#shemot

(5 minute read)

Pesach will soon be here and with it the exhortation to relive the events of the exodus at our family Seder. I was raised by a strong mother to look for the hidden stories of women in the Torah and to celebrate them. When we think of of women associated with Shemot (Exodus) we tend to think of Miriam, sister of Moshe (Moses). One of the Tanakh's 7 prophetesses, she plays a key part. But what of her mother without whom neither Miriam nor Moshe would have existed?

Being a mother to 4 children myself, tales like that of Yocheved call out to me. How could they not? Here is a young woman faced with making awful and fateful choices. Egypt, concerned that their slaves did not become powerful and fight back, decided to curtail that population in a cruel and devastating way. Jews were very fecund. How do you halt that? By killing baby males and leaving only females (where have I heard that one before?).

Imagine yourself as Yocheved. You are joyfully pregnant. Having a bump is so wonderful. This is what I'm made for. This is how I serve Hashem. Within you, you carry new life and new hope. There's a royal decree out though that all new baby boys should be drowned at birth. Just boys, not girls. When you're pregnant, you need to be positive and happy, choosing names for your new baby: One for if she's a girl, another for if he's a boy. Only now you are worried if he's a boy, because he's going to die and be cruelly murdered, in front of you. You do what any mother would do; you make plans, feverishly thinking things out. You have a mother's intuition that this is your new baby son and you are going to fight to protect him, hide him. Except you know you can't for long.

You have to give birth in secret. How do you hide a crying little baby? Hush little baby, suck, drink and let me think. Just how long can I carry on hiding you? They're drowning poor little babies in the river right now. What chance do I have? Maybe, just maybe, if I take him down to the river in his basket, people will think I'm about to drown him and leave us be. What if I line the basket so it won't sink? He will float away, I will have to say goodbye to my precious little son then go home and cry; weeping; tearing my clothes; tearing my hair, harming myself. What use is my body, my maternal feelings if I can't dare to get pregnant ever again?

How do you face saying goodbye to the tiny little boy you've just given birth to: saying goodbye to your nine months together. Hearing him cry as he floats away down the Nile?

Your little daughter Miriam watches, hiding in the reeds by the riverside. She's the one who sees him saved from being eaten or drowning; caught in the rushes by the royal palace. She sees what happens as a royal princess, coming down to bathe, hears the baby's cries and takes him to cradle in her arms. She's young and suddenly feels that rush of maternal feelings she has never felt in her life before. He's crying and hungry. He wants milk. She feels those wails as tingling in her own breasts but she has no milk to give. It makes her sad. She so want's to keep him. Much nicer than the dolls she played with as a child: so beautiful, so perfect; those darling eyes. Now here's a little girl, running up to look. "I'm his sister, I know a lady who's just lost her baby who could nurse him for you".

Now imagine being called to the Royal Palace and finding you're being offered a poorly paid job to nurse your own baby for some rich lady who now has him because she hasn't yet had a child herself. She wants something nice to do but she needs your help. She hold him out for you to take. He latches on so easily, sucks greedily as you give him the best gift of life you can. The sacred bond between you and your little boy is restored, even if you can't be acknowledged as his Mum. You gaze down in loving contentment, just happy that he is alive. You watch as his little lips seal around your nipple as he sucks, drawing you into his mouth; greedily at first then slowly as his thirst subsides. You watch the beatific look on his little face as he drifts off into contentment and peaceful sleep.

He will be safe now. He has a mother and a wet nurse. He'll grow up a royal baby; pampered and given the best food when he is weaned. Then sadly you'll lose him to this grand lady and maybe never see him again because you're just a lowly woman and he will be a Prince.

What you don't know and can't see, is what this royal prince of Egypt will become. He'll grow, mature, have crises and doubts but in the end, this is the little baby who will lead your people out from Egypt to better things, leaving a bereft and devastated country behind; plagued by problems, quite literally. This is the baby who will take your people from this narrow place to freedom.

When you sit around your Seder table, don't forget his mother. Don't forget the ordeal and amazing courage this young woman showed. Adonai chose her to conceive, give birth and protect this child who was to become a prophet and leader. She fulfilled her female destiny through pregnancy, morning sickness, the pain of birth and parting from him; the reunion and life giving milk she gave him from her body. This is what she was made for. She made history just by being a mother even if it was under terrible circumstances.

So let's remember all Mums this Pesach 2026. Let's remember their courage, their sacrifices and the love they freely give. Without us Jewish Mums, we would have had no freedom or future.

Enjoy your Seder

Hello dear <3

Yup, I've finally got the nerve to change my profile pic!! Feeling like I've grown out from being merely a fandom blog haha.

