Pesach: Nashim Tzidkaniyos

 At one of the seudos, I asked my granddaughters to list all the things women did that made Yetzias Mitzrayim possible. They came up with quite a list, some of which, but not all, are mentioned in Sotah 11b. I don't think they missed anything.

1. Miriam had prophesied that her parents would have a child that would lead the Jewish people to freedom. When they separated, she convinced them to remarry. According to the Gemara, at that point Yocheved was already three months pregnant, but in any case, the remarriage of Amram and Yocheved led all the other Jews to remarry and have children.

2. The Jewish men were thoroughly beaten and in despair. They had given up. It was only their wives, who fed them and washed them and encouraged them and brought them back to life. They gave them the strength to live and to raise families.

3. Shifra and Pua contravened Pharaoh's gzeira and even fed and took care of the children that were born, and they contributed to a great increase in the population of Klal Yisrael.

4. The daughter of Pharaoh saved Moshe as he floated in the Nile.

5. Miriam arranged for Moshe to be nursed by a Jewish woman, actually his mother Yocheved. Besides saving him from starving, because he refused to nurse from an idolator, this conspiracy among Bisya and Miriam and Yocheved ensured that he would be raised in a Jewish environment by the leaders of Klal Yisrael as well as in the house of Pharoah. 

6. Tzipora saved Moshe Rabbeinu from imminent death by having their child circumcised. 

I said this over to my shiur, and said that the story of Yetzias Mitzrayim is the story of the faith and wisdom and courage and heroism of women. The men had given up, Moshe would not have been born, and even after he was born, he was on the verge of spiritual and physical death if he had not been saved by women.

This has been noted by the Rishonim in Pesachim and Megilla. For example, Tosfos in Megilla cites the other rishohim that say this is the pshat in "אף הן היו באותו הנס" but argues on that pshat in the takana.

שאף הן היו באותו הנס. פירש רשב"ם שעיקר הנס היה על ידן בפורים על ידי אסתר בחנוכה על ידי יהודית בפסח שבזכות צדקניות שבאותו הדור נגאלו וקשה דלשון שאף הן משמע שהן טפלות ולפירושו היה לו לומר שהן לכך נראה לי שאף הן היו בספק דלהשמיד ולהרוג וכן בפסח שהיו משועבדות לפרעה במצרים וכן בחנוכה הגזירה היתה מאד עליהן.

I don't think that these rishonim disagree with Rashi and the Rashbam's assertion that the women were the primary cause; they only say that their primary role was not why Chazal said that the ptur of Zman Grama does not apply, or why Chazal created a new mechayeiv.  It was the fact that they, too, faced the same existential danger.

Ron Cope, a member of my shiur, insightful as always, thought about the stark imbalance, and said, "So what did the men do?" The initiative, the courage, the strength, the heroism, are primarily those of the women. What indeed did the men do? 

I answered that the men did what needed to be done in public, what needed to be aggressive and confrontational;  the warnings and threats to Pharaoh, the makkos, the splitting of the sea. But certainly, Yetzias Mitzrayim was made possible by the women far more than the men.

I later realized there is a much more interesting way to look at this.

The women did what needed to be done. The men did what God told them to do.