Yocheved's Lesson

Yocheved's Lesson: Decisive Action Is Required When the World Seems Upside Down

How should the events we're living through influence the way we think about Passover?

In these times there are two messages of Passover that we need to ponder. The first is that seemingly hopeless situations and deeply entrenched evil can be overcome. Freedom triumphed over oppression then, and it will now, too. Passover stands as a beacon of hope in times clouded with despair. It calls us to remember that just as day follows night, we will come through the "darkness to great light." Its message is similar to that found in "Hatikvah," Israel's national anthem: "Od lo avdah tikvateinu," We have not yet lost our hope. The challenges that beset us may plague us for a long time, but we will move beyond them: the war on terrorism, Israel's struggle for peace in the Middle East, the curse of antisemitism.

If you believe otherwise, you are enslaved by cynicism and have not fulfilled the Haggada's central injunction: to feel as if you personally had gone forth from Egypt. The wonder of Passover is the wonder of a world that changes for the better, albeit slowly and sometimes with a step or two backward.

The Haggada's second message is that God is the main character in this human drama of hope and change. It is the strong arm and outstretched hand of God alone that brings us from sorrow to joy. To drive that lesson home, the Haggada deletes Moses from the story.

This is not a helpful message at a time when the world so desperately needs fixing. It leads both to passivity and alienation as a result of God's seeming absence precisely when evil struts so brazenly about.

Alas, while the Haggada provides a deep reservoir of hope, it may not be the best guide to fixing the world. What we also need today is a powerful reminder that righting our upside-down world depends on human action.

We don't have to look far for this lesson. The beginning of the Book of Exodus contains the inspiring, but often overlooked, story of five women whose actions ultimately play a decisive role in the Exodus.

Pharaoh has turned his world upside down. He decrees that birth shall not mean life, but death. Pharaoh speaks to Shifra and Puah, two Hebrew midwives, and orders them to kill all newborn Hebrew males. "The midwives, fearing God, did not do as the king had told them; they let the boys live" (Exodus 1:17).

Yocheved, Moses' mother, hides the baby for three months as Egyptians scour the country for newborn Hebrew boys to drown. Unable to hide her son any longer, Yocheved cooks up a risky plan. She builds a miniature ark to float the baby to safety. Pharaoh's daughter brashly defies her father's call for the murder of Hebrew male infants. Hearing Moses' cry from the basket along the banks of the Nile, "She took pity on it and said, 'This must be a Hebrew child'" (Exodus 2:6). Miriam, Moses' sister, the spy in the tale, then steps in and arranges for Moses' mother to nurse him. Raised in Pharaoh's palace, Moses grows up both as an insider and an outsider — the qualities required of a leader to shepherd people from one world to another, from slavery to freedom.

The heroic deeds of these five women should speak volumes to us about what it takes to fix our world. They display the courage for decisive action. They take risks because they know there are never guarantees. They don't wait for signs and miracles. They also demonstrate the capacity for maintaining concern about the welfare of others in circumstances when it might seem wiser to save your own skin.

Through their actions Moses becomes the leader God chooses to confront Pharaoh. The rest, so to speak, is history. God plays a role in the story, but only well after these women have acted decisively to transform their world.