Shabbat Gathering: Who were Shifrah and Puah?

Dear Chevra, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. These are the coordinates:

Zoom
Meeting ID: 963 5113 1550
Password: 1989
Phone: +1 312 626 6799

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Here we go.

I know that Parsha Shemot was last week’s portion, but it is so crammed with action that I just can’t let it go. For example, there’s the bit about the midwives Pharaoh tries to enlist in his efforts to kill the boys born to the Israelite women. The midwives are named Shifrah and Puah and there’s a lot of commentary about who they were and what they did or didn’t do.

What’s the story?

So, in the parsha, Pharoah is upset that the Israelite population is growing and growing. He crafts a plan to fix of the problem at its source and enlists two midwives, Shifrah and Puah to kill the boys born to the Israelites. Shifrah and Puah thinks this over and decide not to follow Pharoah’s plan. Pharoah notices that the plan isn’t working and call Shifrah and Puah back to the palace for an explanation. The two midwives tell Pharoah that the Israelite women are like animals and have their children in the fields without the assistance of the midwives. Pharoah buys the story and decides to move on to plan B: throw the baby boys in the Nile to drown them.

So, we can notice a couple of things about the story and ask a couple of questions.

It’s not exactly clear that the midwives were Israelites or Egyptions. The names Shifra and Puah are not Egyptian, they are Hebrew. This begs the question about whether or not Pharoah was very smart trying to enlist Israelite midwives to kill Israelite baby boys. That doesn’t seem like a very smart plan at all.

If they midwives were actually Egyptians who had Hebrew names, then why did they show mercy to the Israelite boys and then lie to the man-god Pharoah?

Three different possibilities

Commentary on this particular portion of the text falls into three different buckets.

1. Shifrah and Puah were righteous gentiles. They didn’t follow Pharoah’s instructions because they knew, without help from Torah, that Pharoah was wrong.
2. Shifrah and Puah were converts and, therefore, had to disobey Pharoah. In medieval commentary, a list of women converts lists these names: Hagar, Asenath, Ziporah, Shifrah, Puah, the daughter of Pharaoh (see last week’s newsletter), Rahab, Ruth, and Yael. Dr. Moshe Lavee and Dr. Shana Strauch-Schick who wrote the article on theTorah.com that inspired this newsletter believe that the rabbis didn’t want to believe in the notion of righteous gentiles at all so they put forward the notion that Shifrah and Puah were converts.
3. Shifrah and Puah were Israelites. Rashi follows this line of thinking and even goes as far as to write that Shifrah and Puah were actually Yocheved and Miriam, Moses’ mother and sister. That strikes me as a bit far-fetched and a huge plot twist but I try to follow Rashi.

The article by Drs. Lavee and Strauch-Schick is a deep dive into the three possibilities and, eventually for me, they get into arcane areas. But what is clear to me is that Shifrah and Puah saved baby Moses’ life and for that, we all should be grateful.

And may it be for all of us a blessing.

See you tonight!
Gut Shabbes!

All my love,
brian.

PS

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