewish women from Torah, Shifra & Puah.
Thousands of years after their story was recorded (Exodus 1:8-20), we continue to speak about them because they dared to stand up to Pharaoh, a dictator who was both ruthless & cruel.
The book of Exodus begins with: “there arose a new king in Egypt who knew not Joseph.” This new pharaoh forgot how Joseph saved the Egyptians (and his own family) from famine. All he knew was that there was a foreign people, the Jews, living in Egypt who were both numerous and strong. And so, Pharaoh enslaved them, and set them to work building his cities under the crack of the whip. But the work only made us stronger… So Pharaoh sent for the two Jewish head midwives, Shifra & Puah, and commanded them to kill the Jewish boys at birth.
This was no small thing.
The most powerful tyrant in the world had given them a direct order to do something that they knew was immoral. To disobey him risked death (and perhaps the lives of their family), and yet, they knew that they needed to disobey him because they “feared God.” This is Torah’s way of conveying that they had what we would call ‘ethical common sense.’
And so, through Shifra & Puah, we see the first act of recorded ‘civil disobedience’ in the Western world. In response to Pharoah immoral order for genocide, these two women made up an excuse (lied) that the Jewish women were not like Egyptian women, for they gave birth so fast that before they could arrive, the mothers and their baby boys had fled. Pharaoh believed them, and in doing so, these women “caused the boys to live.” Their act of courage saved innocent lives and eventually set in motion a series of events that changed Egyptian society (and the world) forever.
This coming Monday we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Reverend King gained inspiration for his Civil Rights movement, and his civil disobedience, from many sources including the examples of Shifra & Puah, two Jewish women who dared defy the immoral decrees of a tyrant. It is no small thing that thousands of years later we still utter their names, and we still hold them up as an example how we ought to act in the face of an immoral law. Despite the risk of ridicule, penalty, or even dire consequence.
Sometimes it only takes a few examples of brave people doing the right thing to move mountains, and to change history. May we all be inspired by their courage.
See you tomorrow night at TE!
Shabbat shalom,
