The Stories of Shifra, Puah, Yocheved, Miriam, Batya, and Tziporah

Rabbi YY Jacobson

In Tanach, the Women Make the Big Decisions: The Stories of Shifra, Puah, Yocheved, Miriam, Batya, and Tziporah

This class was presented on Tuesday, Parshas Shemos, 21 Tevet, 5784, January 2, 2024, at Bais Medrash Ohr Chaim in Monsey, NY.

Why Moshe? Why was he chosen as the first and greatest Jewish leader, teacher, and prophet? The Torah does not provide an explicit reason. But it does give us a clue.

Often people ask me why the Torah focuses so much on men. The question is strange, because in Genesis, almost every important history-changing decision is made by a woman. And in Shemos, it is six women who are responsible for the entire story of the Egyptian Exodus: Shifra, Puah, Yocheved, Miriam, Pharaoh’s daughter Batya, and Tziporah.

These six extraordinary people refused to bow their heads to the inevitable; they are giants in the story of mankind and in the story of the Jewish people. They were also, it seems, the role models who molded, crafted, and mentored Moses; they taught him how to live, how to think, how to act. The three stories the Torah shares about Moses, which made him the man suitable to be the greatest leader ever, are essentially all stories inspired by these women who impacted his life, who—like our mothers, wives and daughters to this very day—helped him become the person who would change history forever.
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