Shifra & Puah & the Capacity for Regular People to do Great Things
Adapted from Rabbi Braun’s sermon in 5773
There is a book entitled All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten. I have never read it but if I were to write a Jewish version the title would be, everything I learned in Chumash in kindergarten needs to be relearned.
We are told things as truth and it skews our perspectives into adulthood and prevents us from fully appreciating the text of the Torah.
Take the identities of the two heroic midwives who disobeyed Pharoah’s direct request to kill the Jewish children on the birthing stools.
The Torah identifies them as Shifrah and Puah but every kindergartener knows that they are really Miriam and Yocheved, Moshe’s mother and sister.
Now stop and ask yourself two questions:
- If indeed they are Miriam and Yocheved, why doesn’t the Torah identify them? Why not tell us who they are?
Rashi does tell us Shifra is Yocheved who is meshaperet, she enhances the newborn in some way and Miriam is Puah as she is Poeh, consoles the crying children. Still, is a description of their maternal instincts more important than knowing who they are? - Is it actually possible that Shifra and Puah are actually Shifra and Puah and not Miriam and Yocheved?
The Kli Yakar is the only one to explicitly ask our first question, “what is accomplished in changing the names?”, but his answer is somewhat farfetched.
Others ostensibly bothered by the same question, without saying so explicitly, offer other explanations for the names shifra and puah.
The Baal Haturim, Rabbi Jacob ben asher, 14th century Spain, offers numerous explanations for Shifra. Most intriguing is that at times a child was born dead and she could take a reed and insert it into the insides of the child and breathe life back into him.
Before we laugh that off as absurd let us note that at least according to Wikipedia, Tracheotomy was first depicted on Egyptian artifacts in 3600 BC.[17] It was described in the Rigveda, a Sanskrit text, circa 2000 BC
For a moment however, let’s consider the alternative that was not presented in kindergarten, namely that these two women are not Shifra and Puah.
The first indication of such a position can be found in the commentary of the Eben Ezra. He writes two different commentaries to the book of Shmot. In his long version he writes that these two women were in charge of all of the midwives. There is no doubt , he writes, that there were more than 500 midwives in Egypt needed to serve all of the women there. Shifra and Puah were the head nurses. And they were mother and daughter, b’derech kabbalah, as the tradition has it, because it is right.
In his short version he simply writes: they were the two in charge of all of the midwives.
There is a theory out there that the short version if the real version and the longer version was written for those who could not necessarily accept what he had to say, so he adds the traditional stuff to appease them.
That could very well be the case here. He simply believes that they are the two in charge and then in the longer version, as an afterthought he throws in that they are Shifra and Puah according to the tradition.
Rabbi Chaim Platiel, 13th century Germany, in a recently discovered manuscript, quotes an opinion that Shifra and Puah were Egyptian women who converted to Judaism at some point after receiving Pharaoh’s instructions.
His proof is anachronistic but fascinating. He argues that had these women been Jewish when Pharaoh gave the instructions they would have had to refuse because the halacha is that murder is one of the cardinal sins for which one must give up their life and not violate. Thus had they been Jewish at the time of the command their response could only be, I refuse- kill me if you must but this is something that I cannot do. Rather it must be that they were Egyptian at the time and thus they did not refuse Pharaoh. Only after they converted did they realize that they could not do it.
As wild as all of that is – the one thing that is clear is that Shifra and Puah cannot be Miriam and Yocheved because they were Hebrews the entire time.
Lastly, the Malbim 19th century Romania, believes that Shifra and Puah are not actual people or specific people, rather they are job descriptions. Shifra is the midwife that delivers the baby and Puah is the one who administers the apgar test, the one who cares for the baby once it is delivered. There were many pairs of these teams and each team of 2 was given these instructions.
Why do I care? What difference does it make?
In addition to understanding the Torah, which is always important, I think identifying the midwives as Miriam and Yocheved or not is indicative of two approaches to redemption.
The first says of course this is Miriam and Yocheved. Why? Because who else could it be? These are the only two great courageous women mentioned in the Torah at this stage. The commentators then use the descriptive names to further our admiration of these two great women.
This approach assumes however that the heroes, the people playing the roles in our redemption must be great people – who else could they be?
There is certainly nothing wrong with such an approach and there is some intuitive appeal.
Yet the second approach offers something as well.
Shifra and Puah are not Miriam and Yocheved. Who are they? That is exactly the point; they are regular people, and those regular people are doing great things!
There is a real beauty to this approach. It informs us that every person is capable of doing great and heroic things. Not only, Moshe and Aaron, Miriam and Yocheved,- everyone is capable of greatness.
I think that is true of our current redemption and return to Israel. There are so many “regular” people in Israel doing heroic things and playing major roles in our redemption.
I also think it has a message for us as spiritual beings. I know that many people think, sure orthodoxy is right but that is for the rabbi and cantor. It is not for me. To that I would respond, no, everyone is capable of greatness; everyone is capable of the whole kit and caboodle if they set their minds to it.
Every one of us is certainly capable of great things.