First of all, the story of Exodus is so close and dear to me because of my personal beliefs, my faith, and my culture. That's the main reason why I hold this movie in such a high regard.

Then, I think the Burning Bush scene was especially incredible and moving. I simply love how they took quotes directly from the book of Exodus, word by word. It brings tears to my eyes every time G-d gently says: "Oh, Moses".

And finally, of course, the music. They had truly outdone themselves with music in this movie. I remember listening to it on a loop for a year or so.

P.S. I simply love listening to Hebrew versions as well. I feel like it made them all sound more authentic. Especially these two:

ACTS OF KINDNESS

The child grew up, and [Yocheved] brought him to Pharaoh's daughter, and he became like her son. She named him Moshe, and she said, "For I drew him from the water.” - Ex. 2:10

Jewish mysticism teaches that one's Hebrew name embodies that person’s essence and destiny. According to the Torah, the name Moshe comes from the Hebrew verb meaning “to pull out/draw out” and the baby Moshe was given the name by Basya, Pharaoh’s daughter, after she rescued him from the Nile. 

Rabbi Yirmiyahu Abramov notes the teaching of our Sages that Moshe had ten names, each describing an aspect of his spiritual greatness. Of all these names, why did God choose the one given to him “by a non-Jewish woman which was intended to commemorate a specific act of hers? Even though Moshe was completely passive and did not do anything to merit his name, it is the name that was recorded for posterity.”

Rabbi Abramov answers the question with a beautiful teaching from Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz. When Basya drew the infant out of the water, she risked her life by violating her father’s decree that every Jewish baby boy should be drowned. Basya’s act of exceptional lovingkindness and self-sacrifice imbued Moshe with these virtues, enabling him to become the greatest prophet and leader of the Jewish people. Rav Chaim teaches that when we make loving sacrifices for our children, we create a propensity in them to do the same for others. Kindness creates kindness!

What is there to say about this parsha? What isn’t there to say about this parsha? Everything seems to be happening all at once. We go from seventy people to thousands in a single line. Moshe goes from a baby saved by his mother and sister to a man in less than a chapter. And then there’s a pause. Moshe sees a burning bush and turns aside to look at it.

Sure! 

In this post, I mentioned that the crossing of the Sea of Reeds (Chapter 14 of Exodus/Shemot) evokes birth imagery. Here is an excerpt from Exodus 14:21-14:22: "Thus the waters split. The Children of Israel came through the midst of the sea upon the dry-land, the waters a wall for them on their right and on their left."

In these verses, the people of Israel are specifically called the children of Israel. That word choice, on its own, isn't terribly significant. "Children of Israel" is a common phrase in the Torah. The Israelite people are descended from a man named Israel and therefore are literally children of Israel. The phrase also implicitly casts God as a parent protecting God's own children.

The surrounding context, however, suggests that "children" has an additional meaning here. In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitzrayim: literally, "the narrow place." Scholars have written hundreds of pages on the meaning of this term, but for now, I want to take it fairly literally. The Children of Israel are moving from a narrow place, through walls of water, into a new life. That sounds an awful lot like an infant moving out of the constriction of the womb, through the breaking "water" of amniotic fluid, and being born.

Even Moses seems to pick up on the metaphor. In Numbers 11:12, he sarcastically asks God, "Did I myself conceive this entire people, or did I myself give birth to it?" God doesn't answer the question directly. Instead, God reminds Moses of his responsibility towards the Israelites and encourages him to seek out people who can help him. The implied answer is "Yes, actually, you and I did birth these people, and we are therefore responsible for taking care of them."

Why would crossing the Sea of Reeds be compared to birth? Well, the podcast Judaism Unbound offers an answer. In the podcast, the hosts describe two systems for thinking about Jewish identity: Genesis Jews and Exodus Jews.

For Genesis Jews, all Jews are members of an extended family united by common ancestry. Their model is Abraham and his descendants in Genesis. Exodus Jews, by contrast, are Jews because of shared experiences. Their model is the exodus from Egypt, through which the Children of Israel and the mixed multitude accompanying them became an entirely new people. They went from being slaves to being an independent, cohesive ethnic group ready to forge a brand new society.

In other words: the moment in which the Children of Israel crossed the Sea of Reeds was the moment in which they were truly born.

Beshalach, my Mitzvah Parsha! I love the story of Miriam and all the Jewish women taking the time to take the Egyptians' timbrels and use them after Kriyat Yam Suf to sing thanks to Hashem. My Bat Mitzvah craft was actually painting tambourines because of this.

“HOT EGYPTIAN PETA!”